“I always hated the funhouse at the carnivals,” I moaned. “Can we mark it and trade with someone?”

  John laughed, “Nah. This is our dungeon.”

  “Goddammit,” I cursed. “But if there are clowns I’m out.”

  “I’m not sure it works that way,” Oliver kindly offered.

  “I’ll protect you from the mean ole clowns,” Ashley teased.

  “Fuck all of you,” I laughed.

  “Are we ready?” Mara asked excitedly. She was already standing beside John in front of the dungeon’s obelisk.

  “How do we get in?” I asked.

  “We pick a side and all of us go through it,” John said. “Each face of the stone creates a different ‘instance’ of the dungeon. So, up to three groups could tackle this dungeon at the same time without overlapping each other. But each face should lock up and not allow anyone else through until the dungeon is cleared…or the party is defeated.”

  “Well that’s reassuring,” I muttered.

  “Alright! Let’s do this!” Mara was fucking pumped.

  John’s smile just about split his face in half as he turned back around and walked into and through the side of the obelisk. Mara went in immediately after him.

  “Goddammit, neither of them ever think things through when they get excited,” Oliver bitched. He walked through the side of the obelisk next.

  Ashley just shrugged her shoulders and walked through. I sighed aloud before stomping through the obelisk. There was a weird almost out of body feeling as I stepped through the obelisk, but it quickly went away as I finished my step through.

  On the other side of the obelisk I found the rest of the party already gathered. In front of us stood a corridor full of mirrors that I just knew would lead to a mirror maze or something else equally confusing and stupid.

  Mara was practically bouncing on her toes behind John. As soon as I came through she tapped him on the shoulder and they set off together into the maze. The rest of us scrambled to keep up.

  We turned a corner and immediately I was disoriented. There were mirror images of us bouncing all around us. It was impossible to see where we were supposed to be going. I grabbed ahold of Ashley’s hand, “Let’s hold hands so we don’t get separated.”

  “How would we get separated?” Mara asked. “I can literally see all of us.” She walked up to a mirror and pointed to us. Except the Mara in the mirror didn’t point back. She just smiled, her teeth unnaturally sharp.

  There was a flash of light and all of a sudden the mirror was showing Mara pointing. Her finger trembling in the air. “M-maybe we should h-hold hands,” Mara stuttered. She stepped away from the mirror.

  John coated his arms in mithril and began punching mirrors as he walked past. It shattered the illusion of the mirrors. Or so I thought. Until he went to punch a mirror and his doppelganger grabbed his wrist and yanked him into the mirror.

  Mara’s hand in his slammed into the mirror and she lost her grip on John’s hand as he was dragged away. Oliver jumped forward and began pounding on the mirror, screaming John’s name. The mirror shattered under his fists and Mara had to pull him back as blood began running down his forearms.

  “Heal yourself!” She shouted in his face. “We need you if we’re going to get him back out of here.”

  Oliver let out a trembling breath, but nodded his head. A soft glow infused his hands and the bleeding stopped. He wiped his hands carelessly on his pants. “Let’s k-keep going.”

  Mara patted him on the shoulder and waved me and Ashley forward. We’d take point now that John had been…best not to think about it. We’d get him back. Ashley stayed behind me and I finally summoned a spear into my hands.

  So, smashing the mirrors wasn’t the right approach. It seemed to have pissed off whatever lived in the mirrors. Maybe if we just stayed away from them the things inside couldn’t reach out and take us. With that thought in mind I walked down the middle of the hall the best that I could.

  But then the mirrors began to project randomly from the walls as the hallway of mirrors twisted and turned sharply. I stared at the floor as much as possible to tell where the mirrors were and find any corners. I also really didn’t want to see whatever was in the mirrors smile back at me with my own face.

  And then it happened. I was following the tiles on the floor when suddenly a mirror literally jumped in front of me, blocking the path forward. Before I could stop my momentum I found myself pressed up against the mirror. My reflection smiled back at me, teeth sharp. It grabbed my arms and wrenched me into the mirror.

