Mirrored Ambush
As soon I step across the stream I feel that familiar pang of pain in my brain.
"Welcome to the Null Zone," the voice tells me. "Your second mission in the Facility is simple. Survive the Null Zone. You may not leave the Null Zone until specific requirements are fulfilled. 482 survivors remain in Sector 1."
It goes silent, and Mist collapses next to me. The mental strain of having a voice in your head is still far too much to handle for most people… including me, I'm holding back vomit right now.
Sector 1? Requirements?
A few minutes later, we huddle under a particularly large stalagmite - like twenty feet tall and thick as a tree - and drop down into discussion.
"We should read between the lines," Elemental says. "I'm sure they're trying to tell us something, no matter how simple it sounds."
"It's quite obvious," Artee agrees. "Specific requirements, then a count on the number of people left in the cave. The last mission over four hundred people who failed the mission were eliminated, but we weren't given a time limit for this one."
I swallow.
"So you're saying this is like a twisted elimination game."
He nods.
"The questions is, how many people minimum does the count need to reach until we can escape…?" Kino shivers.
"In a hell like this," Elemental says, "Where they intend to crush all of our hopes and everything beneficial is too good to be true, we must always assume the worst case scenario."
"So… one person?" Kino says nervously.
Naturally, an unsettling silence descends over us. Everyone's thinking the same thing. If one person can really survive out of these 482… that means that at some point, even if our group makes it through, we'll have to kill each other.
"Oh Goddess," Kino trembles, looking around at our sullen faces, lit up spookily in the blue light.
I want to say something to comfort him but I can't find it. Elemental and Artee both look grave, and I can't find anything in their eyes.
"Can we not think of such depressing thoughts please?" Ronin says, batting Kino on the back of the head. "I know we need to be rational with all the worst case scenario, and everybody dying stuff, but at this point we're just playing right into… whoever's, hands. We're just like… getting too depressed, y'know?"
"Ni Ni's right," Neo agrees, "I know this place is a hell meant to make us feel terrible, like shit. But we have to be at least a little bit optimistic, right? We have to at least some sort of gold at the end of the rainbow, no matter how much of a shitfest the rainbow is."
"Ni Ni?" Ronin protests, offended (it'll stick).
"Right," Mist agrees. "Despair's exactly what they made this place for. It's the rot and mould they want to grow in us, or at least that's what it seems like. The moment you stop believing you'll make it out, then you're already one of the dead, like the hundred people that died yesterday and the four hundred that died before that."
She wipes blood from her lip and addresses Elemental and Artee directly.
"So don't make us die before we're killed."
"You're right," Artee agrees, cracking a tiny smile. "I was wrong. We all still have something left to live for, right? So let's hold on to hope, and live together."
It feel like the appropriate time to do a group handshake or something over a campfire, but no one moved. We just let it set in, and made up our minds. Because down here, in the quiet shadows, it's hope that screams the loudest, and always has been. It screams out to me in the dark. If we can still hear it then we're not lost yet.
But of course, it's always easier to say such things. It didn't take us long to be reminded of that.
As we continued making our way through the cavern, we discovered a few things. First, it's far, far bigger than we had imagined, like a small city - at least a couple tens of square miles, estimated from scaling up stalagmites. Second, it's not just a forest of stalagmites. There are branches, caves, tunnels, fungal forests, cliffs, drops, pitfalls, valleys and more. It's like its own ecosystem - definitely not devoid of life, filled with pale cave bugs skittering across the floor and lizards and snakes. We have two goals currently - secure food and shelter, and make a map of this subterranean megacity. There was just one problem.
"So how does the survivor count go down?" Kino asks. "Starvation? Dehydration…?"
"My bet is that they're going to make us kill people," Elemental says. "It's good to be hopeful, but we also have to be realistic. The fastest way the number will decrease is if people kill one another… unless there's something else we have to survive in here."
"Like?" I say. "Mirrorbacks? Gullet Maws? Boneflies?"
"Someone's been paying attention in biology," Neo mutters. "At least you'll know how to survive them."
"The reason I listed those," I tell him, "Is because there is no actual way to survive them though? They might have weaknesses but they aren't exactly 'weaknesses'?"
