I know what you're thinking.
What the fuck.
Believe me, those were my thoughts exactly.
There's nothing ominous about a bullet vibrator.
In fact, I had completely forgotten I owned one until recent events.
It started on Thursday.
I was in my room getting my notes organized for my upcoming midterms when I started hearing
a dull vibrating sound.
I looked down at my phone to see if I was getting a call, but my screen was blank.
I glanced over to my roommate's side of the room to see if she had left her phone charging,
but she hadn't.
I kicked my feet out from beneath me, annoyed, and placed my binder to the side.
I got up and started looking around my dorm for the source of the noise.
This brief investigation led me to my underwear drawer.
I moved my socks, bras, and the like out of the way to discover the small blue bullet
I had bought my freshman year of college (I'm now a senior).
I twisted the bottom to turn the thing off and started laughing; I had been stressed
with classes lately and the situation felt like the world's attempt at comedic relief.
I tossed the bullet back into my drawer and went back to my notes.
On Friday morning, around two, I was woken up by my roommate stumbling drunk into the
dorm room.
I reached over and turned on the light, which I had to hit a few times to get steady as
the bulb flickered, and watched as she sloppily wiped off her makeup with a paper towel while
simultaneously kicking off her shoes and wiggling out of her dress.
Once she had fallen into bed, I got up and positioned the waste basket beside her bed
for when she vomited, like she always did when she got drunk.
I crawled back into my bed and was about to turn off the light when I hear her mumbling
something.
"What?"
I asked her.
"Turn off that fucking noise," she groaned as she rolled over, pulling her blankets over
her head.
I looked at her like she was crazy until I started picking up on the noise she was talking
about.
I looked over at my drawers, rolled my eyes then walked over to them.
I opened my underwear drawer and turned off the bullet again; this time, though, after
asking myself why the hell I still had the thing, I took the batteries out and tossed
it in the waste basket.
I turned off the light and went back to bed.
I was woke up again by the lamp turning on.
I slept through it initially, but eventually woke up since it hadn't been turned off.
I thought my roommate had turned it on, but when I glanced over at her, she was dead asleep.
I unplugged my lamp and went back to sleep.
Friday afternoon, when I came back from classes, I saw my roommate sitting on her bed looking
like she was having an existential crisis.
I threw my bag on the floor and slumped down on our couch.
"Did you talk to your mom today?"
I asked her.
"You look like you did."
"I ate a sex toy last night," she said, pointing to the waste basket.
I got up and walked over to her, glancing down at the basket where I had thrown the
old bullet in, which was now covered in vomit.
"Jesus fucking..."
I muttered to myself.
"Are you still drunk?
I threw that away yesterday; you didn't eat a sex toy."
My roommate looked so relieved when I said this that I couldn't help but laugh at her.
"You shouldn't have told me that," she said with a small laugh, "I was about to
quit drinking for good."
She laid back down with her face in her pillow, "Maybe I should still quit.
I just believed I ate a sex toy."
She rolled onto her back.
"I need some air."
She got up and put on her shoes.
"I'm going to get some food, do you want anything?"
"I'll probably just microwave something downstairs," I said.
"Alright," she said as she left.
I did my homework and studied for a bit then went over to our closet where we kept some
microwaveable food, which was mostly just Easy Mac.
I grabbed on and went downstairs to the lobby (as we called it) where we (the dorm building)
had all pitched in to buy to cheap microwaves.
I went over to the water fountain to fill the Easy Mac bowl then put my soon to be dinner
into the microwave.
It had been thirty seconds and the power went out in the dorm.
I closed my eyes, sighed, and waited for the generator to kick on.
But it didn't.
I looked out the window to check to see if it had started storming, but the evening skies
were clear.
I saw other students walking out of dorms and the cafeteria looking annoyed and confused
at the power outage.
I turned to walk outside to see if I could find someone who knew what was going on, when
my phone started going mental in my pocket.
It was vibrating, ringing, flashing, turning on and off - everything you can think of a
phone doing, my phone was doing.
I looked out the window again and saw everyone outside looking at their phones, too.
I walked faster to get outside when the fire alarm started wailing, and the doors locked.
The power in the dorm followed my phone; the lights began to flicker, the alarms couldn't
decide if they wanted to be activated or not, and every time I moved to open the door when
it would unlock, it would lock just as quickly.
"What's going on?"
a girl asked behind me, who had come out of her dorm to investigate.
"The power's-" I was interrupted by what I can only describe as a loud, unbearable
sonic wailing.
I fell to the floor immediately, trying to hide from the noise, it was so intense.
The whole building began to shake and I couldn't hear anybody outside or the girl who had been
here previously.
I felt the sensation of pins and needles all over my body.
When I opened my eyes to try to get a look of what was happening, I noticed that the
windows had shattered and the glass was pouring onto the floor in a dust-like form.
I tried to take in more of the surroundings, but the lights were flickering so quickly
that they were making my stomach turn.
I was overwhelmed by a feeling of dread, and just as I was about to close my eyes again,
time seemed to reverse.
The noise ended.
The powdered glass rose from the floor, morphed back into its original form, and filled the
empty spaces as windows once more.
The power steadied and I heard the silent hum of the microwave at the end of the hall.
But as quickly as it all had stopped, it began again.
I looked over to see if the girl was still here with me.
