Swallowing to try and get some moisture back in his mouth, he pushed himself upright. A small mote of greenish flame floated just beside the edge of the wall, which had already reformed as if nothing had happened.
He looked from it to his palm.
There was no trace of where the blade had emerged from on Alex's skin, but a simple thought brought another glistening blade to bear at the tip of one of his fingers. Alex dismissed it with another, staring at his body in disbelief.
So that's what it means to take on Glint's abilities? I suppose I should be happy I didn't grow spikes out of my entire body and destroy my clothes.
His hands shook as he clenched and unclenched them a few times, hardly able to believe that he was still alive.
It wasn't fear that made him tremble, though. It was excitement. A laugh slipped from Alex's lips, intensifying as the adrenaline drove his frayed nerves to the max. He was alive. And, more importantly, that fight had been fun.
"Oh, yeah. This is it," Alex murmured to himself as his laughter finally petered out. He drew in a deep breath to steady himself and let it out slowly. "That was exhilarating. I'm going to enjoy this."
He glanced around for his Spatial Mirror, only to find that it was back in the metal box. Alex had lost track of it during the fight after the Hauntling attacked him, but he knew for a fact that he hadn't returned it to the box.
It must return automatically. Convenient.
Alex pulled the mirror out and glanced over it. From the description of his abilities, he was pretty sure that Glint wasn't dead, but he wanted to make sure.
Spatial Mirror
Stored Energy: None
Bonded Creature: Shardwalker (Regenerating)
Alex breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't completely wasted his companion's life. There wasn't much point in being a summoner if all his summons got killed in the first few seconds of a fight.
His gaze lowered to the floating mote of greenish-black light that the Hauntling had left behind. It looked remarkably similar to the energy that had been floating in his mirror – aside from the color, that was.
Golden words flickered in the air above it.
Low Novice Grade (Shaded Hauntling)
He extended a hand and let a finger brush across the flame. A faint shiver ran down his arm. It wasn't anything near as intense as the energy that had summoned Glint, but it was definitely of the same variant.
Alex grabbed the mote and brought it over to the mirror. It had a spot to hold energy, so he was pretty sure that—
Before he could even bring the flame all the way up to the mirror's face, it was sucked from his fingers and drawn into its silvery surface. The card rippled before returning to a plain, dark background, but the words at the top changed.
Spatial Mirror
Stored Energy:
Low Novice Grade (Shaded Hauntling) – 1
Bonded Creature: Shardwalker (Regenerating)
"Well then," Alex said, lowering the mirror and scooting up to lean against one of the warped walls. "I guess it's time to sit around and wait for Glint to come back. And, once he does, I'm going to check out where the hell we're stuck. That Trial message I got right when I arrived here said I had to escape, and that means there's a way out. And, if there's a way out, we're going to find it."
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.
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.
///Author's Note///
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