Murderer. Murderer. Murderer.

The word bounced around inside my skull.

I was a murderer, now. I had killed a sapient being, willfully and with intent.

Worse, before it died, I had tortured it.

It was in self defense. A tiny voice, deep down, tried to say. I smothered it. I don't have the luxury of excuses. I was a killer.

It was necessary. Another tiny voice, which was quelled immediately.

I stumbled my way into the house once more, and fell into one of the upstairs armchairs, staring at my reflection in a nearby mirror.

"You killed someone. I killed someone. And it wasn't even in a fight," I told my mirror image. "I'm beyond redemption now." A question that kept bouncing around in my head though is if I should even be feeling guilty about what I’d done? The thing had been trying to kill me for whatever reason; If I’d let it go then it would have hunted me down mercilessly. I was torn.

On the flipside, I'd gotten my answers. Humankind was gone, dead, god knows what, because they were 'in the way'. I was something called 'The Failsafe', whatever that meant.

Raven had flown out earlier, just as the sun rose, most likely just as disturbed as I. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and talked some more.

"What do I do now?" I mumbled to myself. "What the hell do I do now?"

"I might be able to help you with that."

***

I stared at the mirror in disbelief. I'd finally snapped. I was irrevocably insane, and this was a manic hallucination. I refused to believe what my eyes and ears were telling me.

"Oh, I'm afraid I'm very much real," said my reflection, standing up. I was still sitting. "I apologize for the inconvenience in the last two days, I was searching for a form to inhabit and may have nudged you a bit."

A form to inhabit? nudge me? what the hell was …it talking about?

I got a sinking feeling in my chest. This is a trick. A ruse, to make me let my guard down. I have to get away from this mirror.

I jumped up, and ran out of the room. Behind me, I could hear whatever it was that lived in the mirror shout something after me, but the voice was eventually lost in my footsteps as I ran.

I jumped out the front door, and hit the ground running. There had been too much in the last few days, and I must have been going insane. Perhaps heatstroke? The sun was burning from the sky, after all.

After a bit of deliberation, I began sprinting toward the lakeside. Perhaps the shock of hitting cold water would shake me up enough.

On the way to the shore, I heard many voices around me, all of them shouting at me to stop, to listen, to calm down. I did not stop, or listen, or calm down. I just kept running, the wind whipping in my hair, toward the water.

Eventually, I reached the pier, and after only a moment’s hesitation, during which I remembered to throw off my jacket, dove into the lake.

As I was plummeting toward the water, I noticed that I couldn’t see my reflection in the water. I wondered why only for a moment, before I broke the surface.

The water was cold, but not icy. I’d dove down to the sea floor, among the kelp, and waited for as long as I could hold my breath.

When it felt like my lungs were about to burst, I surfaced once more, swam to a small ladder on the concrete pier, and sat down on the edge, legs dangling toward the water’s surface.

“That really wasn’t necessary.”

I winced at my own voice coming from the water, then sighed deeply - resigned to my apparent fate of madness.

“So, aren’t you going to tell me you’re actually not a hallucination and that antipsychotics are a lie, or what?”

My reflection, who wasn’t soaked, looked at me through the water. The perspective was confusing, as if the surface of the water reversed gravity, we were essentially both looking down, but at each other.

"I haven't even introduced myself yet. I am That Which Is Reflected."

I felt a tiny tinge of fear. Fear for my sanity, mostly, as this could not be real. I could accept shadow demons and strange prophetic sensations, but a walking, talking, apparently sentient reflection? My mind just denied it.

"Alright, let’s assume you aren’t just a projection of my failing mind, what are you?" I tried, quite sure that talking to one's own hallucinations is the first sign of schizophrenia.

"What I meant, puella, was that there aren't many unimportant things inside your head."

Wait a second. In my head? Was it just admitting to being a part of mental illness?

"You’re just going to admit that, no trying to convince me that you’re real, and that I’m not going insane?"

"sic, I am. Sine te sum nihil, if you remember."

This went far outside any kind of curriculum we’d discussed in class. Hallucinations that interacted with people supposedly followed something like dream logic, and were usually not self-aware. Oh, and that sentence. Wasn’t that...

"That was you on the phone! You made me break it!" The anger was temporarily drowning out any voices of concern, as I was quite sure, in the back of my head, that getting angry at your hallucinations is the second sign of schizophrenia.