She was in hysterics and had began to scream when the noise started again.
I was forced to the floor by an extreme weight, but she was elevated - thrown into the air
- and disappeared before I could process what was happening to her.
Then I began to rise.
I reached for something, anything, to keep me grounded but I was not successful.
I was barreled through the three floors of the dorm building and out into the open sky.
I remember watching the campus become smaller and smaller as I rose, and then my back hit
something extremely hard.
I fell onto my stomach; the air was knocked out of me.
I felt something sharp behind my ear and a tremendous pressure pushing down on my neck.
Before I had time to scream, I found myself standing back at the microwave.
The timer was counting down and the dorm was in its normal condition.
I screamed and fell backwards.
My ear felt like it was on fire.
I got back to my feet and looked out the window to see that everybody was acting normally.
I ran back up to my dorm room and saw that my roommate had returned.
She was on her laptop and looked up as I barged into the room.
"What's the matter?" she asked with a nervous laugh.
"Now you look like the one who's been talking to my mother."
"The power," I tried to talk.
I was in hysterics.
"Hey," she said soothingly.
"Hey, are you okay?
What's wrong about the power?"
I explained everything that had happened to her, but my roommate didn't comprehend any
of it.
She told me the power hadn't gone out, and that she had saw the girl who I had saw be
thrown through the air, just five minutes ago when she came back to the dorm.
After I had tried relentlessly to get her to understand what I was saying, I realized
that she truly didn't believe me.
In the moment I made up some piss pour reasoning that I was having a bad panic attack, and
she believed that without hesitation.
I told her I was going to sleep.
I got into my bed and covered myself with my blankets, but I couldn't even close my
eyes I was trembling so bad.
As the adrenaline faded, I became aware once again to the burning behind my ear.
I wanted to jump out of bed and get my roommate to see it, but I decided that I had probably
freaked her out enough, and anymore convincing from my end would went up with her calling
campus security on me.
Whatever this is, it hurts like a bitch.
It's bumpy sort of like a rash, but it is so sore and bulges in the middle if I run
my finger over it.
My ear has been ringing nonstop and I have an awful headache.
I really have no idea how to end this.
I just really need someone to believe that something happened to me.
I'm not entirely sure what, though.
I don't even know how to explain it anymore than I already have.
I know some people aren't going to take me seriously from the title of this, but something
really did happen to me.
I'm so confused and scared shitless.
Can anyone help me?
Grandma started to lose her mind as she aged, and Mother thought it would be wise to take
her into our home.
She thought it might slow the progression, or at least keep her comfortable until her
mind was emptied of every last one of it's marbles.
Grandma was always a strict, bitter, and admittedly terrifying woman.
She was well respected, but also feared.
No one dared stand up to her, even as she started insisting that her delusions and hallucinations
were true.
We went along with it, but we also anxiously awaited the day that the 90 year old would
pass.
Myself being nearly twenty five meant that I did the majority of the housework to pay
my dues, and Grandma was strict about it.
Dad's been gone my entire life, I had no other siblings, and an ectopic pregnancy ruined
my chances at having my own family and tore apart my fragile relationship.
These two women are all I've got, and I needed them when I was alone and my mind slunk into
dark places.
Living with my mother wasn't the most desirable thing, but since my loss I haven't been able
to function at 100%.
Mom could use the help anyways, living alone can be depressing.
I had been back home for a month when Grandma had come to stay with us.
She wasn't quite as crazy when she first got there, just constantly mumbling about voices.
I wasn't ecstatic about housing and caring for a mad woman, but I figured it could be
worse.
I thought it would be something else to take my mind off of constant dark thoughts, but
she ended up being a black hole.
After a few weeks of staying with us her condition was becoming noticeably worse.
Her mumbling turned to shouting, and she began insisting the things she saw and heard were
real.
We had to play along or risk facing a violent outburst.
She'd throw anything close enough to grab, and it fucking hurt if you were in the way
of whatever she was throwing.
We were nearly two months into this hell when she got my mother across the chest with a
plate.
It cut her deeply, and she had to go to the hospital for stitches.
Grandma had always been a bitter woman, but this illness was bringing it to new levels.
Mom refused to tell anyone outside the family how she really got the injury, and you could
tell the secret was eating her up inside.
She followed the one most important rule: You don't do that to family.
Which meant, you never admit to someone outside the family that someone inside did something
wrong.
It was a rule that had been heavily enforced for generations.
After that incident the situation in the house got very tense, and it made me wish I could
get my shit together enough to leave.
I'd feel awful leaving my mother alone with Grandma though.
Another month and things were intolerable.
The house was a constant cascade of noises, TVs, radios, and loud uncomfortable voices
filled any silence.
Silence was no longer allowed.
Partaking in the delusions meant more than just patting the old woman on the shoulder
and saying, "Yes, I hear it too."
We had to help her block out the voices, or face her wrath.
I honestly couldn't understand why my mother wouldn't just put her in a home.
I'd asked her, and every time she gave the same reply, "You don't do that to family."
I can understand the sentiment, I couldn't imagine how I'd feel if I had a child who
sent me away to die in a false paradise.
Old age homes are depressing, I've never met someone with any happy stories about sending
a family member to one.
Now, Grandma would be a different case.
She didn't really deserve the amount of kindness we afforded her, but it wasn't entirely her
fault.