"…riiiiight," Neo says, unreassured. "Then let's hope we don't meet any of them."
"Don't jinx it," I say.
At that moment, a voice rings out from ahead.
"Help…" it warbles.
The voice of a young woman, broken and struggling, clearly choking on blood.
"Help… someone… please…."
I glance at the others, but Artee's already started running.
"Wait!" I call as we peel towards the source of the voice from a cluster of stalagmites up ahead. "It might be-!"
Too fucking late.
We break through the stalagmites and are greeted with a huge, grotesque, shimmering creature. It's a giant slug-like thing, the size of human torso, but at first glance it looks like a patch of shattered mirrors lying across wet stone. Upon closer inspection, its instead got a shell of hundreds of hexagonal mirror plates, refracting the blue light across the small hollow of damp rocks and water its squatted in, and underneath that it's a mass of pulsating muscle bands and tiny, rasping cilia - blood-red and wet, like raw meat constantly flexing. Panic rises in my chest.
"Shit, Neo," I say hoarsely. "You really did jinx it."
We start to back out of the ring, but it's far, far too late. I feel something wet and slimy dribble against the back of my neck, and glancing up there's another one right above me. Rows of circular mouths line its underside, each one no larger than a coin, but there are tens of them, ringed with glassy teeth that shimmer faintly. Two more have appeared behind us, and more start appearing from all sides, surrounding us.
"Help…." the first one rasps, an eerily voice. "Help… me."
"Mirrorback," I croak.
Mirrorback leech, an apex ambush predator in low-light zones. Once they've absorbed the blood of sentient prey they can use mimicry to mimic their voices to lure more.
The first one's plates distort, and form a crude, mirrored shape of an unmistakeable human face.
"Help," the face says. "Help me."
"FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!" Ronin yells.
The leeches lunge in.
"SPREAD OUT!!" Elemental bellows, and dives past two of them.
Neo grabs me and pushes me out of the way of the one above me which is dropping down towards us, and it lands on his back. In seconds, its body starts wrapping itself around him.
"Fuck!"
Artee reaches in and gets a firm grip on what seems like its head, lifts a nearby rock and crushes it into the underside of the leech, spraying blue-black blood over Neo. The disgusting mass of muscle hisses and unwinds itself, writhing in pain, and Neo skitters away from it.
"Fucking YUCK!!" he curses, shivering. "That felt fucking disgusting!!"
He slams another one with a well-placed kick. Kino and Mist are on the other side, fending off five at once by pelting them with loose rocks - the only weapons available - and Elemental's jumping over them, using their shelled backs as stepping stones, towards me.
I need to start pulling my damn weight.
One's coming right at me, snarling disgustingly, its hundred mouths all wide open and leering.
"Please fuck off," I say, because it was exactly what I wanted it to do, and ram elbow in its 'snout' with all my might.
Once again, thank Anastasia for the goddamn Pale Viper. Remind me to erect a memorial in their honour when I'm rich and famous.
The 460 pound leech shrivels backwards, blood spurting from its face, and I grab the closest stone I can find and bash its head in until its whole front part is a mess of fleshy parts and black blood.
"Rocks! Use the rocks!" Elemental shouts, who's climbed to the top of a stalagmite.
He grabs a large chunk of jagged rock and chucks at the nearest Mirrorback. It cracks against dazzling shell, splintering one of its reflective plates, and the thing screams in a guy's hoarse voice, twisted in fear and pain.
"HELP! HELP! PLEASE HELP ME! I DON'T WANNA DI-"
Elemental silences it with a direct hit to the exposed part on its front, and it explodes in cascade of liquids.
"That is fucking disgusting."
"It's still moving!"
He's right - the leech I've mutilated is still twitching too.
"Damn, how do we kill these things?"
"You're the one who's learned all that stuff!" Neo protests, retreating.
"I can't remember!" I snap. "Do you remember everything you learnt in high school!?"
"I didn't learn anything in high school, I was out having fun all the time."
"Explains a lot!"
Artee ducks beneath one's lunge, snatches a smaller stone and jams it into the blue gill-pouch underneath its neck, and suddenly blood explodes from every pore in its body, and its starts shedding mirror-scales like sparkling snow as it convulses violently, collapsing in a puddle of its own black blood.
