Major Simson sat at his desk handling the incoming calls from the night’s raid. He rifled through the early digital reports with a grimace. He put a call through to his secretary.

  “Jan, call the coroner and send a message to the Premier, we have incoming. And get Jeff to start preparing scenarios to filter out to the media.” Simson paused. “I’ll have numbers for him in twenty!” He responded in exasperation.

  Mumbles could be heard through his phone.

  “I know, Jan!” he growled. “Get Clarence into the CBD in the next thirty, we are going to need a large-scale memory mod.” He paused again. “I don’t care if he’s in Fiji! Get his team here and have him shifted and ready to work pronto! The Director will cover the expenses.”

  Simson hung up the phone with a sigh, ignoring the incessant beeping from his mobile. He rubbed at his temples, trying to think of anything else that needed to be done to prevent a state-wide disaster.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Come in,” he called, correcting his posture, and composing himself, wiping the lines of fatigue from his face.

  “Good morning, Major.” A soft, calming voice responded after the door opened and a plain looking woman entered the room. She was of average height, with brown shoulder length hair, and warm brown eyes. Smile lines marred the smoothness of her skin. She was dressed in a simple but elegant pant suit of navy blue. As she spoke her face lit with a radiant warmth.

  “Ah Jo, thank goodness. There has been an incident.” Simson waved her towards a seat in front of his desk. As she sat, he allowed himself to relax again, some of his fatigue filtering back through. “Have you heard?”

  “There have been some whispers, though no detail. What do you need?” she asked him.

  “Two different drugs found at the scene. They appear more advanced than any we have seen from the Tagma before. We need to know what they do.” He checked his mobile. “Patrick has also called in, there’s an outlier from tonight’s raid.”

  “Send the samples through to my lab, I’ll get the team started on it in the next hour,” she replied, sending messages on her phone as she spoke. “What did Pat have to say?”

  “He thinks this one will need watching, though he doesn’t believe they’re a plant.” His next exhalation was layered with weariness. “You know Pat, more instinct than evidence. Despite the suspicious circumstances, he is pushing for recruitment rather than elimination.”

  “I would trust his instincts. They have rarely been wrong in the past,” Jo cautioned.

  “Oh, I agree, though we have very little flexibility on the off chance that he is wrong. The Tagma have been pushing hard lately.”

  “There are plenty of good people to keep an eye on him here. Get Frank onto it.” She was interrupted by Simson’s phone. He gave her a quick wave in apology.

  “That was Avery,” he said, after hanging up the phone. “There were some unusual readings on the initial measures.”

  “Send me through the reports. Still, it’s likely to be what it seems, a newcomer with an instinctive use of aether that has somehow crash landed into our world.”

  Simson grunted. “I know you trust Pat, but it’s my job to be suspicious. We cannot rule out that he is a plant, but neither can we exclude him from just being an unlucky outlier. I do not want him thrown to the wolves if that is the case. Can I leave this with you?”

  “Of course. I will chat with Jane and take over the Basics course for the semester. That will give me the opportunity to keep an eye on him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can you ask Pat to come and see me when he gets settled? I have a few questions and would like to review the psych profile. As you say, Patrick tends to let his own impressions overlay his objective observations.”

  Simson nodded in acknowledgement as Jo stood up. “I’ll message him now.”

  He heard the door shut; his eyes once again glued to his mobile.

  * * *

  Jimmy awoke to throbbing pain. It began in the centre of his brain, shooting out to his clenched eyes and then across his whole face. It pierced downwards along his spine and into his body, wrapping itself around his heart as it slowly, laboriously, pumped blood through his body. He groaned, refusing to open his eyes, happily lost in the velvety black. Even flashes of memory seemed to cause more pain, as though his mind’s eye had become photosensitive.

  Fuck me, he thought to himself. That was a big one. There was a soft groan beside him, and he grinned. At least I pulled.

  Ten more breaths, and then I’ll open my eyes. He spent that time trying to remember where he kept his painkillers before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. He didn’t even know where he was.

  With the courage of a toe dipper, light slowly pierced the groggy black, his eyelids resisting the urge to open. He wasn’t quite ready to sit up, but his view of the ceiling began to clear. Concrete and piping were all he could see in his admittedly tunnelled vision. Not his place then, he thought. Each shift of his head brought a little lightning shot of pain.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Gah!” he growled out loud, the only sound he could hear beside the rumble of the pipes working above him.

  He twisted his head in the direction of the other groan he had heard earlier, determined to ask where he could find some pain relief. He was momentarily shocked to see a semi-naked man lying next to him, causing him to question both himself and the drugs that he had taken. He may have experimented once in high school, getting a quick wristy from one of his footy mates, but it had never really floated his boat.

  It was then that he noticed the blood that had slowly pooled on the ground next to the man beside him, and he belatedly realised that they were both lying on the cold hardness of concrete, and not the soft pillowy comfort of a mattress. He tried looking around, but his vision blurred when the movement caused more pain to shoot through his body.

  This is not normal, he thought. Deep breaths.

  Opening his eyes again, he sat up ever so slowly. He was lying on the outer edge of a giant concrete cube that was at least twenty metres square. He didn’t bother trying to get an exact count, but there were more than thirty other people lying on the floor in various states of dress. He was almost certain it had not been an orgy, because there was a lot of blood. Like, more than kinky amounts of blood.

  The man beside him groaned again, and as Jimmy slowly became more and more alert, he realised there was a soft murmur of moans throughout the room, just barely masked by the ambient sound from the pipes above.

  Jimmy tried desperately to block out the pain as he fought against the black hole that was his memory of the night before. He looked at the people around him and could not find anyone that closely resembled Theo or Daz. Panic slowly joined the pain.