Sure she was a bitch before she went crazy, but it wasn't nearly as bad.
The constant noise was enough to drive you up the wall, and I ended up finally using
my prescription for sleeping pills.
Along with the antidepressants I'd already been taking they helped enough to bring living
there to a level only slightly below intolerable.
It was okay, at least I could sleep through the noise.
Mom didn't get the luxury of taking pills to shut it out, though she tried.
The sleeping pills didn't work well enough for her, and the blaring radio coming from
Grandma's room kept her up nearly every night.
I think her true breaking point was about a month and a half ago.
We were sitting down for dinner together, both the tv and radio were screaming the news
from the living room.
I could tell she was agitated, but I didn't realize how much until she got up and unplugged
everything.
The house fell into a moment of silence before Grandma started screaming.
"Laura, Laura!
Why are you letting them take me!
Why?!"
She shrieked, grasping her head in both hands.
After another quiet moment she looked to me instead, "Mary, sweet child, don't let her
do this to me.
God, make it stop!
MAKE IT STOP!"
I recoiled as her voice raised, unsure of what to do.
"Grandma it's okay, please--"
"Shut the fuck up.
Is it so hard to just have a minute of quiet?"
My mother cut me off with a glare.
I was shocked, to say the least.
I didn't understand why she was suddenly and so aggressively deciding to stop playing into
Grandma's delusions.
I didn't have time to ask her either, because that was the moment when a butter knife flew
across the table.
The heavy metal handle her hit her just above her temple, and the blood was immediate.
She was pissed, but in a terrifyingly calm way.
She touched her fingers to the wound, looked at the blood, and smiled.
"You fucking bitch," She said in a low voice, "I care for you, take you into my
home, put up with your bullshit, and when we don't play along for thirty seconds you
hurt us?"
Grandma looked a little shocked but resumed her yelling, "They're going to take me,
they took my baby!
Look how she disobeys me, she's handing me to the voices!"
Mother shook her head and walked away from the table, and I did the only thing I thought
would help.
I started a random conversation with Grandma, something to distract her from her screaming
and give my mom a chance to calm down and relax.
It wasn't very helpful, I wasn't loud enough to block out the false voices in Grandma's
head.
I ended up sitting her in front of the TV and putting the news back on at a disgustingly
loud volume.
I went to find my mom and ask her if she was okay.
She was in the bathroom tending to her wound.
"Are you going to the hospital?"
"Did you really turn that damn TV back on?"
She replied without looking at me.
"Um..
Yea.
I figured it was better than the screaming.."
"I'm not going anywhere, someone will wonder why I've needed stitches twice in as many
months.
We don't talk about this kind of thing with other people.
You don't do that to family.
Oh, and stop making noise.
I have a migraine and I'm going to lose it on someone if I hear another sound for the
rest of the day."
She pushed past me and walked away, leaving me conflicted.
I spent the rest of the day trying to deal with the screaming, and when I could no longer
take it I decided I needed to calm Grandma down.
Mom had gotten so pissed off that she had moved the TV and radio from the living room
into her own bedroom and closed herself in with them.
There was only screaming to be heard in the house.
I spent hours trying to talk Grandma out of it, but it only calmed her slightly.
When mom finally came out of the room she looked exhausted.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"
She sighed.
I felt bad for disobeying, but I didn't know how else to deal with it.
"You want tea Mary?
I'm gonna make us all some tea so we can forget about this stressful day."
I nodded, wanting to avoid her freaking out again.
We all sat and drank the tea, while Mom sang loudly to avoid the screaming.
It was almost a peaceful moment.
I checked the time after we finished and it was getting late, so I helped Grandma up the
stairs and into bed.
I turned on her bedside radio, and she was asleep within a few minutes.
Relative peace at last.
The day had exhausted me.
I called a goodnight down the stairs to mom, and went into my own room.
I couldn't immediately find my sleeping pills, but I was so exhausted that I didn't bother
searching.
I'd sleep fine without taking one.
I slept better than I had in months, it was deep and peaceful and when I finally woke
up I wished I could have stayed asleep forever.
It was still dark, I was groggy and in a great amount of pain.
I brought my hand to my face and I could feel that something was very, very wrong.
I ran to the bathroom and caught sight of myself in the mirror, and my mouth bled as
it attempted to open and vomit.
I choked it down and cried silent tears.
My mouth was sewn shut.
Somehow through my shock I noticed an empty pill bottle in the sink, my sleeping pills.
I had refilled the prescription only two days ago, meaning that nearly thirty pills had
been used.
I felt sick as I realized what my mother had done.
I ran to Grandma's room next, and found her in the same mutilated state as I was.
Only, she was also cold to the touch.
I fought the urge to vomit again, and left the room.
She either overdosed or asphyxiated and I wasn't trained to tell which was the case
with her mouth sewn.
I couldn't find my mother anywhere in the house, and when I pulled out my phone I realized
that she could be anywhere right now.
I had slept for nearly two days.
No wonder I didn't wake up while being mutilated, I was nearly comatose.
I wanted to call the police, but as I was about to dial I kicked myself internally.
You can't talk, stupid.
I walked my sorry ass to the nearest hospital, not wanting to traumatize anyone on the way.
My car was missing, so I guess that's what mom used.
The hospital staff nearly shit themselves when I walked into the emergency room, it
was almost funny.
