Try as he might, his eyes kept getting drawn back to the handgun. Even deliberately turning himself about face to get his thoughts straight only led back to glancing over his shoulder.

  Was it just his nerves? If he could manage to calm down, would he stop considering it? Why was he even considering it in the first place?

  His mind raced in circles chasing these fleeting questions as they came. Stomach churned with nausea even thinking about the ramifications of his situation.

  Was it already too late? Shouldn’t there be something more he could do? What even could he do?

  Is it really over…?

  The nondescript walls of the subway train felt closer. Like they were pressing in on him. A part of him was trying to clinically dismiss it, assure him that it was only in his head.

  That part of him was probably right. Not that that helped to calm himself down any.

  But it sure fought tooth and nail to do so.

  Get a grip on yourself, already! Are you seriously so far gone that it’s impossible for you to imagine an ending where you don’t end up dead?!

  Technically, he didn’t even have to use the gun. The ledge was right there, after all, and the fall had proven deadly for his unfortunate successor. Wouldn’t even need to go through the hassle of stealing it back, then.

  If you give up now, where does that leave you?! Back at square one, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to?! Is that what you want?!?!

  Henry walked up to the precipice. His weight leaned forward, supported by placing his forearm on the curve above the doorframe where it met the ceiling. The view was about what he expected. Nothing but gray, misty abyss as far as the eye could see.

  He chewed his lip as he stared down, past where the Harpy was wrapping up its investigation just below. Try as he might, he couldn’t even make out any shapes in the haze. It was like staring at a perfectly smooth coat of paint on a flat wall.

  Not the best view to look forward to, but then again-

  “Giving up already?”

  A synthetic voice from below his feet jolted Henry out of his fear-induced trance.

  “Huh? W-what do you mean?”

  “Don’t give me that. I’d recognize that look in your eyes anywhere.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re-”

  “No, you do. That’s the look of someone who’s weighing the odds of the future getting better.”

  Henry looked at it in confusion for a moment before the deeper meaning of its words finally clicked for him.

  “Ah. By that, then, you mean…”

  The Harpy elevated itself higher to continue their conversation eye to eye. Its wings were splayed out wide to its left and right, stabilizing its hovering body as it listened to Henry speak.

  “You’ve… it’s the same as the one you’ve had on this whole time, isn’t it…”

  It nodded.

  “…Indeed.” There was a somber note underlying the artificial modulation of its words. “Beneath this mask and these bandages, we would see the same face in each other. No matter what I try, it's something I've been unable to escape since the day Guillaume finally caught me…”

  Silence hung in the air as he listened. Questions mounted one by one the longer he stayed quiet.

  “Why… why are you telling me this now?”, he eventually broached. “Shouldn’t you hate me, for causing him to find you?”

  Ever so slowly, it craned its neck forward in a conspiratorial fashion. The faint sound of gears meshing reached his ears as it lowered its voice to barely louder than a whisper.

  “No,” it replied softly.

  “You and I merely have a score to settle, an unfinished debt to repay. My hate… that I reserve for my prison. For my jailer. And for my own mind that betrays me on his behalf.”

  Henry blinked. He felt like a gear of his own somewhere in his brain slipped for a moment upon hearing that response. Something wasn’t right here.

  “Now… hang on just a minute,” he took a step back into the train, confusion etching his face. “You've never been this... talkative... before.”

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the past few days had been the most conversation they’d had between each other, period. Every other time before yesterday they’d been close enough to be within earshot of each other, the first thing he tended to do was to get away from there as fast as he was capable.

  It was entirely possible that that meant this was just an effect of the extended time period spent working together. But judging by the stunned silence on the Harpy’s part, there was something more at play here, too.

  The Harpy cocked its head to the side, processing his realization slowly and carefully. Henry felt like he was under a microscope, being analyzed on whether his brief flash of perceptiveness warranted further trust or a quick silencing.

  "You would be correct," it eventually settled on. A bit of a non-answer at face value, but...

  There was a hint of introspection in its voice. Shifting its weight, it leaned forward to land in the doorway. As it touched down and furled its wings behind it, Henry couldn’t help but wonder what it was thinking about.

  “Is everything alri-”

  “Be quiet for a moment.” The Harpy snapped back immediately, but not overly harshly. Like it needed space to think, rather than solely trying to lash him verbally.

