The Hall of Mirrors

Well, you gotta get the light orb SOMEHOW...this just wasn't the way they expected.(These are ALL in the middle. It's out of context.{We haven't written the thing that makes it make sense yet...})

  We stepped into the hall, uncertain what we would find there, but knowing it would be dangerous.

As we passed through the doorway, a hall of mirrors illuminated itself with eerie blue light from cold, blue fire.  At the end was a golden pedestal on which the light orb rested.  The floor was a shimmering checkered marble.

“This is too easy.” I muttered under my breath, my sword arm tense and ready.

Kaydra grabbed it.

“This scares me.” She whispered in my ear, terror shading her voice.  “I can’t seem to see why.”

“It feels like a trap.” Alex said under his breath.

“That’s not it.”  She said, glancing nervously at the mirrors. “This place looks familiar to me, but I know I’ve never been here before…” she gripped my arm harder, “I’m scared Tao. I don’t know why.”

“Look out!” Ari shrieked, pointing behind us as Alex knocked her to the ground -- barely in time to avoid a spray of sharpened rods of all materials we could think of from the wall of mirrors behind us.

“Is this what you had the issue with?” I shouted, pulling Kaydra out of the path of another spray of rods - and onto a trigger tile.

“Not exactly,” she said, pulling me down the hall at top speed, “but I think it is part of it.”

Several times, we heard sickening crunches and shouts of pain, but if we stopped, we were next.  Each time, I felt her hand tighten on mine.

I knew she was crying, but we couldn’t stop.

We were only halfway down the hall, but we had heard all but two of our allies -- I can’t say it, I refuse to believe it, not now…

Alex and Ari caught up when we jumped back to avoid a shower in front of us.

We all leapt through the forest of deadly poles at lightning speed to avoid the shower in the area we were vacating.

Ari was too slow.  A sterling silver bolt impaled her shoulder, pinning her to the ground.  We heard Alex stop, and heard the next spray go off as Kaydra yanked me on.  There were several wet sounding cracks, and something hit the ground with a soft thud.  No, don’t think, just run, just run…

We were almost at the end of the hall.  Just one more to go…we were there.  Kaydra stopped within the perfectly smooth room.  She stood stalk still, as if catching her breath.

“Is this what they meant by a test?”  She said, her voice tight.  “All the others have to die?  This can’t be real…this can’t be right!” A sob escaped her voice, but she forced it back and stood straight and tall.

I let the silence hang for a moment, then placed my hand on her shoulder.

“There’s only one way in or out, Kaydra.”  I said, forcing my emotions to shut down hard.  “We have to face it again.  Even if we get back out, the real test will be to face those images.”

She was seriously having trouble again, and I wasn’t helping, was I?

“Kaydra.”  I said.  “Just grab the orb.  I think I can take it from there."

“Okay.” She said numbly.  She reached out to the orb.

Typical. 

As soon as she touched it, another volley of bolts came directly at us.

I couldn’t stop it.

It got to her.

But not without going through me first - literally.

I was pinned to her, with three bolts of entirely different materials through my chest and straight on through hers.

We fell limp to the floor.

The last question through my mind was “Would it be worth all these lives?”

The answer was a resounding no.  Not in a million years.

                                      Look, a line!

I awoke.

That’s a about as much as I need to say right there.

Confused the heck outta’ me.

What’s worse?

One word: sunlight.

I awoke laying face down in a sunny field of flowers.

Like I said, confused the heck out of me.

“Look, he’s okay too.” I heard Kaydra say. “We all are!”

“Yes, but…” Alex. “How?”

“I know.” Wait, how’d Kaydra get over there?

I pushed myself up in curiosity.

She didn’t.

There was another girl - dressed all in white cloth that made it impossible to tell what she looked like -- with Kaydra’s voice standing beside our group.

They were indeed all okay.

But then, what happened?  I know I felt it when those bolts went through my back, so what about them?  Was this heaven?  I hoped not.  Sure not lookin’ much like my idea of heaven. 

Something here is just messed up, and I have no idea what it is.

“What?” said the girl with Kaydra’s voice.   Why did everything here echo?  “Yes, you do happen to be dead by the way, but this is where your real test is.”

Okay, I don’t get it.

“You will.” She said with a smirk.  Then she disappeared into - wait, was that forest there a minute ago?  I think that’s a NO…oh joy.

I flopped back to the ground and stared at the sky in total defeat.

Was I insane?  Possibly.  Would it help anything to admit it now?  Nope, don’t think so.

But it might have been helpful to know beforehand.

Kaydra laughed.

“Well,” she said, “if you are, so am I.  Heh, probably the rest of us too, for that matter.”

I smiled slightly.

“Thank you.” She said abruptly.

I turned my head to look at her.

“What for?” I laughed slightly, despite the apparently grave situation -- no pun intended.

“I wasn’t totally oblivious in my last moment.  I know you tried to save me.”

“But I failed.  I couldn’t save you…”

She stopped me with a finger. 

But she didn’t stop there.

Despite the obvious audience, she leaned down and kissed me. 

