Nightmare Realm Summoner

It took just about an hour for Glint's status on the Spatial Mirror to return to normal. At the exact same time, Alex's ability to create mirror shards vanished. That was far from a surprise, but at least it confirmed that the System was working properly.

That was a relief. After all the ERRORS and the Anomaly Title – whatever that meant – Alex wasn't all that confident in the System's structural integrity.

"Glint, come help me," Alex requested. The card in his hand rippled and a claw cut through the air beside him. Glass tinkled to the ground to announce Glint's arrival and the monster stared at Alex, a blank expression in his eyes.

He set the card down and it vanished into a stream of black smoke, flowing into the box at his hip. Alex glanced down at it and blinked. He drew the mirror out once more, then let go of it again.

It streamed back into the box.

"At least I know you can't be lost," Alex informed Glint. The monster, unsurprisingly, didn't respond. Alex jerked his head toward the door. "Let's go. Stay by my side, please. If you see any monsters, try to quietly alert me by pointing before doing anything else. I'd prefer stealth to attacking everything like an idiot. Nod if you are capable of following those orders."

Glint nodded and they started off. It looked like Glint was more than capable of understanding long orders, so the monster was far from dumb. Perhaps it was more a question of intent rather than just words.

He'd have time to test it later. Right now, he needed to find out about where in the world – or more accurately, off it – he was. Alex and Glint headed down the warped hall, both moving as silently as they could.

Part of him wondered if the shitshow leading up to the apocalypse had been better or worse because he'd been in Texas. They'd certainly gone out with a bang — but it was a moot point now.

It was a strange feeling, heading down a place Alex should have known like the back of his hand. He'd spent months in this shitty old building and had walked down its beige walled paths more times than he could count. He probably could have drawn the uninspired pattern on the rug at his feet from memory. Even the smell of the musty walls had etched itself into his mind.

The only real signs of color had been the half-assed drawings on the whiteboards that hung from some of the other students' doors, with the occasional one by an artist that actually looked half decent.

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Now, doors twisted like spiraling breadsticks. Parts of some were entirely missing, leaving pieces floating inexplicably in the air, while others were slanted in a myriad of directions other than the one they were actually meant to. Strips of carpet had torn themselves up and stretched up the walls like climbing vines and the entire hallway smelled like absolutely nothing. There was no dust. No faint chemical stench from where people had drawn on the whiteboards with sharpies instead of erasable pens. Not even mold. There was just nothing.

The silence bore down on Alex like a twenty-pound blanket. Every step he took, no matter how silent it was, felt like its echoes had echoes. He had to alternate from looking around the funhouse-mirror hallway and watching his every move to make sure he didn't stumble over a piece of randomly slanted ground or slip and fall.

His awkward gait slowly brought him to the stairs at the end of the hall. They were fortunately still where he recalled them to be. Sure, the door leading to them was now embedded in the wall and covered with twisting wood growth, but at least it was there. Pieces of it floated in the air, shifting back and forth gently in the air and blocking his way.

Alex grimaced. Even though the door was broken to pieces, there was no way to get past it without touching its remains. He carefully braced a hand against the largest of the fragments and pushed. It resisted him for a moment before slowly shifting back through the air. Alex grabbed another piece and shoved it out of the way before hurriedly stepping through.

The pieces of the door floated back to their places, as if he'd never been there. A shiver ran down Alex's spine as he turned to look down the stairwell. The stairs, like everything else in the building, were a shitshow. Jagged black roots ran throughout the stairwell and jutted out from the walls in random spots. Some of the stairs had been ripped free and hung suspended in the air, held in place only by a few measly roots running through them.

Fortunately, there were still enough of them left to actually use to get down. That was all he could really ask for.

Alex and Glint headed down the stairwell, avoiding the other rooms on the way down to the first floor. He did his best to avoid the roots and Glint did the same. They just looked like wood, but there was no reason to take any chances. Risk was fun when it had a reward. He wasn't trying to get himself killed.

The stairs reached their conclusion. Normally, they should have led out into a wide-open lobby that connected to some of the other dorm buildings in the cluster. Instead, Alex found a massive tree sitting dead center in the middle of the lobby.

It rose straight up through the building, ripping through the floors and sending roots and branches out in every direction. There wasn't a single leaf to be seen upon its surface, but the tree had decided to compensate for that particular failing by covering itself with howling visages of human faces pressed up against its bark as if just mere instants from breaking free.

Alex froze in place, his heart jumping in his chest. He half expected the tree to come alive and start screaming as it ripped the building down around him.

No such thing happened. It just… sat there. Watching.

He remained still for a few more seconds before swallowing and starting off once more. Alex crept out of the stairwell, gladder than ever that he'd avoided touching any of the wood. Beyond the tree, at the far end of the room, he could see the door leading out onto the street. It hung askew as if beckoning him over.

