MirrorWorld

Choice is removed once again. I manage to suck in a breath through my one free nostril and then slip back into the raging waters far beneath New Orleans. I’m swept away again and brutalized by the tunnel walls. I cling to the air in my lungs, but the rapids seem determined to knock it free. Bubbles burst from my mouth with every jarring impact.

Then my head hits something solid.

I black out for a moment.

When I come to, thrashing awake, the air in my lungs is gone.

I reach out, hoping to feel open space, but how will I know it? Moving so quickly, spun like a pebble in a rock polisher, how will I ever recognize that fraction of a second of cool air being different from the water?

I won’t.

But then, as the raging water takes a sudden turn, I do.

I don’t feel the change so much as I hear it. The gurgling, muffled cacophony of flowing water suddenly echoes in a tight space. The sound actually hurts my ears when I take a gasping breath, and then another, calming the burn in my lungs.

The surface beneath me changes to a slanted solid stone. I can’t see it, but I claw my way over the surface, fighting to pull myself free of the devil’s waterslide. The gap is small, just enough room for me to pull my torso out of the water, but my legs remain wet, tugged at by the rapids, urging me to my death.

The rock bed is cold against my head, but so very welcome. With each breath, my body normalizes. Calm down, I tell myself. Start thinking. What options do I have?

Option one, check out the mirror world. I peek without moving my body between worlds. It’s a surreal experience. I’m encased in the black earth, but it’s intercut by thin, glowing roots. I don’t clearly understand the Dread or their world, but one thing is for certain, it’s all connected. Free to move, I look in all directions and see the same thing: earth, right in my face. I rub my eyes after returning to the pitch black of the underground river. I only looked into the other world, but my brain still thinks there’s dirt in my eyes.

That means I’ve got only one possible escape route — the river. And who knows if it will even bring me in the right direction, or if I won’t have my back broken against a stone five seconds after getting back in the water?

But no choice means no choice. As much as I don’t like the idea of being battered by the rough waters or drowned beneath them, I refuse to give in now. Sure, I could survive in this little world for a time. I’d die from hypothermia long before I starved, and I certainly wouldn’t die from lack of water. But I’d be letting the Dread have Maya without a fight, and if she’s still around when Dread Squad arrives …

I sigh and roll onto my back.

Despite the pitch black, I close my eyes and see Maya. Her smiling face. Her hands full of pumpkin gore, dripping freshly pillaged seeds. I wait, holding a carving knife, while Simon digs his small hands into the open gourd. He’s the closest thing I’ve seen to a true Halloween zombie. I smile at the memory. It returned recently, probably while I was being bashed about in the river.

“I’m sorry,” I say into the darkness, warm tears on my cheeks. Dammit. I miss that kid.

Miss his mother, too …

I see the entire past year, spent in SafeHaven in a new light. Despite the company of Shotgun Jones and Seymour, I was very alone. My lack of fear and memory prevented me from experiencing it, but now that my memories are returning and I’m able to feel a full range of emotions, remembering that time is heartbreaking, lonely, and desperate. Looking back even further, I can see that my life before Maya was much the same. I depended on myself, leaned on my fearless nature to get past struggles. My own strength carried me. But when I found Maya, that changed. I was still fearless, but she removed the burden of self-sufficiency. She became my strength. So did Simon. Is that why I ran away? Despite my lack of fear, did I become powerless? Weak? It’s not impossible, and I certainly wouldn’t have feared ridicule for my mental retreat.

But Maya wasn’t gone. She was alive. She needed me. Why would I have run from that? I still can’t remember, but I’m not going to make the same mistake again.

I’m coming, baby. I’m coming.

I roll myself into the river, content that it will either carry me where I need to go or usher me into the afterlife, from which I will do my best to torment the Dread for what they’ve taken from me.

52

Relaxing my body, I let myself drift through the darkness. I’m slammed into a side wall as the river takes a sharp left turn. That’s when I start checking the mirror world for open spaces. With my vision in the Dread world, I watch scores of glowing vein-roots slip past in a blur.