This entire part if my journey is fairly boring, except for when they realized that behind
my sewn lips I had no tongue.
They "replaced" it, but I haven't learned how to speak again yet.
I'm scared to talk ever again.
The police came to question me about what happened, but I only wrote down that I couldn't
remember.
Obviously my mother was a suspect, they had found Grandma's body in her house.
I know it seems messed up that I wouldn't directly admit what my mother did, but I have
three very good reasons for that.
1.
She was already the only suspect.
2.
I was afraid she'd find me and punish me again for speaking when I shouldn't.
3.
You don't do that to family.
My wife has always adored infinity mirrors, those parallel mirrors that reflect off each
other and give an illusion of infinite distance.
Me, though?
Not a huge fan.
They unnerve me.
I guess I simply dislike the way they make reflections stretch on far into the distance,
because to me it feels like an endless expanse of unknown space – and that feeling of the
vast, incomprehensible unknown makes me uncomfortable.
Though perhaps I should make an amendment to that paragraph I just wrote, because I
can no longer describe my feelings for infinity mirrors with words like 'unnerve', 'dislike'
or 'uncomfortable'.
No, after what happened to me last week I suppose it would be more apt to say that infinity
mirrors absolutely fucking terrify me, and that I have no desire to even come close to
one.
Being near an infinity mirror is quite easily the last thing I would ever want to do.
And, to be perfectly honest, I would urgently recommend for you to think the same way, too.
I implore you, don't read this as a story.
Read this as a warning.
It all started on a Tuesday night.
I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, at around 3am or so.
This had happened many times before, probably because I was a restless sleeper and I wasn't
adjusted to sleeping on our new bed.
My wife and I had just moved in to this new house of ours, and though I was completely
content with most of the decisions we made, the choice to skimp out and buy a cheap mattress
was something I was having serious reservations about.
I stared idly at the ceiling for a while before deciding to get out of bed.
I was feeling really thirsty and I'm the type of guy who can't sleep at all if my
throat feels even a tiny bit dry, so I figured I'd go pour myself a glass of water.
Not wanting to wake up my wife, I very quietly lumbered out the bedroom door and into the
hallway before it.
It was dark, and I was still half-asleep, so I couldn't really see where I was going.
I was relying a lot on instinct and memory as I walked through.
I'd almost made it to the end of the hallway when I stopped at the mirrors.
The fucking infinity mirrors; two wide mirrors spanning from the floor to the ceiling on
each side of me, about as wide as twice my arm span.
I still remember when we had decided to install them, much to my chagrin.
Didn't want to go against what the wife wanted, you see.
Huge mistake.
I paused a bit and yawned.
Maybe I was just a bit drowsy, but it felt like there was something off about the reflections
that were all around me.
I stared with half-open eyes at all the images of myself that were repeated into the infinite
horizon before me.
The mirrors gave off the illusion that we were stuck in some sort of endless tunnel.
A childlike curiosity overcame me, and I slowly raised my hand, something that I'm sure
many of you have done before when facing an infinity mirror or hall of mirrors.
As I raised my hand, all the images of myself followed suit.
I lowered my hand, as did they.
It was dark, which made it hard to properly see the endless recursions that stretched
on and on before me.
I made to turn, when I noticed something.
There was a shimmering of some sort, far in the distance.
Moreover, amongst the infinity of images before me one of my reflections was acting… bizarrely.
It was far away, so I couldn't see it clearly, but it held its head in one hand, as if it
had a massive headache or something.
It looked like it was screaming.
And then it started walking.
With a slight limp, it started walking through the layers of layers of infinite reflections,
coming closer and closer towards me.
It was slowly getting bigger as it half-limped through each layer.
It was approaching quicker, now.
More desperate.
Frantic.
And that shimmering from before was behind it, I realised.
The shimmering was following the reflection.
Hunting it.
I was frozen in terror, unable or unwilling to comprehend what was unfolding within the
endless tunnel before me.
The reflection drew closer and closer towards me, desperately limping through layer after
layer, and as it approached I noticed that its face – my face – was contorted into
a visage of pure fear.
The reflection reached the mirror before me and started pounding at it with its fists.
It was trying to break out, screaming all the while.
The shimmering approached my image from behind.
I could see the look of terror in my eyes as I futilely wailed on the mirror before
me.
Trying to escape.
And then -
And then my face was ripped apart, right in front of me.
The top half of my head was slashed away, leaving half of my bloody face in a dreadful
scream.
I watched as my lifeless body slumped like a ragdoll to the floor, to be promptly consumed
by the shimmering which descended upon it.
Then there was silence, and nothing.
Nothing but me and a myriad of my reflections, all shivering in fear and shock, an undoubtedly
appropriate reaction to the brutal scene that had just unfolded.
I couldn't shake that incident from my mind.
Naturally, I'd gone and woke up my wife in panic, and we went to the hallway to turn
on the damn lights and check the infinity mirrors.
She reprimanded me a bit for waking her over some ludicrous nightmare; there was, of course,
nothing she could see wrong with the mirrors.
I couldn't offer her a proper response, because I was too afraid.
She couldn't see it, but there was a thin, easily distinguishable crack that ran across
one of the mirrors.
And it was in located where my reflection had been striking the mirror with all its
might, trying to escape from whatever it was that had hunted it down.
We went back to bed, but I couldn't sleep a wink that night.