  ...Huh. That was… weird. That was almost cordial, compared to their usual standards. It was sort of reminding him of-

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Wait, it had acted like this when they were walking back to the top of the office building, too!

  This whole interaction was throwing him for a loop. It felt like he was part of some sort of buddy cop routine. Out of nowhere, it was deciding to peel back bits of the stony persona it had built up over months. To top it all off, he’d managed to get himself completely sidetracked in the process of trying to follow along with what was happening.

  Though, considering the state of mind he’d been in, that might be for the best.

  < --- --- >

  “Let me guess… Loops that way, too?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Great…”

  Between the sleeping gangers and… whatever silent crisis the Harpy was currently going through… Henry had found himself quickly getting bored. Not much to do in an empty subway car, as it turned out.

  As it stood, nothing had looked like it was going to happen unless he made it happen. Waiting in general was already one of his least favorite pastimes, but waiting for others beat that out handily. So, out came another freshly summoned copy of himself, to occupy his time in a slightly more bearable manner.

  That had been even more short-lived, as it turned out. Both of them were itching to get away from this place with quickness, and just couldn’t sit still long enough for a proper time-waster. Naturally, from that point they both agreed to just address the puzzle that was on their mind as a team and be done with it.

  Which led to where they were now, currently poking and prodding every possible corner they could reach.

  “How long did it take me to get back?” The clone plopped down on one of the seats, holding an umbrella in his hand that he had found somewhere.

  “Roughly nine minutes, 30 seconds. Like last time.”

  “So it’s the same either way, then?”

  “Yeah, looks like it. But, uh, what’s with the brolly you got there?”

  “Oh, yeah, this!” he lifted up the umbrella with a slight wave of the handle. “I started checking the overhead compartments and found this in one of them. Strangely enough, it was on the ceiling of the cabinet instead of the shelf proper.”

  “Huh. Well, it’s something, I suppose…”

  Their investigation, so far, had been rather absent of anything actionable. The train, despite seemingly traveling in a perfectly straight line through the fog, looped back in on itself somewhere further in. Leave out the left door, and you’d come back in from the right. And vice versa also seemed to hold true, apparently.

  Henry held out his empty hand to his duplicate, asking to take a closer look. “May I?”

  “Oh, uh… sure, here you go. Knock yourself out.”

  He grabbed hold of the hook at the end and spun it around, observing it from all sides. It felt light in his hand, almost weightless, but otherwise seemed to be completely ordinary.

  “Is this even an artifact?” He thought that due to its close proximity to another, much larger source of a Domain would’ve ensured that – if there was anything in here to begin with – surely it was also hiding some magical properties. This thing was weird, sure… just felt a bit too mundane for him to get his hopes up, though.

  “Was wondering the same thing myself,” his copy responded. “But its got me stumped. Any ideas on what to do next?”

  “Want to try walking along the roof as well? See if that loops around, too?”

  “Eh, might as well. You gonna boost me up, or…?”

  Henry glanced at the open door. In order to make that happen, he’d probably need to give him a leg up, while making sure he didn’t lean too far back himself before-

  Actually, scratch that. That was a stupid idea even by his standards.

  And at any rate, there might be an even better option just waiting to be called upon.

  “Hey, Four,” he called out to the Harpy, who looked up from where it had been reflecting. “Any chance you can get enough lift to put him up on the roof?”

  Despite its lack of expression, it pantomimed confusion. “And what would be accomplished by doing such?”

  “Not sure, to be honest. Right now we’re just figuring things out, trying to get a handle on what’s all packed into this curse, you know?”

  “...You want to guess and check your way out of a curse.”

  “Hey, just because we don’t know the underlying magic, doesn’t mean we can’t find it out, right?”

  Another deadpan look from the Harpy for that one. You didn’t need to pull a face when every other part of your body language practically screamed ‘are you serious right now’.

  “Are you serious right now?", it responded with uncanny similarity to his thoughts.

  “Completely. Now, are you able to help out or not?”

  With a put-upon robotic sigh, the Harpy stood up and approached his doppelganger.

  “Fine,” it admitted reluctantly. “But getting back down is your own problem.”