"tristis sum quod factum. I really am. But it's true. I really cannot exist without you."

"Why? What even are you? The mirror-ghost? Did I seriously go insane only two weeks into the apocalypse?"

"Licuit, let's go with that for now. I'm the mirror-ghost that lives inside your head. Yes. No, that sounds just like what you said. You are not insane. I will tell you."

It appeared torn between telling me the truth and lying. I noticed that it was very easy to read my own face. Easy, and somewhat disturbing, as I was not the one making it.

"This is surprisingly difficult. The wrong knowledge could literally kill you."

I nodded. That was the second time some strange entity told me that knowledge can be dangerous and deadly. I wasn’t quite sure the demon wasn’t lying, but this thing? I could read it like I could read myself. It wasn’t lying. Assuming of course that it wasn’t just a fragment of madness, which I still wasn’t extremely convinced of. It didn’t present any of the other symptoms of mental illness with auditory and visual hallucinations, though.

"Licuit. What if someone, hypothetically, perfected a device that is able to transfer knowledge from a machine into a brain. makes sense so far, right?"

I nodded again, not exactly knowing where it (she? I?) was going with this. This was strange. I seemed to still be in possession of my faculties, aside from the fact that I could see and hear my own reflection talking to me.

Apparently unbothered by my sceptic look, my reflection continued.

"What this person might not have known, is that the transfer of knowledge is a fickle thing. It has a tendency to ...change. grow. inject computer code into a living brain, and it takes on aspects of the data already inside. in very broad terms, it becomes ...active. sort of."

"So what, you're like a knowledge upload gone wrong? Were you made by the CIA or what?"

I’d done a quick check of my surroundings, and everything seemed to be ordinary, no other hallucinations.

"Not exactly an ‘upload’, per se. The knowledge was a seed. I grew from that seed, but I am not it. How to say it ...I am ...an idea. A living idea. That's what my name means, actually. I told you earlier, I am now 'That Which Is Reflected', didn’t I? After my conceptualisation, I was 'That Which Is Known'... What’s a see-eye-ay?"

I shook my head slightly, and wrote ‘I am not insane.’ into my notebook.

"That still doesn't explain why you're now inside a mirror, or inside my head. I still don’t get what you mean by that."

I looked at the notebook again.

‘I am not insane.’

No aphasia either. This thing could actually be real.

"I will tell you my story, it is necessary. The person I was created in, he ...he went mad. I made him go insane. You have to understand, I was like a newborn, and my nature was immensely powerful. When i was That Which Is Known, I embodied everything he had ever learned, experienced. Everything he knew. You can't imagine how that would feel."

I shivered involuntarily at the thought.

"He eventually wrote me down. No. Yes, me. I was everything he knew, and he wrote me down. A complete autobiography. That's how I came to reside in a book. Problem is, a living idea is more aggressive than a normal one. A normal idea can be copied a lot of times, written down, recorded in video or audio. A living idea, not so much. By the end, his mind was void of all information. He was but an empty shell."

"They eventually ...his son, he eventually found him. He cried for weeks. His wife, she cried even longer. When I was inside the book, I was That Which Is Written. They had me on their bookshelf, the last reminder of the man they once knew. Eventually though, they found me. They noticed little things, like how reading me didn't allow them to remember."

"When I was discovered, they placed me in a box. A very special box. It was to be sealed forever. That was ...a long time ago. When I was inside the box, I was That Which Is Contained Within. Eventually though, you found the box. You broke the seal, and triggered their last surprise: a self-destruction."

"The box crumpled into ash, with me inside. That's the only way to kill a living idea, destroy its medium. though that is hard to do when the medium is a loved one. Miraculously, a fragment of me survived. A scrap of the paper I was written on. I became Part Of Myself, and did the only thing I could: jump into the nearest medium capable of holding what I was. I couldn't jump into you, as I had no way of knowing how you worked, so I jumped into your phone. I became That Which Is Heard, and 'called' you."

"You picked up, and I whispered myself into your ear. Remember what I said about seeds? A single sentence was enough to get me into your mind, then it self-replicated into me. I was Loose Knowledge, though. Harmful to your mind. My thoughts may have intersected with yours once or twice, though I did help you make the trap a reality."

"You have to understand ...a living idea, it's a parasitic relationship. I cannot exist without you as a host. For you to host me, I had to replace an idea inside your head. Eventually, I chose the idea of your own reflection, and became That Which Is Reflected.”

