Doomsday Wonderland

The blinding glare of the mirror was discomforting. Lin Sanjiu had to close her eyes a few times to chase away the perturbing sensation.

She didn’t dare make her move after she was sucked in and stayed in the same pose for quite some time. After drawing a sigh, she began to check her surrounding. Surprisingly, as a final pitstop, she found no written description in the Mirror Maze.

There were only mirrors after mirrors stretching all the way as far as her eyes could see. From the mirrors, she could see nothing but countless images of herself in different sizes, angles, heights, and weights, all following her actions.

Rules, tips, player instruction, and directions for the grand prize… It appeared that she had to dig those out all by herself.

“Setting aside how I get sucked into this diamond,” Alone in the Mirror Maze, she had no choice but to soliloquize since there was no one to talk to, “Judging from how I enter this building just now, it seems that “alone” is the criteria to enter here.”

She came to this conclusion after reviewing what they had experienced earlier. Back then, when they were together looking for the entrance, nothing happened. Everything began to go awry only after they separated. The four of them, AYU, the cat doctor, even Puppeteer had disappeared into the ether one after another. Despite that, she was pretty confident that like her, three of them were somewhere inside the Mirror Maze.

“Secondly, the other criteria to enter this Mirror Maze is by touching the reflection that appears on the diamond?” Lin Sanjiu mumbled.

She wasn’t very sure about this theory. All in all, she only came across miniature diamond ornaments such as a diamond pendant or ring during her regular days before the apocalypse. And all of them were too small to create a reflection, so she wasn’t equipped with the knowledge whether or not a diamond could create a reflection. Aside from that, she couldn’t remember if there had been a reflection on the diamond back then either.

Although she had asked many questions, Mrs. Manas didn’t reply to her. Ever since she entered this Mirror Maze, Mrs. Manas had gone disappear again.

Lin Sanjiu’s frowned. She crouched down and knocked on the mirror under her feet. Since it was an ordinary mirror, there was a reflection of a normal Lin Sanjiu. The Lin Sanjiu in the mirror aped her action and their knuckles connected on the surface of the mirror.

“This doesn’t seem good…”

Mirrors had always been graced with the magic to make an area appear larger. Lin Sanjiu didn’t realize it at first when she was thrown here, but after she had settled down, she found out that instead of being in a large room, she was trapped inside a miniature mirror house.

There were mirrors everywhere, top and bottom, left and right, front and back, forming into a closed mirror house. Nothing could breach the mirror house aside from sparkle of light that occasionally filtered through the slit between two mirrors. With that, she could only check her surroundings.

Carefully, she folded her wings since she didn’t know what consequence was awaiting her if she shattered one. When she paced back and forth, the hundreds of reflections followed suit. She was at the end of her wits.

Then, with an anxiety-filled voice, she said while tiptoed to a mirror, “Why are there no road at all?”

Since she was inside a maze filled with distorting mirrors, a flattened, elongated, or even an undulated wavelike version of herself was nothing to write home about, but what she was facing now indeed had blown her away. In front of her was a huge-headed with an emaciated body reflection of herself. The large, round head tittered from left to right as is it would fall at any moment whenever the reflection moved.

Aside from the big-headed Lin Sanjiu, there was this ball-like Lin Sanjiu, muscular Lin Sanjiu, and pixelated Lin Sanjiu to name a few. She even realized after going around that there was one reflection of her without her wings and one mirror that had everything inside but her.

The only normal mirror was the one beneath her feet. Perhaps the weird reflections were making her brain spin, although she knew all of these were illusions, she couldn’t help but continuously seek for a sense of security by checking the only normal reflection below her feet. By doing this, only then she felt relieved.

With a foggy mind, she walked toward the mirror with the muscular Lin Sanjiu.

The body had rippling muscles. The two trapezius muscles on either side of her neck made her shoulders slope and connected with her chest and shoulder muscles. Her arms were as large as her waist and she could even see the lining of the veins on each muscle. If the face of the reflection wasn’t her face, she might not be able to recognize whose the reflection belonged to.

When she tried to call Mrs. Manas, an electronic female voice dearth of any emotion spoke from this enclosed room, “Player number 57, you have stayed in here for more than 3 minutes. Please leave the mirror house at once and look for the location of the grand prize. 10, 9,8,7…”

Lin Sanjiu could felt her blood accelerating as color instantly washed from her face.

She quickly looked around but her attempt was futile as there was nothing she could see aside from her reflections and none of them showed any hint of exit. In the blink of an eye, the countdown had already reached four. Lin Sanjiu then threw herself toward the mirror in front of her in her last ditch effort and before her curse word could escape her throat, the similar darkness had once again enveloped her whole.

It felt the same way as when she had been “sucked” into the diamond. It was something she had never experienced before entering the final pitstop. If she was to describe the experience, it had to be that it was as if she was still inside her mother’s womb. The incident was over in a twinkle, and she opened her eyes again.

What met her gaze was the same mirror house.

Her heart jumped twice, and she heaved out a sigh.

” So we can be warped to another place by touching the mirror? ” She thought, her heart still jumping fast. ” That’s easy. What would happen if we stay for more than 5 minutes? ”

The denouement wasn’t her concern, and since she didn’t want to risk herself, she just let the subject remain untouched. As she gazed around this new area, she found it was same as the previous mirror house. Nothing was here other than the endless stream of mirrors, and there was no sight of the grand prize as well. After letting out a breath, she walked to a mirror.

However, her movement froze the moment she made the first step.

Slowly, as if it was a laborious task, she lowered her head and looked at her legs. They weren’t the long and slender legs that she remembered. Instead, they were now two strong and muscular legs.

