In A Mirror Darkly

Abel let out a long sigh. It kicked up the dust in his hiding place. Curled up as small as he could be, he had found the furthest corner of the large manor house and stuffed himself into the most unassuming cupboard he could find. Flirting with Death™ was a sort of open concept house of horrors that catered to thrill seekers looking for a real rush of adrenaline. Between remote neural links and specialized cloning technology, it was simple enough to place people within their own horror movie without the threat of death. At least, that's what he'd heard. He'd never actually seen a horror movie before.

He might find horror movies underwhelming if he ever got a chance to see one. The number of times he had lived this experience, he couldn't really imagine what it would be like to watch someone else do it and know that none of it was real. He liked to think he knew what to do better than they could, but he died enough times for stupid reasons he couldn't be sure he did. Hiding seemed to be working though.

He'd heard some shouts, but they were far enough away he couldn't even hear what they were saying, if they were saying anything. That was the way Abel preferred it. Being with a group was uncomfortable, practically alien. He tried it a few times, but that was what usually got him killed. There had to be a degree of irony to the fact that his fellow survivors killed him more often than the monster did.

The monster of this manor was large and not unlike a panther, though it could walk upright and was capable of critical thinking and strategy. One woman he'd met here said the monster reminded her of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. A few more had echoed this thought. That was as far as the conversation normally went before they were killed. If they were close enough to see it, the monster was close enough to see them. Perhaps that was why, as far as he knew, no one talked about the genetic experimentation that had gone into making the monster.

It was a real creature, not some amalgamation of wires and fake fur. Several people had learned that the monster could bleed, though again this was shortly before their deaths. Abel had seen people pause when the monster released a too-human scream of pain, faltering under the familiarity of it. He knew people talked about this, as some entered the experience with the intent to organize and destroy the monster once and for all. This determination usually brought about the most brutal survival experiences because the monster could hear them, and even monsters want to live.

Abel tensed as the sound of footsteps grew closer, too heavy to be the monster who, despite its bulky appearance, was actually light on its feet from the feline genetics. It wasn’t long before the footsteps halted, and he was certain they were in the room with him. He didn't dare open the cupboard, but he hoped they would go away. They were going to draw attention to this area, and he didn't want to die just yet. He still wanted to know if hiding for most of the experience would help him survive.

"Hello?" It was a woman's voice, louder than it probably should have been. "Are you here?"

Abel startled, thinking at first that she was aware of him hiding in the cupboard. But she couldn't have known that. If she had, she wouldn't be asking. Perhaps she was calling out to fellow survivors.

No one replied.

"I'm Sophie," she told the silence. "I don't want to hurt you."

She was talking to the monster. He couldn't think why she might be doing that. Maybe it was a trick, and she was going to lead it into a trap. That had happened before. Maybe she genuinely did want to talk to the monster but, again, why would she want that? The monster was fully established as a killer. The whole point of the experience was to survive or die trying. It was a separate world in here where death had no permanence and no one would survive, not really.

The departure of the mind was close enough to death for a clone. The body could continue to breathe and the heart continue to beat, but there would be no real life within it. That was borrowed from a natural-born being who never set foot inside this manor.

Abel put his head down on his knees and wondered when he became so thoughtful about all of this. It wasn't a particularly new development, but it was taking up more of his time. He had more space to think when he was hiding; that had to have something to do with it.

"I'm only here because my brother wanted to come here," Sophie said. "He sort of planned this for the whole family. I wouldn't have come if not for that. Of course, not everyone could be part of this, so it's just me and him." A sort of huffing sigh followed this explanation. "Now he's off with a few of the other guys. They're trying to gang up and hurt you."

It had been tried before. Abel had even been part of it, curious how effective it would be. When it didn't dissolve into fights amongst themselves, the monster usually just picked people off one by one.

A muted scream drifted from the other side of the house, followed by shouting, which gradually became louder and louder. Apparently the downfall of this group would be infighting as well. To Abel, there was always something strange about the sessions where the humans in the group were more effective at killing each other than the monster was at killing them.

Abel shifted so he could glance down at the band on his wrist which showed how many survivors were still alive. As he watched, three more pale blue stripes went dark, meaning three people had just died. That left the total living at six, under half of those who came in. Only two of those had been killed by the monster.

Stuttering footsteps rattled up the stairs on this side of the manor. Again, not the monster, but this time it was more than one person. There was a shout of anger, sounds of a scuffle, and Abel heard the woman's footsteps echoing beyond his cabinet door. A hollow metallic thump ended the majority of the noise, stopping the woman in her tracks, and Abel winced. He was far too familiar with the sound of a fire poker hitting someone's head.

For a moment, Abel thought about leaving his hiding place. It was cramped and dusty, and there wasn't really anything interesting to see here, but he wasn't dead yet. The woman, Sophie, was shifting her weight enough to make the floorboards creak, probably debating whether she should investigate. Not a particularly good idea when the rest of the survivors had devolved into a violent free-for-all. The monster was still out there too, taking advantage of the chaos to pick people off.

Sighing, Abel started to stretch out just a bit, preparing to stop Sophie from doing something more stupid than trying to befriend a monster.

"Is someone there?" It was a man's voice, deep with intrigue, accompanied by the sound of a fire poker dragging across the floor. Abel froze, hardly daring to breathe. He recognized the peculiarity of tone of someone who had killed and intended to kill again.

Sophie gasped softly. She probably recognized the danger in it as much as he had.