“And that is my story, how I came to be. I did something unforgivable, and was locked away for it. However, I hope to be more to you than a conceptual parasite. Maybe we could become friends?"

And with that, it finished its story. I'd put my hands on my knees, staring through the water down at myself. This was unprecedented. I didn’t present any of the usual symptoms of mental illness, aside from the obvious. I’d gone through my memories from the last two weeks, and they were internally consistent. Everything it had said served perfectly to contextualize my experience with the box.

"I believe you," I said eventually. "I’m still not entirely convinced that you aren’t just a figment of imagination, but I’ve seen too much weird shit in the last few days to outright dismiss a talking reflection."

"Thank you, amica. You don't know how much that means to me. I hope you’ll come to accept me in time."

"We’ll see. If I go back to the Fort, will we be able to talk by the mirror?"

"Sic, we will. I shall await you there."

On the way back, I spied my reflection in some of the windows around town, and realized that those had been the voices calling out. When I eventually got back to the Fort, I went upstairs, and stood before the mirror. My reflection was sitting in the chair behind me.

This was going to take some getting used to.

“Ah, amica. I’ve been waiting.”

“I can see that. This is really weird, you know.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I’m the sentient idea. I’d like to tell you that my offer to help still stands.”

“Alright. Let’s say I trust you. What exactly did you mean when you said ‘I could help you with that’?”

“I know a way out.”

"A way out? Out of -"

I was suddenly hit with a pain I'd only felt once before. It felt as if my consciousness was being peeled back, one layer after another, and I screamed in pain until I fell unconscious.

***

When I awoke, I was lying by the mirror, my head pounding. my reflection was sitting in the armchair, looking at me with an interested look on her face.

"Ah, good, you're awake. I hoped you weren’t dead, or worse, in a coma."

I groaned.

"It seems that some knowledge is still dangerous for you. I told you much that would kill any other person in your situation, but that may have been too much. I will have to be vague."

I groaned again, but managed to sit up on my elbows.

"We must be swift. There is not much time left. You must find a place, and perform a process there. Then you, I, and your raven friend can be saved. I cannot tell you more details."

"What do you mean 'process', what-"

I felt another sharp spike of pain, directly in the center of my forehead, and stopped talking.

"Certe, you see. Knowledge can be dangerous. Trust the idea vitae to know."

Rubbing my forehead, I once again wondered at her use of latin, but quickly banished the thought as she began another sentence.

"The beings you call shadow demons, they are more powerful than you can imagine. Indeed, I do not believe that the one you think you killed this morning is truly dead. Though it will be exceedingly angry. Until now, it has toyed with you as a cat would with its food. Now it will see you as you would see a lion: a lesser, but brutish beast capable of inflicting great pain."

"It will be back, and soon. You will need to make haste, pack everything you need for a long trip, and then get into your vehicle. This place will not be safe in a week's time. I will guide you from within your vehicle's visual aids."

It took me a moment to realize she meant the mirrors, and I nodded.

"Alright. You’re pretty much the only real way to proceed right now. We’ll try your thing, whatever it is, but if that doesn’t work, I’m hunkering down somewhere. You know more than you're telling me, though probably for good reason," I rubbed my forehead, which still felt like a bunch of needles were stuck into my skin. "I'll pack some food and water, my stuff, and then get to the car. We have to wait for Raven, though. I won't leave her behind."

"That would be preferred, yes. Make haste, you don’t have much time."

With that, I made to walk out the door, before turning around.

"Hey, how do I talk to you when I'm not by a mirror? I assume you can probably appear in every mirrored surface, right?"

"Yes, I can. If you need to speak with me, simply find a mirror, or a pane of glass, or a puddle of water and do so. I will be waiting."

"I've got a better idea."

I grabbed the alarm clock on the nightstand, and hurled it at the mirror, which shattered into a thousand pieces.

“That was for scaring me like that, by the way.”

I picked up one of the shards, a little smaller than the palm of my hand, and looked into it - only to find my reflection looking back, a shocked look on her face.

"I'm not sure why I didn't think of that," she said as I pocketed the shard.

***

When I stepped outside the house, I was carrying one of three duffle bags filled with supplies. Two of them, the ones containing food, were already stowed in the backseat, and this one was filled with much-needed water in the arid heat.

It was perhaps one hour to dusk, and the sunlight was still streaming down strong from a cloudless sky, when I finished packing everything into the car.