All I could think about was what had happened to my poor reflection.
This continued into the next day at work; I couldn't help but constantly dwell on
the nightmare that had unfolded within the infinity mirrors.
I remember making a few mistakes while working, I wasn't able to think straight at all.
I told my boss that I wasn't feeling too well and he graciously let me take half the
day off.
I drove home with nothing but mirrors in my mind.
I couldn't even look at my rear-view mirrors without recalling that terrible scene from
the night before.
I was an awful wrack of nerves, and to be honest I probably shouldn't have been driving
at that stage.
I was not only mentally worn out, but also sleep-deprived.
More than anything, I was just looking forward to arriving home, collapsing on my bed and
taking a long nap.
But, well, when I did arrive home my worst fears were realised.
The mirror in the hallway, the one that had been cracked last night, was now more noticeably
damaged.
A sizable portion of the mirror's top right quadrant was gone, leaving behind jagged,
broken edges.
There was no trace of glass on the floor but it was clear that the mirror had been shattered.
It was as if something had broken out of it from within.
And judging from the bloodstains that were across the floor, there was someone or something
in my house.
Heart pounding, I cautiously opened my bedroom door and entered.
I couldn't believe what I saw.
It was someone who looked uncannily like myself, standing right there in front of my bed.
The man was so identical to me that you wouldn't even be able to call us identical twins, because
identical twins are usually subtly distinguishable and, well, the Mark in front of me was most
undeniably an exact copy of myself.
"Now, I need you to listen to me carefully," the doppelganger said.
"What the fuck," was all that I could muster.
"Exactly my reaction, believe me or not.
We've not much time, so I'll be blunt.
I'm you, from a different reality.
A reflection, if you will."
"Yeah, I can fucking see that.
It's like staring into a goddamn mirror.
This is surreal."
"Look, yeah, I know this is all quite sudden for you, but can you please shut the fuck
up and listen for just a second?
Your time is dwindling, quickly, and I have to explain everything before it happens."
"Before what happens?"
"Before you get sucked into the Infinite Horizon.
The infinity mirrors."
I recalled last night's incident.
I could still picture my reflection slumping lifelessly to the ground, half of its face
ripped apart by god-knows-what.
It seems that awful, gnawing feeling I had about the whole ordeal was correct.
What I had witnessed in the mirror was real.
"Alright," I said.
"I get it.
You're here to caution me on how to avoid being trapped in the infinity mirrors.
I can surmise that much, at the very least."
The reflection smiled.
"Close, but I'm afraid you're wrong.
I'm here to caution you on something, yes, but the matter of being trapped in the infinity
mirrors is unavoidable.
This isn't about avoiding the Infinite Horizon.
It's about knowing what to do once you're in there."
"By 'Infinite Horizon,' you mean whatever's inside the infinity mirrors, right?"
"Right.
It's a term used by the Mark who warned me the very same thing I'm warning you."
"Wait, so you're from the future?"
"In a way, I suppose.
It'd be more accurate to say that I'm from a different reality that occurs just
a smidgen earlier than yours.
Imagine if every layer in an Infinity Mirror is a different reality, each operating on
a different timeline.
I'm from one of those layers, one very similar to yours.
As for why I'm here, well, I'm just here because I was warned myself and now I'm
passing on the favour."
"So does this mean you've been inside this Infinite Horizon, or whatever you call
it?"
"Yes, I have.
And I escaped.
Look, it's not going to be pretty.
Half of us end up like that bloody scene you saw last night."
"And how do I avoid being torn up like that?
I'd very much prefer to have my face largely intact, thank you very much."
"You have to avoid it," the Mark in front of me said with a trace of fear in his voice.
"…it?
You mean the shimmering thing?"
"It looked like something shimmering to you 'cause you couldn't see it properly.
Once you're in there you'll see its true form.
And let me tell you, it's not pleasant.
It's called the Myriad Stalker.
Or the Horizon Splitter, I guess.
Those were the terms used when it was described to me.
We're not sure if it's a demon, a deity or some sort of fucked up experiment gone
wrong, but whatever it is, it's terrifying.
An absolute monstrosity.
The Myriad Stalker's dominion is the Infinite Horizon, that ceaseless repetition of reflections
created by infinity mirrors.
And if you do so happen to have the misfortune of finding yourself lost and afraid in that
sea of mirrors, the Stalker will stop at nothing until it hunts you down and devours you."
"Oh, fuck."
"Yeah, that's what I said.
Look, I'll give it straight to you.
There's a high chance you might die in there.
Like I said before, half of us end up being slaughtered.
It's a fifty-fifty sort of deal.
All you have to do is be faster than the other one."
"The other one?"
I asked.
"When you fall into the Infinite Horizon, there will be one other Mark.
You probably saw him getting shredded to bits yesterday.
Now, you could very well fall victim to the Myriad Stalker and end up like him.
Or, you could escape the Infinite Horizon and end up like me.
All you have to do is outpace the second Mark and break free before he does.
I suppose this is why we sometimes refer to the Stalker as the 'Horizon Splitter.'
If there's an infinite horizon of realities within those infinity mirrors, then the Myriad
Stalker theoretically splits them by killing half of the Marks that exist across all realities.
Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it bisects all our realities into two: an infinite
number of realities where Mark lives on, and an infinite number of realities where Mark
dies.
Think of it like a branching path.
