Jake thought he heard a dreadful scream after a while but the moment he snapped out of the day dreaming he had entered after walking for a while, he heard nothing and assumed it was nothing but his imagination.
"Jake" he suddenly heard as he neared his room, making him slightly jump in surprise.
"It's just me, did you see Aiden?" spoke Grayson as he fully opened his door and stepped out.
"Aiden? Now that you mention it, I haven't seen him today" responded Jake as he remembered the last thing Aiden had told him.
"He told me that he would be looking around but I didn't run into him at all in the hallways" he said.
Grayson squinted his eyes, he hoped that Aiden hadn't ventured into a place without people, this whole place was mostly empty but some parts had clearly been left to rot, if he had gone there without anyone else, he would make for a easy picking.
But surely, Aiden wouldn't have been so stupid, he had some common sense and had certainly seen some horror movies, he should know not to willfully step on a loaded mouse trap.
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Aiden had never seen a horror movie in his life and the lack of danger had made him ignore a clear red flag.
He had stepped into one of those buildings left abandoned after no one saw any use in them, the crown had made many of those in an attempt to keep professionals close to itself but had failed spectacularly, these places had been left as they were for two decades now.
The one Aiden had stepped into was one of the many warehouses meant to accomodate materials and tools amongst other things.
Many crates and other containers had been left behind, giving the impression that this place was filled to the brim with stuff of all kind but everything was either empty or home to rats.
Aiden had been tempted by curiosity and had entered one of them upon noticing that the large door leading to it had been left opened ever so slightly.
Nothing wrong had happened since he had entered and started exploring the maze of stacked up crates, the door hadn't closed by itself and no furtive shadows had been spotted from the corner of his eyes, no strange noises were to be reported either.
Only the noises of the rodents walking around and some wood creaking filled the place, nothing that appeared as strange to Aiden.
After a bit of walking and always making sure to follow the wall of crates to his right, he spotted a shiny object on the floor as he crossed a corner.
Bending over to picked it up, only to notice that it was a small shard of a mirror, it had been reflecting the light coming from one of the openings in the ceiling.
A bit disappointed, Aiden raised his head, staring straight ahead in the process, this action caused him to jump back in fright as he saw someone standing in front of him, only a few meters away.
The scare quickly subsided as he looked again, he saw his own face.
'It's just a mirror...' he thought as he raised one hand up.
The relief was short lived as his reflection did not follow his movement and kept on staring right at him.
As Aiden inspected the reflection more attentively, he noticed that apart from his face, the figure had nothing in common with him, it wasn't wearing the same clothes at all.
It was wearing what looked like a black hoodie from his past world, the pants were more in tune with this world and so were the shoes, sticking a bit from behind its left shoulder, Aiden could make out the handle and guard of a beautiful golden weapon.
His face in the reflection did not move at all, being a still copy of his most common expression instead.
As the realisation of the reflections true identity struck, Aiden quickly acted, he pointed his already loaded crossbow at the figure as his eyes shone a powerful yellow, revealing to him the beings status.
Or so it should have, just like when he had inspected the bag head, the access to the status was denied and only random letters could be made out, floating around and constantly switching places.
Five letters could be made out, a Z, A, T, O and a S.
Aiden focused even more, trying to force his way past that protection that could even deflect his ability but all he got was the letters to stand still and in a perfect line.
'OTA-ZS?' he thought as he felt a slight headache making itself known, he withdrew his ability, feeling the headache go away immediately.
The figure wearing his face started closing in, walking as it it grabbed the golden handle of its weapon, revealing what appeared to be a long cutlass knife before accelarating and running straight for Aiden.
He shot his crossbow at the rushing figure, it made no attempt to dodge or block it and let the bolt crash against its face.
The bolt bounced off as if it had been shot at a wall of reinforced stone and did nothing to stop the momentum of the figure that bore Aiden's face.
The gap between the both of them was quickly being shortened but Aiden showed no panic on his face and instead smiled.
"Ah, I see" he said before clearly panicking and pulling a pile of empty crates down, it crashed down on the myserious assailant and into other crates, causing a domino effects resulting in a horrendous amount of crates to come crashing down as Aiden was booking it.
The crates broke and sent splinters flying everywhere, the accumulated dust rose up and the rats panicked too, running like headless chickens amisdt the chaos and lashing out at anything that moved.
The false reflections rose up from the remains of the crates, totally unscathed, holding a rat that had tried to bite at its ankle in one hand, flinging it in the air before slashing it in two spreading its guts everywhere as the figure looked around.
Aiden was already outside.
Aiden ran out of its range and the figures unmoving face melted into a grey blankness, it cleaned its blade of the rats blood and disappeared into the darkness, it had missed its chance.