Oh man, awkward moment.  That’s probably the most color they’ve ever seen in me.

She sat back up with her mischievous smirk.

“I thanked you, Tao.  Just accept it.”

“Oh, umm, okay.” I sputtered.  “I guess you’re welcome then.”

Ari laughed.

I looked back over to her.

Out of nowhere, I said “You aren’t bitter, are you?”

“What?” She said, seeming suddenly taken aback.  “Bitter? About what?”

I sighed and looked back at the sky. “I’m sorry we left you.”

There was a tense silence before she said, “Not really.  I mean, I’m not bitter.  I know you had to keep going to live, and if you hadn’t you…well, I guess you got the same fate as you would have if you’d have stopped.  It’s alright.”

“Wait a sec!” Kaydra shouted suddenly.  “They said we would return if we passed our test, and she just said this is our test, so…what?  Is it possible we’ll…go back?  Is it possible we can…come back from the dead?”

Silence followed her remark.

“Well,” said Alex, standing up and stretching, “No sense in sitting around and waiting for our test to come for us.  Anyone else?”

The entire group stood in unison.

Awkwardly enough, I only then realized that some others were missing.

“Where’re Hanako and Auria?”  I asked.

Several others glanced around too.

“I never saw them.” said Alex. “And I was awake and standing when I got here.”

“Does…does that mean…” Kaydra was having an issue here.

“I think that means they’re alive somehow, and have to deal with…ahm, well, us.”  Awkward…and a half.

“Yeah, that’s where I was going with that…”

hanakoRockSthehouseandYouknowit

 

Hanako's Perspective             

I looked at the staff plunged into my torso and staked firmly into the ground. "Ouch."

Blood gushed out from both sides. But, somehow, I'm not dead. I yanked out the pole and felt Auria's presence still in my

midst. I stood up and grabbed Auria, throwing her staff out of her body getting her to stand up.

"Auria, put yourself back together. You need to heal me so we can get to work."

"Work?" she whispered.

"Yes, work. Look at 'em. They're gone."

I scanned over all of the halls. It was pitch black. All of the torches had blown out. I set foot into something cold, sticky and wet. It was blood. I maniacally jumped out of it and shivered. And, being who I am, that oughtta say something. I stifled a gasp and bit my lip realizing it was Gabe. An involuntary tear slid from my eyes, but I sucked it up and checked severable of the reachable pulses. 

I stood back up and waited, wondering what to do.

Then it came to me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. It happened. It really happened.

There it was. The spitting image of my vision only months ago. I was shaking in my skin as I saw the vision of all of my comrades bleeding to death as it played and replayed in my mind.

Avryn, Gabe, Kaoru, Emmitt, Micalyn, Megan, Byron, Cort, Alex, Ari, Kaydra, and Tao were all hopelessly immpaled. I watched them die. Auria just sat in the corner, chanting to herself, "Dead people. I see dead people. They're dead. All dead. We're all alone." she whimpered. I didn't need her to keep stating the obvious, and if I didn't do this, she'd have broken down crying and later gone insane. So, I slapped her. She glared at me, her cheek pulsing.

"Snap out of it, Lochlan. We've gotta help. I know you don't trust me, but don't you find it odd that we're the ones left behind? We're all they've got to come back. Tell me if ever you feel the presence of someone."

Hours went by when she jumped. "Emmit's here. He's not leaving yet." We removed the smooth wooden staff and Aura healed him. I caught his essence and bonded it back to his body. He shuddered then shot straight up with heavy gasps, sudden cold sweat falling from his face.

He was in shock. Well, no duh. Anyone would be. Kept repeating that he was just dead. No, really??

"We've gotta help them." Good. I thought, we'd fixed the one who actually knows what to do. 

"W-what do we do now??" Auria whimpered. Obviously, she didn't.

"We heal them all. No point in making them bleed to death again after bringing them back to Life.  They'll need something living to come back to." 

Uhm... okay... now say that in English.

"Emmitt, slow down." I said, forcing him back to the ground. "First off, if you do too much in the next few days, you die and there's nothing I can do about it because it's death by magic. Secondly, we don't know what happened. We were right here, being traumatized."

"Oh." he seemed subdued now. Hmm, I wonder why? "This room wasn't the real test."

Well, that severely ticks me off.

"They had to die to get to the test. I'm so, so glad it's you two that're here. Auria, we need you to heal them once we get them all freed. Hanako, you bring them back to life before their presence returns. Just trust me on this one. They'll know what to do from there. I was sent back with instructions to tell you that... that..." he had been trying to get up again.

He suddenly became lightheaded and Auria had to catch him before he hurt himself.

"I'm okay." He assured us as we helped him stand. Contrary to his words, he almost collapsed again. "Well," he said,  "I might need, like, a walking stick of something of the like."

Oddly, we all spun in unison.

It was straight. It wasn't stuck in the ground -- anymore, that is. It would have to do. I grabbed the bloody staff and he took it. "Hey, this is a nice staff. I think I'll keep it." I laughed. "Erhm, well that one was stuck through you."

He's not nice. He laughed at me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Again, copy and paste did weird things.