Perhaps saving himself wasn't worth it this time if he had to listen to this guy killing Sophie. Abel pushed open the cabinet carefully and climbed out as quietly as he could manage. Getting out meant he couldn't face the rest of the room, so it wasn't until he turned around that he saw her staring at him, half afraid, half bewildered.

He crossed to her as quietly as he could, stepping over the floorboards that creaked the most. Sophie inhaled sharply, probably to start screaming, but he put his finger to his lips and pointed at the door. The man was still making his way down the hall, the poker scraping slowly across the floor.

Abel pointed first to her, then to the cupboard he'd been hidden in. She looked between him and it, then at the door of the room. He tried to wave off her concern, but they both knew what was coming. Again, his gestures sharper this time, he pointed at her, then to the cupboard. This time she went without protest, following the same path he had across the stable floorboards.

As soon as the cupboard was closed, Abel made as much noise as he could crossing the room. This would hopefully draw attention away from the rest of the room and onto him. The door of the room crashed open and Abel found himself face to face with the man carrying the poker.

He was younger than Abel had been expecting. Most of the more violent men he'd met over the years were older, drunk on the simulated youth of controlling a clone body, but men as young as this one appeared to be were not uncommon. He had a manic grin on his face and his clothes were stained with blood. Bits of red speckled across his pale face, turning what might normally be handsome into something monstrous.

"Found you," the man jeered. "Thought I wouldn't notice, didn't you?"

Abel hadn't stopped moving toward the far wall, where his choice of three doors led out into a hallway, a bedroom, or the steps down. He wasn't sure which was preferable, but he would take any of them and the uncertainty that lay beyond to get away from this lunatic.

"Isn't it great that nothing matters here? I can do whatever I want, and there are no consequences!"

The door to the stairs was locked. Sometimes the game masters did that to make things more difficult for people. The hunt ended faster if people were trapped.

Another light winked out on Abel's bracelet. There were only three of them left, and he knew where all of them were now.

"Some kid actually wanted us to work together to survive. Can you believe that?"

The door to the bedroom was unlocked, but it collided with a barricade Abel didn't have the time to push out of the way. He didn't even have a chance to try the third door as the man leapt at him, the poker clattering to the floor behind him.

The impact slammed Abel's head into the wall, stunning him briefly, but he swung wildly back in return, connecting with the man's ribs. It wasn't enough to wind him though, and he threw Abel into a decaying table, which collapsed under his weight.

Abel rolled up onto his knees, trying to stand, but the guy aimed a kick at his head that sent him sprawling again.

"At least make it a challenge for me," the man taunted. "That stupid kid was harder to kill than you."

He was closer to the hallway door now. Abel was sure if he could make it through that he'd be able to figure something out. Maybe push the man over the railing down into the entry hall or something. He needed to get them both away from where Sophie was hiding before she decided she needed to help.

The man dragged him back by the collar of his shirt, slamming him into the wall again. He followed it up by driving a knee into Abel’s gut. He tried to hit him back, but it was another wild swing. The man ducked the blow, using Abel's wasted momentum to throw him into another table.

This table was sturdier than the last and he managed to catch himself on it, though the collision sent pain blossoming all down one side. He needed to catch his breath, and his legs were shaking under him from the effort of keeping himself upright. An arm snaked around his neck and suddenly he was in a choke hold, clawing at the man's arm as it squeezed tighter.

His vision was just starting to go dark when the man let go, arching back and away from him. Abel took the chance to crawl away as quickly as he could before staggering to his feet and turning around, ready to fight.

He was just in time to see the monster tearing the man's throat out. Then it turned and looked at him, blood trickling down its muzzle.

Abel didn't think he'd ever get over this feeling, of staring at himself across a room, knowing that the monster he saw was just him the same way the human body he was staring at was him.

The game masters didn't know he understood this. They knew he was intelligent enough to pass as human, to lead people into traps where he could kill them as designed, but he was always careful about these moments when the thread of consciousness that connected them vibrated with familiarity.

Sometimes, the monster killed his other half early to keep the illusion that he didn't recognize himself when he saw the dark reflection across a room. He let them believe in the illusion of control because that was all he had. His sense of self was the only piece he had in reserve, and he was loath to betray it when he knew they would take even that away from him. They had taught him strategy through chess games and sports replays, made him learn enough to be dangerous to others and told him to kill. How could a child raised on such games not recognize that he was a pair of pieces on someone else's board?

The game masters had done one thing well. They didn't give him a way to escape the game. The monster would never truly win, even if all the survivors were dead. There were always more survivors, more games, more reflections of himself in a house he knew as well as he knew himself standing there in affected fear.

The monster crossed the room to his human self. Abel watched as his human body staggered back. It seemed to know all too well what was to come. The game masters were watching, prepared to fix any flaws he might create in their plan, ready behind their screens to ensure he would never win.

Faster than his human eyes could track, he grabbed the fragile human body he half inhabited by the neck, digging his claws in until a weak gurgling noise issued from it. The pain echoed back across the neural link, sharp and vicious but ultimately familiar. This was not the first time he ended a game with his own blood on his hands, and it wouldn't be the last.

He pretended not to know that Sophie was hiding in the cupboard as he padded from the room, content to let the rest of the game play out to its time limit, when he would be caged once again. The last bits of life left his human self, snapping the link the way it always did.

The game was not for Abel to win. How could it be when he remembered dying every single time? How could he win when his only prize, his freedom, would never be offered?

Abel would play by their rules, but someday his prize would be there for the taking, and he fully intended to grab it when that day came.