As the Images slowly faded, the young man’s life ebbing away as they did so, Dave felt a deep sense of loss.

He would have liked to know Denny. Nevertheless, he felt like he had accomplished his initial goal.

“I asked for someone who never gave up,” Dave East said, surprised to hear his voice horse with emotion, “At the very end, he turned away from life and moved into the light.”

Accepting the inevitability of death is not a failure.

It is not giving up.

Death is the natural end of all things.

So, he had touched a sore spot.

If the Archivist had simply been a thing, emotionless and made of pure logic, it would not have argued. To be honest, he agreed with the argument. There was nothing inherently wrong about accepting the inevitable… still. It was not what he would have done.

When his time came, Dave East intended to go down swinging, screaming defiance against the cold inevitability of his end. Dave ruminated on what he could learn from the reaction as he tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair.

“What was that religion? The one Denny mentioned in the vision?” Dave asked; it was something that had stuck out to him, as he came from a place and time where religion was almost extinct.

A fanatical, controlling religion based on restricting the path to

Personal Growth in defiance of their own beliefs.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Pay it no further attention.

Dave schooled his expression. He was two for two, even if only by accident. The controlling force of this place wanted not only to show him these visions but also to hide things from him.

Interesting.

He sat in silence for a long time, letting the emptiness of the place sink into him.

It was a risk, he was sure, but he had to test something. If he was right, then this place had been abandoned for a reasonable length of time.

If he was also right that this entity was a sentient, living creature, then….

Do you wish to see another mirror?

Dave East grinned, celebrating his victory.

The Entity was bored or lonely. That was a good thing to know for two reasons.

It showed him that it was a sentient, thinking creature with the same kind of reactions as any other being.

It meant that, in time, he could come to understand it better.

The revelation also revealed a crucial weakness he could exploit should the need arise. It had already shown him he was captive here.

Now, he knew exactly where to plant the knife, should that time ever come.

“I’m thinking of what to look at,” Dave made himself sound indecisive. He wanted to find out what the Entity wanted to show him.

It did not allow him access to this room just to get him to clean. He was doing that anyway.

In his experience, asking directly would only make people dissemble and try to hide their true intentions. Better to give the entity control and divine the meaning behind it through trial and error.

Dave was under no delusions of control. This thing could probably kill him on a whim. But for now, he was safe.

He hoped.

Twice you have asked for someone or something similar to you.

Why not try something more different?

A wide net, but not too bad for a first catch.

“Show me my opposite,” Dave said simply.

Certainly

Mist swirled, and a mirror rose.

There was no denying it this time. He was excited.

Knowledge awaited beyond anything he had ever known. For someone who had spent much of his life scraping and bowing for whatever information he could scrape together, it was a banquet he had the tools to enjoy.