Now, which branch this reality will take, that's for you to decide.
All you have to do is be the Mark that survives."
"Alright, this is sort of a lot to process," I said truthfully.
"I know it's overwhelming, but you have the basic gist of it now.
Knowledge is power."
"One thing - why will there only be two of us in there?
Shouldn't there be more Marks in the Infinite Horizon?
Like an infinite amount?"
"That's just how it is, I suppose.
Maybe the infinite amount of realities are spaced out in a way that only two of us can
fit in there.
Maybe there's an endless amount of Infinite Horizons and we have an infinite number of
Marks that get sucked into 'em in pairs.
Maybe the Myriad Stalker just enjoys hunting two people at the same time.
Who the fuck knows.
Listen to me.
All this shit with the Infinite Horizon and the Stalker, it all defies logic and reason.
Don't try to comprehend the Myriad Stalker.
Its futile.
For example, why do you think it's hunting all of us across all the infinite realities?"
I thought about it for a bit.
"It's because I looked through the infinity mirrors yesterday, and saw something I shouldn't
have.
I saw my reflection acting weirdly, and that's also when I saw the shimmering of the Myriad
Stalker.
All this shit started happening because of that."
"Right, that would make sense.
But the paradox here is that you never would have witnessed that in the first place if
not for us Marks being hunted by the Stalker later on.
There's another possibility here: maybe the Stalker simply saw us staring into the
Infinity Mirrors and warped reality itself so it could prey on us.
Who the fuck knows.
The Myriad Stalker doesn't deal with rational thought, and there's a limitless number
of possible reasons for the situation you're stuck in right now.
Listen to me.
Don't dwell too much on realities and timelines and paradoxes, because that's how it gets
into your head.
Just focus on running.
Run.
Be faster than the other guy.
That's all you need to do."
Mark patted me on the shoulder.
"Good luck, friend.
Remember, you can't outrun the Myriad Stalker.
It's best you offer it a distraction.
Here's my final piece of advice for you: when you find yourself in the Infinite Horizon,
there will be shattered glass before you.
Take a shard of mirror and use it to maim the other Mark.
That way you ensure that you'll be the one to escape."
"Don't feel bad about doing it, too," he added, and it seemed like he was directing
his words more to himself rather than me, "It's necessary.
It's only a Mark from a different reality.
There's infinity of those guys, and only one of you.
It makes sense to do everything you can to survive."
We were interrupted by the sound of the garage door opening.
It seemed like my wife was back home.
"That'll be Liz," the Mark before me whispered.
"Best you go greet her and distract her for a bit while I hide.
It'll be catastrophic if she sees me."
"Right, makes sense.
Thanks, by the way.
For telling me all this."
"No worries.
Go.
Now."
I made my way out the bedroom door.
Into the hallway with the Infinity mirrors.
My heart was beating hard, probably because I was still digesting everything that Mark
had just told me.
I slowly walked past the cracked mirror, a bit light headed.
My heartbeat was reverberating all throughout my head.
Pounding.
And suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my left temple.
I stumbled sideways and clutched at my head.
The Mark from the other reality was beside me.
He'd crept up behind me and struck me, hard.
"I'm sorry," he said as he shoved me into the infinity mirror.
Into the jaws of the Infinite Horizon.
Inside, it was dark.
I landed hard on my back.
I could only helplessly watch as the second Mark walked away from the mirror, leaving
me lying there on the ground.
"Fuck me," I swore to myself.
Immediately that distinction I'd had on the mirror before me blurred, and my own reality
became one with the infinite amount of other realities behind it.
It was like a camera losing focus on a certain point – I'd lost the focus I had on my
own reality, and now all I could see was layer after layer of countless mirrors that stretched
off into an endless tunnel before me.
There was no doubt about it.
I was deep in the Infinite Horizon.
I stood shakily to my feet and a roar echoed from behind me.
It sounded distant, but it chilled me to the bone nonetheless.
It sounded like the deafening crash of mirrors shattering, interspersed with a hint of ferocity
and hunger.
Though it didn't sound like any animal I knew, it still felt like it had a raw, primal
quality about it.
The message was clear: the Myriad Stalker was on the hunt, and I was its prey.
I needed to get going, this much was obvious.
Just like the doppelganger Mark had informed me, there seemed to be some broken, scattered
fragments of mirror before me.
I picked up a sizable shard, held it in my right hand, and started running.
The uncountable number of layers stretched out before me into the far horizon.
I ran through mirror after mirror after mirror, and though my legs ached it felt like I was
making no progress at all.
I was lost in the seemingly endless tunnel and unsure of where I had to run to.
All I knew was that I had to somehow escape the Myriad Stalker.
It wasn't long before the second Mark came in, violently crashing to the floor on his
hands and feet some metres in front of me.
He quickly got to his feet and looked around, confused and afraid.
It seemed like the doppelganger wasn't lying to me.
The Mark from the other reality was here, and all I had to do to escape was outpace
him.
He started running, fast.
I gripped the shard of mirror in my hand and it dug into my skin.
I filled myself with a quiet resolve as I ran forwards with an increased pace.
But as I approached the second Mark, the same screeching roar emanated from behind.
I began to hear a violent crashing from behind me.
The terrific crashing sound seemed to bounce off all the mirrors, surrounding and echoing
all around us.
