It is, isn't it?
---
You resist the urge to let your anger loose on this poor lady and manage to simply look angry.
"Silencing an actor can't be too much trouble, now can it? I'll do it."
She smiles at you.
"Great!" she says and glances at Zeke. "You go with him, I don't want him to get lost."
Zeke doesn't reply, just growls something. You get a feeling that you shouldn't talk to him until something cheers him up.
"But it's a long way to the compound, isn't it?" you say.
"Yes, on foot it is. But there are faster ways, you know." she says and hands you a map. "I've drawn a way on this with a red marker. Just follow that way and it'll lead you to something more useful than your feet." she says and smiles at you again. You smile back and turn around to leave. Zeke is already through the door, and you look at the darkness for just a second before entering. But when the door closes behind you and you walk alone in the darkness, you feel that something is different. Your head feels... dusty, somehow. Like something had drawn a furry tounge over your brain. As you try to look around, you see two tiny, red dots in the dark. You stare at them, they do nothing.
"What the hell is this?!" you whisper. You get a strange feeling that two voices said the same thing. The two dots grows bigger, as if they were coming against you. From the dark suddenly comes a blinding light. You scream in surprise and cover your eyes. You hear a gasp from the dark. You look up when your eyes doesn't hurt anymore. You gasp as well.
What you see is you. Someone thinner, with silver hair and metallic blue skin, and the face defenitly doesn't look like yours, but the way the man moves and the strange "feeling" around him is identical to yours. You stare at yourself. The mans eyes widens.
"What? Who are you?!" he says. The voice is yours.
"Vidash..." you say, slowly. "Vidash Welfos. Who are you?"
The man doesn't reply for a while.
"Sleepwalker." he finally says. "That's what my companions called me."
"People here call me sleepwalker too, but I haven't accepted it as a name. Is that your real name?"
He stares at you, his mouth and eyes wide with surprise.
"Well, um. No... But, ah..." he manage to say before he gets his bearings. He holds his head higher and say:
"My name is Paño Elfaras, soldier in the army of the king!" he says proudly. His shoulders sink a bit. "That would be before these dreaded time. First someone steals me to the nothingness, place me unknowing of my recent past and present in a unknown city and then they make me meet a living mirror!"
You get a weird feeling and want to run.
"That's exactly what has happened to me..." you say silently. You and Paño look at each other for a while, no one saying a thing. The light in his hand flickers. He looks at it and then at you. He slowly turns around and stands still. Before he disappears in the darkness, he says over his shoulder:
"Have you met the man with eyes like a cat...?"
When he's gone, you continue on. When you step out of the darkness onto the street, Zeke glares at you with his one eye.
"You just had to stay and rest for a while, eh?"
You decide not to tell him anything about your strange meeting with Paño and give him the map. He opens it and looks at it.
"Um..." he says. You take the map back from him and looks at it. It's covered with runes and on the bottom it says, written in a shaky, hectic way:
"YOU SHaLL NEVER FIND ME DIE AND GIVE Me WHATEveR SECRET YOU HAVE"
As you look at it, the letters blend together with the runes and begins to tremble in a worrying way. Before you can say anything to Zeke about it, the letters and runes have formed some sort of draconic creature that leaps out from the paper and begins to shred your face. The tiny wounds it makes burns like flames going all over your body. You scream and try to tear it off your face, but your hands just go through it. It bites and shreds your face with teeth and claws, the pain forces you to your knees. Zeke's attempts to help you and your own screams fades. You disappear into darkness.
When you wake up, you feel blood running down your face. You look at Zeke, that is watching you. You can't think of anything useful to say.
"And my face was already scarred from that accursed bottle..." you mumble. He grins.
"So you're alive after all! And don't worry, chicks like scars." he says while helping you to your feet.
"Yeah, well I don't like getting them. What happened to the creature?"
He shrugs.
"It was magic, that's for sure. But apparently not strong enough, that thing was out to kill you, but after almost shredding your face and throat to bits it just faded away and took its paper with it."
"So the map is gone."
"There was probably no map from the beginning."
"Why did the lady do this to me?" you ask. He looks offended.
"Hey! The Lady wanted to help you! She can't weild magic anyway. Someone else did this." he says.
You look on the street and think how many there are of them. How would you ever find the lady's gift without the map?
"Did you know where that map lead to?"
"Nope."
"Then now what?"
Zeke shrugs. You wipe some blood of you face and looks at it. As you do you get a strange feeling of being more than one person. The only thought that's in your mind is, for some reason:
They've found me.
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