A dark room. Lit only with a low red glow.
One desk.
Two chairs.
The first is empty, and the other is occupied by a white male. He looks nervous, constantly licking his lips and wiping his glasses with his unwashed checked shirt. His eyes paint the wall with their rapid movement. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.
A tall man enters the room. He appears to be some kind of agent. He is wearing a black suit and mirrored sunglasses. He sits down and looks at the file in his hand. He flicks back and forth through the pages. His brow furrows.
“Patrick Miles,” says the agent, without any trace of emotion. It is not a question. His voice is deep and gravelly.
“Yes.” Patrick says, seemingly surprised at his own name. He looks back at the agent.
“People wrote you off as a lunatic, and then you called us.”
The man stares into Patrick’s eyes. Patrick tries to look into the man's.
He can’t.
“How did you get this number Patrick? Very few people know this number.”
Patrick averts his gaze and wipes sweat off his brow.
“Listen, I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. You specialise in things like…Like what I’m dealing with.”
The man looks down at the file and flicks through it again, as if searching for a particular piece of information.
“I understand that in the past you have made several attempts on your life.”
The man looks up from the file, his mouth twitching slightly.
“On one occasion using a hatchet, and on another bungee jumping with a pair of shears...”
“Those days were in my youth and I’m better now.” Patrick's voice has taken on a harder edge. “It has nothing to do with why I’ve come to you. I have sought you out because I’ve been... seeing things.”
The man lowers his head slightly, so he can peer at Patrick over the rim of his glasses.
“what kind of things?”
Patrick makes a dry clicking sound as he swallows, his gaze fixed on an image in his head.
“A face,” say Patrick, a slight tremor in his voice. “I catch it in glances. Reflected in a shop window, sometimes the water in the fountain. It seems to follow me wherever I go. A waking nightmare.”
The agent takes off his mirrored glasses. He stares at Patrick, with eyes of piercing blue, studying him for a moment.
“Tell me, what does this… figure look like? Can you describe it?”
No, I only get hints. The only bit I’ve seen clearly is his face.”
The agent stares at Patrick, penetrating through the layers of Patrick’s mind.
“His? You’re saying that it’s the face of a man? Before, you were saying “it.” There is a trace of urgency in the agent’s voice. He leans down and murmurs something quietly into his walkie talkie, the worry lines in his head temporarily appearing.
“What made you change your mind, and think of the face as male?”
“I don’t know,” says Patrick hurriedly.” “It just seemed right. Anyway, whenever I glimpse its face, his face, it always seems to be filled with...some kind of hatred.” Patrick's voice breaks. “Hatred of me.”
The agent stares at Patrick hard for a moment, then stands abruptly, the noise as his chair scrapes back on the concrete floor sharp and loud..
“Follow me, Mr Miles.”
They walk down several of the seemingly endless corridors and enter a door to the left. There is a plague on the door, with writing engraved in cold hard stone: ‘The truth is not always what it seems. Sometimes, you need to twist your perspective.’
They enter the room. When Patrick sees what is kept inside he lets out a gasp..
“How did you catch it?”
In the room there was a pane of glass, and behind it there was a white male, in a checked shirt and smashed glasses wearing, a face filled with hatred. The face was burned.
“This face looks familiar,” said Patrick.
“Well of course it does,” the Anonymous agent said with a short, barking, laugh.
“It is the face of pure evil.”
Patrick walks up to the glass and touches it, the person on the other side copies. Confused, Patrick withdraws his hand. The burnt man on the other side of the window copies his movement at exactly the same time.
“I don’t understand…” says Patrick, a sliver of dread working its way deep into his spine. “How can—”
“Thought you should know.” said the agent, walking away.
“That pane of glass you’re looking at? It’s a mirror. Goodbye, Patrick.”
The agent leaves the room, presses a button, and Patrick Miles screams as the room is enveloped in a blazing inferno. He dies painfully, just like the last time, and every time before that.
But for his crimes, thinks the agent bitterly, it is not enough.
It will never be enough.
The agent pulls out a small gold cross from the folds of his shirt and kisses it tentatively. “God forgive me,” he mutters as he walks to another room. He sighs, cracks his neck, opens the door and sits down.
There is a man sitting at a desk. He looks nervous.
“Patrick Miles.” Says the agent, for the 12th time this day.
It is not a question.
This account was recorded in the catacomb prison on the planet of versarvious on the 17th September 2053
Earth status: White mist covered 78 percent. Population=13,127