MirrorWorld

Catching my breath, I crane my head up. He stands above me, looking bigger and meaner than ever. He’s nearly bursting out of his armor. Thick veins pulse with red light just beneath the skin of his neck. He’s becoming more Dread with each passing second.

“I can see it in you. The fear.” Lyons chuckles. “Look around, Josef. Your treachery has failed.”

He’s right about that. The only Dread left in the colony are dead or dying. That is, except for the matriarch, which still hasn’t climbed out of its hole. Is it hiding? Knowledge surfaces, answering the question. It’s rooted. The larger the colony, the older the matriarch. It’s actually part of the colony, unable to rise up again, held in place by the colorful veins that feed everything in this world. If it leaves, it dies. And if that happens, the Earth dies on both sides of the mirror. The matriarch I killed in New Hampshire had been a youth, loosely rooted and inexperienced. It should have never left its colony. It would still be alive if it hadn’t.

But staying hidden beneath the ground isn’t going to help this subterranean behemoth at all. The Dread Squad numbers have been whittled down. A large number of the bodies littering the arena floor are human. But there are still forty of them, most uninjured, some aiming RPGs at the tendrils slowly warbling behind Lyons. Others are repositioning the machine guns on either side of the matriarch. If it rises, they’ll cut it to pieces.

I am the last hope for both worlds now.

“You are not alone,” says a whispering voice. The matriarch. She’s still in my head. “Delay them.”

I search the eyes of the Dread Squad soldiers, stopping on a familiar face kneeling down, opening a backpack. “If you set that thing off, you’re killing the world.”

Katzman pauses. Meets my gaze until Lyons’s breaks it, saying, “Finish your job.” The words propel Katzman back into action. He takes out a large black device with a black, domed top. The microwave bomb.

“We are liberating this world,” Lyons says, “one colony at a time. And when they lose this colony, they’ll lose control of colonies across the continent. They’ll also lose control of the hundreds of millions of people they’re affecting in North America alone. Don’t you see what that means? Riots will end. The government will rein in control, easing tensions. We’ll be saving the world. That you think otherwise is—”

“Educated,” I say. “That’s not how this works. The moment that bomb goes off, the matriarch will trigger nuclear Armageddon. You will destroy the world. And for what? Because you pissed your bed every night when you were a kid? Because the big, bad Dread made noise or moved things, made you feel a little screwy in the head?”

Lyons growls and flexes his fingers. The fingernails pop off, replaced by sharp, black talons. He’s oblivious to the change.

“It doesn’t matter what happened in the past,” I say. “Genocide isn’t an acceptable solution.”

“Genocide?” He laughs. “They’re not even human.”

“I’m not sure any of us are really human anymore,” I say, motioning to myself and the Dread Squad. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? Look at your hands.”

He lifts his thick fingers up, inspecting them. He flinches upon seeing his sprouted claws. He looks confused, but it’s just for a moment. Whatever discomfort he feels about his physical transformation is replaced by a wicked smile. The change has got to be altering his mind, too. This is no longer the Lyons I knew. No longer the man who was Maya’s father. “I am becoming more than both races. I am … evolving.”

“You’re a monster,” I tell him.

When he looks down at me, the sides of his head bulge, split with a slurp, and open, revealing a second set of eyes. “Monsters both.”

“Sir,” Katzman says. “It’s ready.”

“Start it,” Lyons says.

“Don’t!” I shout, but am quickly silenced by claws raking across my chest. The powerful and sharp-tipped hand tears the armor away from my chest, leaving faint, paper-cut-thin slices in my skin. Had I not been wearing the armor, I’d be missing my chest.

“Help is coming,” the matriarch whispers in my head. “In the cavern.”

Rippling energy courses through me. It’s Lyons, pushing his fear, hammering it down on me like a weapon. I fall to my knees, clenching my fists, shaking and hissing through my teeth. A sob bursts from my mouth, embarrassingly loud.

“How does it feel? To experience fear after a lifetime of not knowing it?” Lyons steps closer, reaches out for me.

“They are ready and will follow your lead,” the matriarch whispers.