The Myriad Stalker was beginning to move more quickly, it seemed.
I paused for a second to take a quick look behind me, but all I could see was a long
stretch of nothing.
Just a dark, endless tunnel that reached far into infinity.
Where was the Myriad Stalker?
Nevermind that.
I had to focus on running.
Don't think about the Stalker, I told myself.
I turned back - and gasped in surprise.
The view before me had changed.
While before it'd been like a dark tunnel of infinity mirrors, now it was more like
a wide, expansive plain of mirrors.
The mirrors repeated infinitely into the horizon not only in front of me, but also to my left
and right.
It seems like the Infinity Horizon wasn't a straight tunnel; no, it was something more
like an unfathomably vast plane of existence comprised of mirrors in every.
I was almost overwhelmed just looking at the sea of mirrors before me.
While the endless tunnel gave me the slightly claustrophobic feeling of being closed in,
this endless plane made me feel uncomfortably cognizant of just how small I truly was.
Mirrors receded into the far horizon all around me.
In every direction before me stood an infinite number of mirrors, and each of those mirrors
contained a different reality to mine altogether.
In the grasp of infinity I was nothing but a minuscule, insignificant speck.
The ferocious screeching of the Myriad Stalker filled my ears.
From the sound of it, the Stalker was drawing closer.
It was getting louder, and I could now feel mirrors near me tremble due to a titanic force
approaching.
I shook my head and began running again.
Fuck, there was no time.
At this rate I'd end up being the Mark that died in here.
To make things worse, I'd lost track of the other Mark.
He was somewhere ahead of me, further away from the Stalker than I was.
I no longer had any sort of bearing on my location.
The Infinity Horizon stretched out in all directions, and I had no idea which way I'd
been running before.
But it didn't matter.
All I had to do was run forwards, away from the terrific crashing sound of the Myriad
Stalker, which was gaining on me.
As I ran I began to see a countless number of large, red eyes that gleamed off the mirrors
surrounding me.
I was beginning to see the Myriad Stalker's reflection.
Rather, I was beginning to see fragments of the Myriad Stalker's reflection.
In all the mirrors around me I saw different segments of the Myriad Stalker, and as it
moved closer towards me the images danced and morphed like fractals.
Through piecing together the innumerable, fragmented images of the Stalker I was able
to paint a picture in my mind, a picture of how the Stalker looked.
And what a terrifying picture it was.
It was colossal; I could tell this even through the scattered reflections I saw.
It had an uncountable number of smooth, eyeless heads, clustered together like blackberries.
Each head had wide jaws, filled with hundreds of rows of long, sharp teeth.
It had a muscular torso, with needles spiralling all around its innumerable crimson eyes.
And it seemed to skitter around on hulking appendages, comprised of a writhing mass of
human bodies in various states of mutilation, stuck together and screaming.
With the images of the Myriad Stalker cascading throughout the mirrors around me, I stopped.
I was panicking.
Dread welled up from within the pit of my stomach.
The Stalker roared that same screeching, crashing, cacophony of shattering mirrors.
Visions flashed through my mind.
All the mirrors receding into the horizon before me consisted of unique, separate realities.
And my mind was being filled with images of my life in those realities.
It was showing me myself, growing old.
Having children.
Living a fulfilling life.
It was potential.
I was being shown an infinite horizon of my potential future, across every reality.
I knew that these were the futures that the Stalker had consumed.
The unfulfilled futures of all the Marks that were, and will be, consumed in the Infinite
Horizon.
I almost choked in despair, but instead I grit my teeth.
I wouldn't fall amongst them.
I'd be the one to escape.
I ran forwards, still gripping the shard of mirror in my right hand.
I had no goal, but I was focused on running straight.
Straight, away from the deafening roar of the Myriad Stalker behind me.
In the unending plane of mirrors before me, I began to see another running figure.
It was the second Mark, running forwards with desperation.
And within the innumerable reflections of receding mirrors before us, was a single shaft
of light.
It shone faintly through a single crack in the far distance.
In the sea of mirrors, one mirror was damaged.
The thrashing behind us intensified, and I could hear the crashing of the Myriad Stalker
echo all about me.
It was closing on us, its gruesome reflections dancing through every mirror in my vicinity.
But I paid no heed to it and ran forwards, focusing only on one thing.
I ran, legs pumping with a surging adrenaline now flowing through me.
I gained on the Mark from the alternate reality, catching up to him in long, quick strides.
It hurts my heart to say this, but I did not hesitate.
I leapt at the other Mark and slashed viciously at his leg with my mirror shard.
The glass dug deep and I could feel it slice into flesh and tendon.
My victim screamed and fell as my makeshift blade ran through his outer thigh.
And I left that Mark bleeding there.
I kept running forwards.
There was no time to stop or apologise.
The catastrophic roaring of the Myriad Stalker was reaching a crescendo behind me as I ran
forwards through layer after layer after layer.
I reached the shaft of light, which was shining through a thin, horizontal crack across a
mirror before me.
I began to pound on it with my fists, trying to break myself out of the hellish nightmare
I was stuck in.
I heard the furious roar of the Myriad Stalker emanate out from behind me.
I turned to check behind me.
The Myriad Stalker was there, in plain sight.
Now that I saw it clearly, it almost felt like my heart would stop in sheer terror.