  There was a disorienting effect similarly to when we stepped through the obelisk. Then I stumbled forward. Nothing was touching me. I turned around and I could see my friends on the other side of the mirror, but I could tell they couldn’t see me.

  Ashley stood in place, one hand pressed against the mirror. Her lip trembled before she bit it between her teeth. A single tear leaked down her cheek before she turned and the party continued forward.

  I stalked along the mirrors with them, pressing against each surface, hoping to find a way back out. Back to my friends. Back to Ashley.

  “Oh, it won’t be that easy,” a voice whispered in my ear.

  I whirled around and was once again confronted by my doppelganger. “What do you want?”

  My evil duplicate began stepping to the side, circling. I stepped away and circled in the opposite direction. Trying to maintain the distance between us.

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  “What do any of us want? I want to live!” She hissed at me. Then she lunged forward with her spear.

  I fell back and rolled away. Popping back up to my feet I had a moment to bring my spear up and deflect a swipe from my evil twin’s spear. Stepping forward I slammed my fist into her face. She staggered back and I readied my spear.

  Looking at myself though…it was hard to intentionally hurt her. She looked like me. She sounded like me, mostly. I wasn’t so creepy. But something about her very human appearance held me back.

  She cackled at me, “Weak…” Then she lunged forward again.

  Fuck! I needed to get over myself and kill myself. Or my evil twin, or doppelganger, or whatever the fuck this thing was. It was a monster. Not a person. No matter what it looked like.

  We went back and forth, exchanging blows for several moments and I quickly came to an important conclusion. I might need to go to the gym with Ashley and work on my cardio. Just this few minutes of fighting was leaving me winded. Fortunately my doppelganger seemed to be lagging as well. At least we were both equally out of shape.

  I began a feint to the side, when I saw my opening. My twin saw the feint for what it was and committed their movement to the same side to avoid my follow up. At the last moment I committed to the strike, off balanced though I was.

  My spear caught her deep in the chest and she coughed a bit of blood onto her chin. I pulled the spear from her with a wet squelching sound. Blood poured forth and I felt sick with it. My evil twin collapsed to her knees, scrambling to slice into me with her dying breath. I stepped back and tried not to vomit.

  My doppelganger collapsed onto her face. Her fingers twitched once, and then she was still. Her chest did not rise again. Slowly she began to morph and almost melt into a new shape. Something grey and rubbery. Vaguely human shaped, but with giant black eyes and sharp, pointed teeth. No nose, no ears, no hair. Long hooked claws on the ends of long, twisted fingers.

  [You killed: Doppelganger x 1]

  With it no longer looking like me, I was able to flip it over and cut it open with my spear. It wasn’t as precise as what Ashley’s knife would have gotten me, but I wasn’t particularly caring. Reaching in I pulled out a small monster core. I threw it into my bag then pulled out the rags we’d all packed to clean up after things like this, and a bottle of water.

  After I was done I ran off down the mirrored length, trying to catch up with the party. I had to run, and was soon breathing like a bellows. But I was able to find my friends again.

  Only there were once again fewer of them than there were before. Oliver had disappeared. Mara and Ashley were worriedly spinning to each new mirror as they walked by. Like they were waiting for their own turns to be sucked in.

  I looked around but couldn’t see Oliver or John anywhere in the weird twisted landscape I found myself in. On this side of the mirrors the area closest to the mirrors was illuminated, but less than twenty feet away the room was swallowed in shadows so deep they were impenetrable. I didn’t want to go anywhere near that space. I could feel a deep malevolence rolling out from there.

  I heard a scream and turned toward Mara and Ashley expecting one of them to be pulled into the mirrors. But they were talking and I couldn’t hear them at all. So, it had to be something that came from my side of the mirror.

  I heard it again and was able to figure out it was coming from somewhere ahead of me. So, I took off sprinting, following the light from the mirrors. I rounded a corner and there in front of me was Oliver and Oliver wrestling around on the ground. One of them was covered in bloody bite marks, the other Oliver sitting astride him. The one on top had his hands wrapped around the first one’s neck, slowly choking the life out of him.