The dirt on her boots had soiled the sparkling mirror; however, it didn’t hinder her to see through the mud at herself.

The “muscular Lin Sanjiu” that she saw a few seconds ago in the previous mirror house was now reflected below her, staring back at her.

“W-Wha—” Lin Sanjiu quickly crouched down to check on this bizarre sight in front of her. She hadn’t gotten used to her new body yet, so she almost tripped when her body pressed on the corded muscle on her thigh. “What happened to me?!”

“Could it be not only that we will be warped out from the mirror house when we touch the mirror, but we would become the same as the reflection in the mirror?” 

Lin Sanjiu decided to return to the previous mirror house the moment the thought surfaced in her mind. However, just as she stood up, she suddenly realized something. In all the mirror houses she had visited, there was only one normal mirror—the one below her feet, so since she had become like this, touching the normal mirror again wouldn’t do her any good.

Not to mention that nothing happened when she had touched the mirror below her feet just now.

“Jesus, what the hell is this place!” Cursing under her breath, Lin Sanjiu quickly looked around the mirrors for the mirror that might turn her back to her original self.

She was soon defeated. Since this place was a distorting mirror maze, it was apparently impossible to have a normal reflection.

“If I change every time I touch a mirror,” As she studied the mirror, she asked, “What should I change into now?”

Although she was given a lot of options, none of them were viable.

“No,” Lin Sanjiu reckoned the time and told herself. “It matter not what would I change into since everything would be undone and I can return to my normal look once I finish the game. Now I only have to focus on finding which way should I take on.”

It was that she didn’t have much information, so she was clueless as of how to make her progress in this Mirror Maze. After she pondered for a while, she walked toward a mirror that had a long and serpentine reflection.

“Hailing the player number 57,” the narrator sounded out again without any warning.

“Huh, who the hell…”  thought Lin Sanjiu. Then, the voice came in and interrupted her thought, “A player is coming in…”

Before the narrator could finish her announcement, a person had appeared from the ether and rolled out from the mirror beside Lin Sanjiu. Lin Sanjiu was stunned.

“What’s the use of announcement if the incident came before it!”

She could fill up the unspoken sentence of the narrator with what happened in front of her, hence she cussed the narrator in her heart. Then, when she exchanged glances with the intruder, her hope that he was somebody she knew shattered.

That person had an elongated face that looked human—no, she couldn’t relate that face to a human face if she wasn’t imaginative enough. Like the face of a horse, that person’s eyes were on the sides of his face, leaving a complete bald at the center part which ended in a swell at the lowest region of his face. There were two holes at the swelling part and Lin Sanjiu could only attribute them as the person’s nostril, so the whole thing was his nose.

Judging from his attire or the slight leftover of human facial features, Lin Sanjiu was certain that she hadn’t come across this person before.

“Hahaha,” The intruder studied Lin Sanjiu from head to toe and burst into a brazen fit of laughter.  “So is a he,”  thought Lin Sanjiu.  “I guess you just arrived here not long ago? That’s great! I have been inside this final pitstops for ages, and now, I finally came across a newbie!”

His words gave Lin Sanjiu a fright. She asked, “How long have you been here? Do you know what is this place?”

“I’ve lost track of time but my beard had reached my Adam’s apple when I was in the previous mirror house,” The Horse Face replied to her readily. As he was speaking, he moved one step forward and an arc found its way into the bottom of the Horse Face, “Since I was here for a long time, it’s natural that I know everything about this place. Do you want me to tell you?”

Trained by countless battles, Lin Sanjiu had a sharp instinct for imminent danger. Her muscles tightened and her skeleton wings were up in the air, preparing to strike down its foe.

“Hehe, you’re a sharp one. The space here is so small and you’re still carrying that two large wings on your back. To be honest, you look scary,” The Horse Face stopped moving forward. His voice belied his words as he didn’t seem to be scared by Lin Sanjiu at all, “Come, hit me with them!”

Lin Sanjiu narrowed her eyes but she didn’t move.

“Not dare to hit me? I’ll give you some help, then!” The Horse Face released a huge cry before throwing himself at Lin Sanjiu. Even though he sounded loud, his action, footsteps, movements were sluggish. Against this kind of opponent, Lin Sanjiu didn’t even need her wings at all. Hence, she folded her wings and dodged to a side. Taking advantage of her muscular body, she crouched down, extended her arm, and whipped it at the incoming Horse Face.

The Horse Face didn’t expect Lin Sanjiu to change her tactics in the split of a second. He made an emergency brake and turned his body around deftly. In the next second, he had already returned to his previous position.

Lin Sanjiu looked and realized that the spot where the Horse Face kicked didn’t break. The attack that he threw at her and how he evaded her attack made him look like two different entities.

“Why are you holding back?” She asked while stared fixedly at the Horse Face. She then replayed their exchange thoroughly in her brain, “When you rushed forward, you feigned as a slow and sluggish opponent when you saw my wings. What are you planning to do?”

The Horse Face’s jaw tightened. His smile had disappeared and made his face even longer. It almost touched his chest.

Obviously, he knew a lot of things that Lin Sanjiu didn’t know.

“Well, well, you’re pretty good. However, you need more than that to force me to tell you everything I know,” The Horse Face gave a cold smile. His voice was hoary.

“Okay, if that’s what you desire,” Lin Sanjiu returned him with a smile of her own. Then, in the next second, she disappeared.

It was sufficient for her if her opponent only lost sight of her for a split second. When the Horse Face anxiously recoiled a few steps, a shadow the size of a small mountain crashed onto him from above.