It towered above all the mirrors around it, skittering forwards with its gruesome limbs,
which emanated a tortured chorus of human screaming, and I could see all the jaws on
its smooth, innumerable heads open and close in hunger.
In a heartbeat I realised that all of the blood-red eyes on its twisted, spined torso
were wide open and staring at me intently.
The maimed Mark was off to the side, limping away, and it seemed like the Stalker had skittered
past it.
It was aiming for me, perhaps sensing that I was close to escaping from the Infinite
Horizon.
I turned and screamed, beating at the mirror in front of me with all my might.
The terrific crashing of the Myriad Stalker rang throughout my head.
It was approaching.
Skittering.
My vision swam.
I smashed through the mirror, shattering a large portion of its top-left area.
Shards of mirror fell to the ground below me.
The ground was shaking; the Stalker imminent.
I grabbed the edge of the broken mirror with both hands and heaved myself up.
The glass dug deep into my hands, drawing blood.
But I cared not.
I lifted myself into the opening I'd made, and forced myself through as the deafening
roar of the Myriad Stalker blasted all around me.
I found myself sprawled on the floor of my hallway.
I got up, breath panting, and took a look behind me.
Within the damaged Infinity Mirror, I saw a fading image.
The Myriad Stalker was skittering away from me, heading straight for the other Mark, who
was desperately limping away in the distance.
And then the images glassed over, shrouded in darkness, and reverted back to the regular
sight of an endless tunnel that stretched on into the far horizon.
I was safe.
I'd won.
I escaped the Infinite Horizon.
I caught my breath, now in the safety of my own home.
It was unfortunate for the second Mark that I'd left to the Stalker, but I had no other
option.
He'd vanish off the face of the earth in his reality, but in this reality I was blessed
with the gift of living on.
It was a bit sombre, but I vowed to myself that I would make the most of every day.
I'd cherish every moment I was alive, and spend meaningful time with those I loved.
This sort of harrowing experience can either break or make a man.
I decided right then and there that I'd grow stronger from it.
I checked the time, and made my way to the bedroom.
I knew what I had to do.
This reality wasn't mine, but I had to warn the Mark that would come here soon.
I had to become the doppelganger.
I had to tell this reality's Mark all about the Myriad Stalker and the Infinite Horizon.
Then, I had to push him into it.
And after, I suspected, I'd take over Mark's place in this reality.
That was the sort of cycle this was.
A brutal, unending cycle of Marks superseding each other through an infinite amount of realities.
I waited in that bedroom, and he came.
A reflection of myself, the reflection from this timeline, eyes wide open in shock at
the sight of me, so unfathomably identical to himself.
"Now, I need you to listen to me carefully…"
I began.
This reality isn't my original one, but it's close enough that I'm largely unperturbed.
My wife has different coloured hair, and I'm apparently close friends with a bunch of people
I've never met in my original reality, but that's all fine.
This story should end on this rather tepid note, but recently I've been thinking about
the incident.
It's been about a week since then, and I just can't get something out of my mind.
I can't stop thinking about the Infinite Horizon.
Inconsistencies.
There were just too many inconsistencies.
For instance, we can quite safely say that all this mess started because I witnessed
the second Mark die in the mirror that night.
He'd wailed on the mirror, and cracked it before dying to the Stalker.
This crack was what allowed the doppelganger Mark to successfully escape the Infinite Horizon,
and enter my reality.
He gave me his long-winded warning, and proceeded to push me into the Infinite Horizon.
But how did the second Mark in the mirror enter the Infinite Horizon?
One might assume that he'd also gazed into the Infinite Horizon that night, which led
to the crack, the warning and the inevitable fall into the mirror.
But no, this can't possibly have happened to every Mark in the Infinite Horizon.
Why?
Because only half of us survive.
Only half of us live on to tell the tale to the next Mark, so only half of us should be
pushed in.
Only half of us die to make that crack in the mirror, which means only half of us should
have witnessed the event unfold.
It should all be diminishing.
Going by the information we know, none of the Marks have any business falling into the
Infinite Horizon, because our numbers are eternally being halved.
When you're talking about halving infinity, shit gets confusing and convoluted real quick.
I'd been warned to not dwell too much on talk of realities, timelines and paradoxes.
The Myriad Stalker was something that defied logical recourse.
This was all true, of course, but I still felt like this problem was something that
could answered rather simply.
I figured it out this morning.
I woke up and experienced a moment of sudden clarity.
A horrid thought flashed through my mind, and though I so desperately wished that it
wasn't true, I'm positive that it is.
When I was in the Infinite Horizon, lost in that sea of mirrors, the second Mark wasn't
pushed in.
He was pulled in, perhaps by the Myriad Stalker or the Infinite Horizon itself.
And it wasn't the first time he'd been there.
It was his second time.
You see, the first time we all witness the event unfold.
We all get warned, escape from the mirror, and become the doppelganger in another reality.
All of us survive, not half.
And then…
And then later, days, weeks, months or even years down the line, we all fall again into
the Infinite Horizon.
We all eventually become the second Mark, and when that time does come it'll be me
who'll be maimed and left victim to the Myriad Stalker.
It's unavoidable.
I recalled one sentence said my doppelganger had said on that fateful day.
Neither he nor I had comprehended the full gravity of that sentence at the time, but
now it sent shivers down my spine.
"Remember, you can't outrun the Myriad Stalker."
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