"Found it," he yells. "The blue pouch - hit that!"
As usual, 005 is dependable as heck. Meanwhile, Ronin, who's been charging wildly across the hollow, barrels into another, grabs it by the back and heaves the whole thing up in his arms, veins popping in his biceps. He slams it into a stalagmite back first and glassy shards explode in all direction, spearing the leech through the middle. Blood sprays, a mixture of his own and the leech's.
"YOU WANT A HUG!? HAVE A DAMN HUG!!"
Adrenaline, Ronin. Adrenaline.
"That is messed up," Neo mutters, now back-to-back with me.
"Understatement of the year," I say.
A second one lunges at me, I sidestep and slam a shard of stalagmite into its belly. The impact explodes the membrane on its underside, and blood explodes from all its mouths, showering me in disgusting black goo.
"Eugh."
Neo bashes it on the face and I reach out, snag the gill-pouch, crush it in my hand and rip it out in one fluid movement.
"Once again," Neo retches. "Disgusting."
"Tell me about it," I say, spitting onto the rock floor and glancing around at the others.
Kino freezes as one crawls towards him, mouth rings opening and closing wetly.
"Kino!" I shout, while dodging one myself.
He won't move, and his face is a mixture of fear and disgust. I can't get to him, I'm too occupied trying to not turn into chowed meat. Then behind him, Mist fired a fist-sized rock from her hand like a bullet; it blurs past Kino's neck and pierces the leech's shell in a shower of shards, its face and then explodes the gill-sack through its body. The creature folds on itself with a choking hiss and dies.
"Holy-" Kino breathes, eyes wide.
"Don't just stand there!" Mist snaps, crushing a second rock in her hand like a cupcake. "Fight them or die!"
She draws her arm back behind her back like a pitcher.
"EVERYONE DROP!!!"
I obey and hit the ground, everyone following my lead, and Mist steps into the throw, heaves her shoulder round and lets fly the handful of gravel in a devastating scattershot.
Out of the sixteen leeches still alive, over ten are hit, boring their shells and muscly bodies full of holes and welts. Mirror plates explode through the air like rain, and the one next to me collapses, writhing in pain. Neo finishes it off with a well-placed punch, and gets a face full of black slime.
"Ellie, Artee, Ni-ni, go!" Mist shouts, picking up another rock and pushing Kino ahead of her.
Elemental, Artee and Ronin leap in, dispatching the three leeches that were blocking our escape path back out into the cavern.
"RUN!!!!!" Elemental yells, and all at once we peel towards the exit.
Suddenly, I hear something whistling. Like something hurtling through the air. Where-?
"ABOVE!!" I scream, spying the glimmer of a Mirrorback dropping from the ceiling above towards Kino.
Mist snipes it midair with another perfect launch, and it crashes to the ground with a shrill ringing and splintering, cracking the stone floor underneath its weight. Kino jumps over it, and she follows.
Thirty seconds later, we hurtle out of the dark tunnel, panting, wheezing, out of breath and soaked in blue-black gore. Mist brings up the rear and fires a final barrage back into the dark to ward off any last pursuers, and we collapse on our backs.
"Nice arm," Ronin pants, giving her a thumbs up. "Pitcher of the year for a reason."
Mist opens her mouth to say something, but thinks twice and stays silent. Now that I think about it, I'm sure Mist seemed somewhat familiar - I'd seen her on TV sometime before. Something about the best up and coming young Launch-ball pitcher ever seen in thirty years. (Launch-ball is this cool sport where you launch balls into the air and have the opposing team shoot it out the air with a pistol.)
So, even well-known celebrities aren't safe from Project Pharo. At least, down here, we are all equal. One bat to the head and you're dead, whether or not you were a conglomerate or a beggar before.
"Everyone still alive?" Neo asks, sitting up, voice trembling slightly.
"Define 'alive'," Ronin mutters, spitting out a blood clot.
"Guess we found out how the number goes down," Mist says, wiping blood off from a scratch on her cheek.
She glances at the tunnel we just spilled out, and we are greeted with a wall of rock.
"Uh," Neo says. "Uh, huh?"
"What the fuck," I say.
And then the shitty ass ground disappears beneath me and we drop like rocks.