  I continued my mad dash toward the pair. By the time I was in striking range I noticed the Oliver on top was gritting his pointed teeth as he leaned forward, pressing down on what I now assumed was the real Oliver. With very little fanfare I cried out angrily as I lunged forward with my spear.

  I took doppelganger Oliver through the right side of the chest and out clean through the left side. He looked up at me in surprise for a moment before slumping over and melting into the rubbery, grey, little creature I’d seen before.

  Oliver rolled over, coughing and retching. I was breathing heavily as I asked, “Hey, you alright?”

  “N-never better,” he coughed out. He gave me a thumbs up as he rubbed his throat. There were already bruises forming a dark ring around his neck. A moment later a bright glow enveloped his throat and across the backs of his knuckles. He stopped coughing and sat up.

  “Come on, let’s get going. If I can find you, maybe we can find John and eventually the others as well.”

  Oliver cleared his throat, “Yeah. Let’s find that beautiful idiot I married. Can’t believe he was excited to come in here.”

  “I’m sure he’s ok,” I offered.

  “Oh, I am too. But I need to yell at him for jumping in this damn dungeon. Fucking mimics or doppelgangers or whatever the fuck these things are,” he kicked his dead doppelganger angrily.

  I reached over and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He quieted and I saw the tears in his eyes. Oh, man…I did not deal well with people crying. They cried, and then I cried, and then how was I supposed to be comforting? Luckily he wiped his tears away tiredly and let out a deep sigh.

  “Alright, let me just harvest the core or whatever from this thing. Ok?” I asked.

  Oliver nodded and moved away. I cut the monster open with my spear. I really needed to either get a knife like Ashley’s, or convince her to let me carry her second knife.

  [You have found [mirror] essence. Would you like to absorb this [mirror] essence? Warning, you may only absorb up to three essences. Once chosen, an essence cannot be replaced.]

  “Ugh. Mirror essence. Not sure any of us will want this one either,” I complained.

  “Meh. We can trade it to someone else probably.”

  I looked around the mirrors but couldn’t see the party anymore. “Come on. Let’s keep going. Eventually we’ll have to find a way out or something,” I said. Oliver nodded and together we set off following the mirrors.

  Not even five minutes later we heard the unmistakable sound of gunshots ahead. We ran toward the sound and quickly came across Ashley standing over the dead body of another one of those rubbery, grey fucks. She turned toward us, gun raised as she heard us approach.

  “Woah. It’s us,” I put my hands above my head.

  “Smile then,” she insisted.

  I bared my teeth at her, showing off my very dull human teeth. Oliver did the same beside me. Ashley lowered her gun and closed the distance between us. She collapsed into my arms and gripped me tight.

  “I was so worried,” she whispered in my ear.

  “I know. Me too,” I squeezed her back.

  As we separated, she turned her face and pressed her lips softly against my cheek. “Don’t leave me like that again.”

  I swallowed heavily and gaped at her a little. She smirked and I almost died. I mentally shook myself and smiled back. “Let’s see if we can find the others.”

  Ashley harvested her own monster core. I told her about the essence I found as we walked. She didn’t particularly care for it either and agreed to see if we could trade for something more suiting one of us.

  Eventually we came to an ending of sorts. There was a final mirror. An actual mirror again, not one we could see out the back of. It seemed to waver in place and distorted our images as we approached.

  “What do we do?” I asked. The others shook their heads at me. None of us was certain where to go from here. I hadn’t seen Mara or anyone else walking the mirrored path since I found Oliver.

  I stepped forward to the mirror and inspected it. It was tall and the frame was wrapped in bronze with twisted people carved on it dancing all around the edge. At the very top of the mirror was the face of one of those monsters we’d defeated in full-sized, bronzed detail.

  Shivers worked down my spine as I took in the creepy details. I hesitantly put my hand against the surface of the mirror. There was a momentary pressure against my palm, and then it melted away and my hand sunk into the mirror. I quickly yanked it back and inspected it. Nothing seemed amiss.

  With a shrug I turned back to the others, “I guess once more through the looking glass?”

  That received an eye roll from Ashley and a shook head from Oliver. Whatever, I thought it was clever. With a shrug I turned back around and stepped through the mirror.