"Don't touch the wood," Alex said a hushed whisper as he started to creep toward the door. He didn't try rushing anything. The tree wasn't moving, but its roots were practically everywhere. Slow and steady movement was his friend.

He crept past a thick branch, crouching to avoid a pair of roots that ran parallel to each other. Every movement sent thrills of adrenaline pumping through his veins. He didn't even know if touching the tree would do anything, but he had absolutely no plan of finding out.

Step by step, he approached the door. A glance back at Glint showed that the monster was having a considerably easier time than he was. Glint just hopped past the roots without a second glance, moving through them with casual ease.

At least I don't have to worry about him.

Alex finally drew up to the exit. A delighted grin crossed his lips and he finally got his first look outside through the roots obscuring the top of the doorframe.

Dull purple-red light shone down on the street, which was so badly changed that it took Alex several moments to even realize he was in the same city. Enormous crevices ran throughout the street, dark energy glowing from somewhere deep within them.

There was a sharp, acrid smell in the air that Alex couldn't quite place. It was almost electric, but like nothing he'd ever experienced before. He barely even paid it attention — all of his senses were nearly completely overwhelmed as he stared in disbelief.

Entire buildings had been lifted into the air and were in various stages of what he could only describe as disassembly. One of his favorite restaurants, a dingy wooden building by the name of the Dixie Chicken, hung hundreds of feet in the air. Every plank of wood that had made it up had separated and floated ominously beside one another. It was almost as if an explosion had gone off on the inside of the building, but something had locked it in both space and time just milliseconds afterward.

The other buildings along the street weren't in much better shape. The ones that had actually managed to remain on the ground had been squished and warped like taffy. He barely recognized the glass windows of the physics building across the street from him. It had been elongated and stretched into a massive arch that cast a long shadow over the street.

"Holy shit," Alex breathed despite himself. It looked like his old dorm had gotten lucky. It definitely hadn't been this close to any of these buildings back in the real world, but a short jaunt through space seemed to be a relatively fortunate hand to be dealt given the alternative.

The buildings weren't the only changes. In the near distance, where there had once been only flat land, was a jagged mountain. It rose far into the sky, its sharp peak just below where the clouds should have been. Purple crackled at its top like a miniature lightning storm and rocks swirled up from the mountain, frozen in space as they reached up toward it.

A shadow passed overhead. Alex instinctually craned his neck back. He froze in place as his blood went cold. A huge, apartment-sized plate of chitin had blocked out the sky. Not just one, but dozens. Hundreds of massive legs, each one the size of a towering tree, swirled through the air. It was an enormous centipede.

City-Eater Centipede (???)

Alex swallowed and remained locked in place, not daring to make a noise. A rippling purple portal sprang open before the City-Eater Centipede, which swam into it. The portal snapped shut behind the monster, leaving the sky empty once more.

City-Eater seems like an apt name. Holy shit. Where the hell did Teddy send me? There's absolutely no way I'm supposed to be here.

A moment later, a second thought struck him.

If a bug can get that powerful in this world… then I can too.

A flicker of excitement swirled in his stomach, but Alex crushed it. He couldn't afford to start fantasizing about the future yet. That could be something he'd worry about once he managed to find a way out of the Mirrorlands — assuming such a thing was actually possible. The idea of being stuck here for the rest of his life sent a spike of ice down Alex's spine.

He shook his head. There was no reason to panic. Panic wasn't going to help him. What he needed was a plan. And, for a plan, he was going to need information. Alex glanced left and right to check for monsters, then crept out into the street with Glint in his wake.

They kept to the shadows of the buildings, moving slowly but confidently. Alex did his best to stay out from under the sky. Flickers of purple occasionally flashed as other centipedes, not quite as large as the first but still far bigger than a building, swam above him.

Alex couldn't shake how eerily silent everything was. Even though there were monsters larger than city blocks above him, their arrivals and departures through the purple portals didn't make a single noise. The only noise in the city seemed to be him.

His only saving grace was that it didn't seem like they were all that concerned with the city below them — but that was a theory he had absolutely no desire to test. Alex continued along the streets, scanning them for literally anything he could use.

He wasn't sure what that would actually be. A flashing neon 'exit' sign certainly wouldn't have gone amiss, but he was more than willing to settle for just a clue as to where he could go.

The back of Alex's spine prickled. He couldn't place quite what it was, but something felt off. That sentiment should have been laughable considering literally everything was off, but he couldn't shake it.

Alex pressed himself against the twisted wall of the building beside him as he tried to figure out what was nipping at his subconscious. He re-scanned the street, adrenaline pumping in his veins and causing his heart to beat so loudly that he feared the City-Eater Centipedes might hear it.

Am I just deluding myself? I don't see —

There was a flicker of movement across the street. Alex's eyes snapped over to the window of a building just a short way in front of him and his breath caught in his chest. Within the darkness behind the glass were two yellowed eyes — and they were staring right at him.