MirrorWorld

He discards his rifle and draws a blade, thrusting it at my throat. As the tip cuts a nick into my skin, I catch both of his hands in mine. We push against each other for a moment, maneuvering the knife away from and closer to my throat — that is, until I shift frequencies again, this time taking the man’s hands and the knife with me. When I shift back, the now-handless man is screaming. I silence him by turning his own hands around and plunging the blade into his heart.

Taking a moment, I flicker in and out of the world between, leaving behind the blood on my hands, not because it’s gross, but because it’s slippery. I recover a Vector assault rifle and several spare clips from the fallen men. I then take the headgear from the man with a knife in his chest, clutched by his own severed hands. The black mask and round goggles make me look just like one of them. Just another Dread Squad. After a quick check of the rifle’s chamber, I slip back into chaos.

The colony is a war zone.

More soldiers storm into the chamber, arriving in small groups. The Dread are being reinforced from the other side. Bulls thunder across the arena, taking streams of bullets before falling to the might of men. Men who are eventually going to run out of ammunition. Mothmen descend from above, tackling soldiers, tearing into them. Others simply carry the men up and release them, letting gravity do the rest. And still others are shot from the air. They’re swift, but in the enclosed space, facing men who have trained to hit moving targets, they’re dying more than they’re killing.

A cloud of Dread bats swirls around the chamber. They’re not attacking. They’re panicking, swirling upward toward the ceiling and the many holes leading out. They’re good for gathering intelligence, but I suspect they’re closer to trained animals than to higher functioning Dread.

The two mammoths are making a mess of the human soldiers, kicking, stomping, and charging through the Dread Squad ranks. An RPG cuts across the open chamber, snaking a trail of smoke behind it. The projectile strikes one of the mammoth’s flanks, detonating with a fiery explosion that sends a wash of gore over the men nearby. It also sends the remaining mammoth into a frenzy. Knowing what I do know about the Dread, I realize the two giants were probably friends. Maybe family.

An approaching buzz turns me around. A mothman descends toward me, clawed feet extended. I raise the Vector, but hold my fire and push a wave of fear at the thing while thinking, It’s me! The thing swerves away, picking another target, but is shot down in a splatter of bright red.

Are my thoughts part of the whisper? The Dread whisper is now like a rushing wind. There are so many mental voices mixed together that I can’t tell if there is any kind of actual communication getting through. The screaming on the human side of things isn’t much different.

Until I receive a message loud and clear. A soldier punches my shoulder. “Weapons up, asshole!”

He rushes past me, firing. I shoot him in the back without a second thought. Then I turn on the rest of Dread Squad, pick a target, and fire.

Pick a target. Fire.

Pick a target. Fire.

I repeat the process five times before my treachery is seen by someone who doesn’t receive a bullet to the head a moment later. Bullets chew up the chamber floor, then stop when I slip between frequencies, back to the natural cavern. I start running, slipping in and out of worlds, firing at soldiers as they try to adjust to my new position. It’s an impossible task. Every time I leave the mirror world, I alter my pace and course.

The confusion caused by my interdimensional counterattack distracts at least a third of the Dread Squad in the chamber. It’s just a moment, but it’s enough for the Dread to attack anew. Charging forward, pushing a tidal wave of fear ahead of them, the mammoth and five large bulls slam into the enemy ranks, stomping, thrashing, and swiping with claws. Some men are trampled underfoot. Some find themselves crushed by massive bear-trap jaws. The rest are tossed about like juggling pins.

For a moment, the Dread have the upper hand.

But it’s only a moment.

Two chain-fed M2 Browning machine guns, now resting on tripods, open fire from the far end of the chamber. The weapons unleash up to twelve hundred .50 caliber rounds per minute. That’s like having rapid fire on the Desert Eagle and a nearly infinite amount of ammo. The thunderous roar of the two guns drowns out all the screaming, but the whispering in my head is still clear — and frantic.