All in all, we now had three duffle bags filled with supplies, which took up the backseat, enough to last for a few months time.

The trunk was filled with as many canisters of gasoline as would fit, which turned out to be a lot. Enough to cross the entire states twice, I reckoned.

The rest of the car's volume was taken up my other useful junk: two space heaters, a bunch of cable and two alligator clips for the car to act as a generator, my backpack and bedroll, various blankets, six of the spotlights that had survived the night, and my trusty walking staff.

After everything was stowed and secured, I climbed on the car's roof, and waited for Raven to return from wherever she had flown to. For a moment, I debated not showing That Which Is Reflected to her, but quickly squashed that thought. To survive, we needed absolute trust. Also, I was interested in what she would see in the mirror.

Herself? Me? Would she even be able to perceive an idea living inside my head? In fact, this would be the perfect way to confirm her actual existence as a being, if it worked like that. Would be highly “convenient” if it didn’t, though.

In the end, I decided to just ask. Pulling the mirror shard from an inside pocket, I unwrapped it from the piece of leather I’d crudely stitched into a scabbard, to avoid cutting into the only jacket I had.

“Hey, quick question. If Raven looks into this mirror shard while I’m also looking at it, what will she see?”

My reflection looked up from a stain on the car’s hood she’d apparently been looking at. The perspective was still a bit strange, as my actual reflection would probably take up the entire mirror. I idly wondered how my brain knew what was behind me.

“That is a good question. It all comes down to perception. I do not exist in all mirrors everywhere, only in those associated with you. When you are capable of being reflected in a mirror, I will be there instead. Even for others. It’s the only way I was able to integrate myself with you without causing further damage. Though, if I am ever forced to leave, that would be ..destructive.”

“What do you mean, ‘destructive’?

“Ah, yes. I neglected to mention earlier. You recall how I said that living ideas are aggressive? They - We - are very stingy with parts of ourselves. As soon as some form of information becomes part of ourselves, it is only part of ourselves. If we move on, we take it with us. So far, so good?”

“Yes.” I had a feeling I knew where this was going, and I didn’t like it.

“In your case, I took on the idea of “The reflection of the human known as Amelia Grayheart”. If I am removed, or remove myself, I will take that with me. The idea of you reflecting off a mirrored surface will cease to be, for you and for everyone. It only works this way because I am an idea that is key to you and you alone, by definition. If I took on something more abstract, something that could be associated with more people than only you, the loss would be subjective, not objective. For instance, if I took on the idea of ‘Host reflected in a mirrored surface’, the only loss would be subjective, as would the effect of me being there. Everyone but the affected being would be able to see their reflection, while they would see me instead.”

I shivered at the thought of something ripping the idea of my own reflection from my mind.

“But that’s not all. Unless very carefully extracted piece by piece, my removal could completely destroy your ability to perceive visual imagery. It’s not a fun thing to think about, but you have to understand, I was desperate, and this,” she motioned to herself, then to my head, “ was the least destructive thing I could have chosen in there.”

“So to answer your previous question, She would be able to see herself, and if you were in front of the mirror, and not an unreasonable distance away, she would be able to see me as you see me as well.”

“Alright, thanks. Some of this stuff is very ...creepy? Is that the right word?”

“I would say disconcerting, but yes. It is.”

“Oh! Another question. Do you know how exactly I can see the sky right now?”

I gestured to my head obscuring the sky from the mirror’s view

“Like, my head should be obscuring the sky right now, but in the mirror, it’s not there, so I can see through myself basically. How does that work?”

“I’m ...not sure what you mean. You can see what’s normally obscured by your reflection because your reflection,” She motioned to herself, “Is standing over here. Mostly because it would be weird staring you in the face real close like that.”

“Yeah, but ...that doesn’t make sense. That’s not how light works.”

“Listen, just trust me. It does work like that. And it’s not as useful as you think.”

“Alright, yeah. Sure.”

I decided to drop it at that. Being an idea, She probably had some way of seeing the world that I didn’t. No, scratch that, she definitely had a different way of seeing the world.

I’m lucky she chose what is essentially a tiny, identical version of the world I can carry a window to around with me, rather than be something else, like a voice in my ear, or something more tangible.

With that, I put the mirror shard back into its scabbard and my pocket, and laid back on the car’s roof, waiting for my bird friend.