  “Fair enough,” the copy readily agreed, standing up.

  The Harpy acted quickly. Before he could respond, the duplicate was swept off his feet and into a princess carry.

  “Whoa! Uh, okay, a little forward…” the clone muttered with mock indignance.

  “What,” the Harpy retorted. “Would you rather I carry you on my back?” The turbines in the wings revved to emphasize its point.

  “…Message received. Carry on, then.”

  Nodding, it took a step forward towards the door. But, to everyone’s shock – and the copy’s near horror – it stumbled just as it began to walk.

  “WHOA JESUS- uh, I mean… I’m not that heavy, am I?”

  The copy laughed nervously, trying to hide its panic in embarrassment.

  “Everything alright, Four?” Henry raised an eyebrow at the close call. Was there something wrong with its robot leg, perhaps?

  “...I’m fine.” It’s response came as terse as it was dismissive. The turbines began to whine to life again, to which the Harpy turned to instruct his clone before the noise drowned it out fully. “...Though, you might want to hold on tightly.”

  As awkward as it looked, he complied. Moments after he had wrapped his arms around its waist, it dove through the opening and took to the air once again.

  The combination of the noise and the gust of wind was enough to finally wake the three stooges who – up until this point – had spent the whole time napping. Henry fiddled around with the umbrella as they stirred, a heavy thump echoing right above him as the Harpy landed to drop off its payload.

  Just as the thugs began to grumble about being woken up so abruptly, it returned inside, minus its passenger. He thought he could hear the sound of footsteps above.

  “It’s done.”

  “Thanks for that, mate.”

  “Wait, what?” One of the other delvers chimed in, clueless. “Wha’s going on ‘round ‘ere?”

  Oh, great. The exploratory genius wanted to get involved again.

  “I’m trying to find as a way out,” Henry seethed, still frustrated about ending up here in the first place. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “Hey, no need to have hard feelings! We’re all in this together, right?”

  Yeah, right… if ‘together’ means ‘you work while I sleep’ to you, then sure…

  As much as he wanted to refute him, the pilfered revolver on the thug’s hip forced him to remain silent. He was no longer interested in the easy way out, now that he’d decided to commit to escaping properly.

  Despite his captors attempts to inadvertently thwart him.

  “Wha’s with that brolly, anyway?” Without asking, the umbrella was unexpectedly yanked from Henry’s hands.

  “Hey-!”

  Despite his efforts to snatch it back, he only succeeded in swatting it aside. As it spun sideways, it slipped out of the thug’s hands…

  … And fell up, onto the ceiling.

  ...What?

  The other men were equally as confused, staring up at the item on the ceiling like a bunch of meerkats.

  “That Mary Poppins’s or sumthin?”

  This felt like a piece of the puzzle, somehow. Though, he was scratching his head for certain on how it fit in.

  Unfortunately, he was drawing a blank for the moment. The Harpy might have some ideas, but it was always a tossup getting them to talk, and the remainder were very provably no help at all.

  Guess that means it’s not going to be brains that get us through this…

  Though, he was getting a gut feeling…

  He turned to the Harpy, the start of an idea hatching in his mind. “Can you cut open one of the seats, real quick?”

  An odd request, for certain, but it probably blended in well enough with the rest of them. It did so without question, cutting a thin seam in the padded fabric and revealing the foam below.

  He tore a chunk of the stuff away and dropped it, much the same as the umbrella. It fell to the ceiling. Then he took off his wristwatch and let it go. It fell to the floor.

  His lips quirked up in a smile. There was a pattern here. Just like there was a pattern with how they were trapped. Somehow, he was certain he could find a way to exploit this.

  As he chuckled to himself and scooped his watch back up, the Harpy leaned in to look more closely at what he was doing.

  “Don’t tell me that was enough for you to figure out an escape route,” it remarked incredulously.

  “Oh, no worries there. I have no idea if I’ve hit the money with this one.”

  “If you don’t know, why are you laughing?”

  “Well, that’s because, since there doesn’t seem to be a clear path here… I’m getting a few ideas on how to make my own.”

  The door between the carriages slid open, revealing the newly returned duplicate, arriving from the opposite direction from where he left.

  Henry glanced down at his watch. About two minutes. He was early, but somehow also right on time.