  There seemed to be very few people awake, though most moved or twitched in their own private versions of hell. There were a few whose stillness was ominous, and Jimmy’s eyes skimmed past them with the necessity of self-preservation.

  He was not quite ready to stand, but movement was becoming easier. He patted down his pockets, which were empty of the phone and keys he had carried with him the night before. He looked around in desperation, and there were no windows or any other indicator that might help him to place where he was.

  The screeching of rusted hinges prompted a rolling wave of groans from the slumped forms in the room. A few braver souls lifted their heads or attempted to stand. Jimmy stayed sitting, turning towards the penetrating sound. For the first time he noticed the metal door in the opposite wall.

  Three people entered the room, two men and a woman. They all wore Arabian style clothing that had matched the décor of the club. Their cleanliness was a shocking contrast to the room of dishevelled and bloodied party goers.

  “Time to move, pretties,” the masculine voice was soft, but carried clearly. Jimmy could not tell which of the two men had spoken, but he remained unmoving despite the command.

  “It seems they are going to need some incentive.” The other man observed, before stepping further into the room. He leant down, grabbing the neck of one of the women who had been lying down moaning. She squealed as he lifted her with one hand. Jimmy could just make out her eyes as they widened in pain, her hands grabbing at the arm that held her. Her voice croaked silent as the man squeezed, her breath wheezing in desperate gasps. Jimmy gasped in shock, not yet able to understand what was happening.

  “When we say move, it is not a request. You have to the count of three.” Jimmy did not hear a count, but the fall of seconds was loud. By the end, the man squeezed, and the neck of the flailing woman snapped. Screams echoed through the concrete cube.

  Jimmy stood rapidly, swooning with the rush of blood and pain. He felt more than saw others in the room do the same. Several people vomited with the effort, and a sickly-sweet smell rose to join the majority who stood. A few remained on the ground, still. The woman’s body dropped from the man’s hand to join them.

  “Good. I am happy only one demonstration was needed. Obedience is an expectation. Punishment is swift. Do not disappoint us again.” The other two left through the now open door, the man who had spoken standing to the in-side.

  “It is time to leave. You will be taken to your new homes where you will have the opportunity to learn about our cause. You will remain silent throughout.” He beckoned the groaning mass forward, and slowly the room emptied as people passed through the door, the man smiling condescendingly at them as they moved past.

  Jimmy kept his eyes down, breathing through his mouth in an effort not to heave. He eyed the man as he walked past. He was shorter than Jimmy, with blunt, chiselled features. His nose was beakish, jutting out over a thin mouth. His eyes glowed with malicious cruelty. With the woman’s death, adrenaline had started to clear out the fog and pain, and his heart now pumped energy with his blood. He stifled the urge to bolt.

  Passing from the room, Jimmy shuffled in silence along a long corridor lined with closed doors. In front of him, a woman in a torn red dress and one high heel, hobbled forward with heaving sobs. There were three lifts at the end of the corridor, and the other man and woman waited there, splitting the shocked group into each.

  As the last of the group was sorted, Jimmy found himself in the left most lift with the silent man. He faced towards them, and before anyone could even twitch, he grabbed the throat of a young man from the front of the group lifting him off his feet. The whole group went still.

  The young man’s eyes bulged from his pretty, blood-stained face.

  “This is to encourage your ongoing good behaviour. Anyone who tries to be a hero, will cause this man’s death.” He had a slight accent, a rolling of the r’s and a lengthening of the vowels, the tone of his voice sandpapered thin like a pack a day smoker. He was taller than Jimmy, his features Grecian. His cold eyes moved across each of the lift’s occupants. None met his gaze.

  “Very good. We will be travelling down five floors to a carpark basement. There will be a van waiting outside of the lift. Other’s will be there to monitor you.” He paused to let that sink in. “You will all enter the rear doors of the van in silence and sit against the walls. There will be handcuffs on each seat. You will put them on. Anyone who tries to run will be caught and killed.” Again, he paused, waiting for a response. The only sound was the laboured breaths of the man he held by the throat. He pressed the B5 button, and the doors closed on the eerie silence.

  Jimmy, like everyone else, stared at the floor.

  As the lift doors opened, they funnelled out and into the long dark van. Jimmy considered but quickly discarded the idea of running, the fear of retaliation too strong. He sat against the van wall, handcuffing himself. He kept the cuffs loose, but not so loose that he could slip his hands free. He was glad he did, as the man came in and checked each of the captives. Those who had failed to securely cuff themselves had them reset to circulation strangling levels. The doors were slammed shut, and they sat in pitch black silence.

  About ten agonising seconds passed before the van started and they could feel movement.

  No one spoke for the longest time.

  “What the fuck is happening?” someone whispered with a hitched sob.

  Nobody answered.

  ? ? ?

  MIRROR KING

  A LitRPG Adventure

  Gregory Zell is a relatively normal, thirty-year-old paramedic living in Northern California.

  Life is good. He owns his own home, has a wonderful wife, a couple of dogs, and plenty of friends. Until the day he drops an ancient mirror down a staircase in San Francisco.

  In trying to catch it, he falls.

  The mirror does not break.

  It swallows him.

  Greg awakens in a world where magic is real, power is earned through mysterious books, and nearly everything is trying to kill him.

  His goal: grow powerful enough to return home… and bring those he loves with him.

  ? ? ?

  What Awaits Within These Pages

  ? 2–3.5k words per chapter

  ? Mature, weak-to-strong progression

  ? RPG-lite system

  ? Skill-focused advancement

  ? Language, gore, horror elements

  ? ? ?