“Um, Kistril?” Aimyr called to them from the mirror-gate. “Something’s happening.”
Zo looked up to see the clear substance shimmer then clear, showing what (presumably) was the other side. The mirror looked out onto a gray corridor, smooth concrete floor lined with twisted, half-dead conifers of a similar palor; their roots edged the walkway and their branches spread and tangled to form a lattice-like wall. From what the group could see, these walls stretched upward endlessly. The entirety of the visible wall was broken with more mirrors, plus doors of varying sizes, as erratically spaced as if someone had picked their location with a handful of flung marbles. Between the gaps of the half-living lattice wall there was nothing but more dull gray.
All the objects they had tossed through the mirror were nowhere to be seen. So much for their experimentation process.
Lyn walked the concrete, hands in her pockets, face unreadable. She looked warily from door to door, window to window. Blood was smudged across her cheek, and the sleeve of her turtleneck was torn.
“Can she see us?” Qriadé asked, waving wildly.
Lyn, however, had already passed them.
Slowly, her steps came to a stop in front of a large door. For a long moment, she eyed it up and down.
Dex squinted. “Is she calculating something, or seeing if it’s worth the gamble?”
Zo shrugged. He wasn’t about to pretend he could guess at the wheels turning in her head. Too much context missing.
Lyn reached out to the flower-shaped doorknob, hesitated, then grabbed it and swung it open.
The group leaned forward, but whatever lay beyond was invisible to their eyes.
Clearly that was not the case with Lyn. Hand on the doorknob, she stared into it with huge eyes. A second later she jerked into action, slamming the door and stumbling back, both hands whipping up to cover her mouth as she half-fell to the floor.
Zo clenched his hand around his knife's handle.
At this point, Vulmelna had left off her attempts to bludgeon the wall open. She whistled, standing behind him. “That can’t be good.”
Zo didn’t answer. He frowned as Lyn steadied herself, face blanched white, eyes enormous in shock and... terror? Horror?
The door and the surrounding sections of wall shattered into a thousand jagged splinters.
If someone had put a scorpion and komodo dragon in a blender, given it the mouth of a lamprey, and made it the size of your average pick-up truck, they would have made something approaching that monstrosity, shrieking amid the wooden wreckage. It was orange and gray, with membranes of what looked like folded-up wings visible along its front two legs, and eyes like dead embers. Blood lined its mouthful of teeth, dripping along its chest, front legs, and spiked tail.
Zo's felt like the wind had been knocked out of him.
Vulmelna nearly dropped her hammer. “Nope. Not good at all.”
There were some other comments, hushed, awed, alarmed, but it was nothing more than white noise in Zo’s ears. He couldn’t look. Couldn’t look away, either.
Lyn looked so small, frail, a pale, blue-clad smudge on the concrete. She didn’t move. Whether it was from fear, or an instinct warning her that running would only make everything worse, he couldn’t tell. Maybe it was both.
He couldn't move either. And it was definitely from fear, a building dread of what he was about to see.
The creature grinned wide, more and more teeth coming into view. Its head moved carefully, rearing back a bit, as if it were searching for something.
Its eyes. They were pale gray, flecked with black.
It was blind.
The tail, covered in barbed spikes, quavered.
Lyn rolled to the side a second before the tail smashed down on the ground and wall where she had been standing.
Why aren’t you using your powers? Zo almost yelled out loud, still frozen. Remember? Your magic? Why are you just waiting?!
Lyn dived again, ducking a swipe from its clawed leg. She snatched a large, sharp splinter from the broken wall, scrambling back as it struck with its tail again, stumbling over another piece of wood.
It lashed out with its front leg. Lyn crashed against the wall.
Zo was at the barrier before he thought about moving. Uselessly, he smacked his fist against it, the whole surface rippling and distorting the scene as Lyn fumbled her way to her feet and ran forward.
Towards the creature.
She leaped into the air, driving the wood shard into the beast’s leg-joint.
Even through the barrier, the high-pitch scream drilled into their skulls. Zo fell back from the entrance, covering his ears, trying to keep watch as Lyn fell to her knees, clutching at the sides of her head before the enraged beast batted her against the wall again.
Use your powers! He stumbled to the barrier again, looking on, helplessness strangling him as the beast lunged towards her again.
All he could see was the beast’s head jerking, jaws snapping, its mass blocking the fight from view. Zo struck the barrier again with his fist, nearly screaming an echo of the creature’s pain.
