Rise Of The Mirror King

“Prepare the defibrillator. Two charges.”

The voice echoed somewhere above me.

Defibrillator? I knew exactly what that was. What appalled me was that I could breathe. Easily.

I took another breath. Nothing hurt.

No tightness in my chest. No weakness in my limbs. No pounding heartbeat threatening to tear itself apart.

I felt... normal. Healthy. That couldn't be right. I was dying.

The doctors had been keeping me alive with machines. My parents couldn't afford the treatment anymore. I remembered the hospital. I remembered my mother. I remembered my father.

I remembered thinking I might never see them again. So why did I feel better than I had in years? I tried to open my eyes. Instead, I saw the sky.

I was falling. The ground was impossibly far below me.

Wind tore against my face and whipped the long coat around my body. Something was clenched tightly in my right hand.

A sword. I stared at it. Why was I holding a sword?

Then something slammed into me. My body twisted violently through the air.

[Focus.] A voice jolted me from the inside out.

I froze. That thought hadn't come from me.

[What are you doing?] The voice called again.

“Who are you?” I asked.

[Not now.] The voice replied.

The voice sounded like mine. I looked around, but no one was in the sky with me.

[We're falling.] The voice said.

“I'm aware of that!” I replied. I was talking to myself; was this finally insanity?

[Then stop wasting time.] The voice snapped.

My body moved before I could decide to move it. The sword shifted into a defensive position. I didn't know how I knew what to do.

I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know whose body I was in or why a voice was in my head.

[If you want to live, let me handle this.] The voice said.

“Handle what?” I asked.

A sharp pain stabbed through my head. My vision blurred. Then memories began flooding into me.

A girl was hugging me.

“What should we do tonight?” She asked.

Her face was strangely familiar. And completely unfamiliar. I knew her. I didn't know how. The memory vanished then.

“Am I dead?”

I said out loud, my voice betraying me with a crack.

“Please, God, let me not be dead.” I shut my eyes.

[Shut up. You're not dead.] That voice in my head yelled.

“Who are you?” I asked now.

[I don't know! You're distracting me.] It said.

“How am I distracting you?” I snapped.

Another impact rocked my body. I nearly lost the sword.

[We have an enemy in front of us. Focus.] He said again.

“I was lying in a hospital bed!”

[And now you're falling through the sky.]

“I know that!” I yelled now.

[Then trust me.]

“Why would I trust some voice inside my head?”

I heard him curse. Then the world shifted. A sudden wash of icy cold swept through my skin, turning my stomach into a heavy, twisting knot.

Someone was literally in my head, or perhaps it was me in my head, talking to myself. This was madness.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you...” I started praying.

My hand moved before I understood why. Two fingers rose together while the others folded into my palm, forming a sign.

I stared at my own hand. I had never done this before. Yet my body knew exactly what to do.

[If you're trying to take control of my body, I'll counter.] The voice in my head said and began chanting.

[Mana Flow State, let the current fall silent. Let the conscious mind drift beyond the reach of foreign will. Let the flow close upon itself, and let no hand disturb what has been sealed. Until the appointed hour, remain untouched.]

Heat surged through my chest and spread through my veins. Something inside me shifted. Then I felt myself being pulled backward. Not out of my body, but back.

The voice inside my head suddenly became louder.

“Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” I ended the prayer.

[Turn before you get us killed.]

That was the last thing the voice said. My eyes snapped open.

The first thing I saw was the sky. Clear and littered with stars like hundreds of tiny holes in a sheet of black cloth.

Two silver moons hung amidst dark-grey clouds. One was larger than the other, both faintly tinted blue. I stared at them, unable to fathom what I was looking at.

Hot tears blurred my vision. I was dead. There was no other explanation. I would never see my mom. Never see Percy. Never see Tiffany again.

Strong winds whipped against the coat I was wearing as I continued to descend. I looked down.

The ground was rushing toward me. From this height, it should've been impossible to make out anything, yet I could make out the faces of the two girls who were running below.

One had silver hair. The other had dark hair.

“Symon!”

One of them screamed. I twisted in midair. The girls were being chased.

From the forest behind them emerged two men in red robes, moving with unnatural speed. Six enormous creatures followed, each taller than a house and carrying what looked like giant axes.

The girls were trapped against a cliff. My body suddenly moved into a dive position.

I had no idea why. I only knew my body had decided what needed to happen.

The air cracked around me as I plummeted toward the ground. The earth rushed closer. Just before impact, my body twisted. I landed on my feet. A massive shockwave exploded outward, sending stone and dust flying in every direction.

The creatures stopped in their tracks. So did the men in red. I looked around through the settling dust. One of the creatures was missing.

Then I heard a wet crunch beneath my boots. I looked down. My stomach folded in. One of the beasts lay beneath me, crushed by the impact.

Behind me, the two girls clung to each other, trembling.

“Are you okay...?”

I barely got the words out before something tingled across my skin.

That voice whispered inside my head again; it yelled,

[Turn.]

My body whipped around. One of the men was already lunging toward me, his sword extended. Everything slowed. It felt like time had stopped, and I was the only one able to move. Strange.

My hand moved on its own. The blade passed cleanly through his neck.

Time unpaused itself and the world snapped back to normal. The man collapsed. I stared at him. My sword was still in my hand. My breathing was steady.

My body felt powerful. Healthy. The exact opposite of how I should have felt. I looked at the dead man. Then at the sword. Then at my own hands.

What the hell had I just done?