Coming to Grips

“You won’t be rid of me this easy, necromancer scum.” a voice called, not from the dark, but from inside her head.

Hemlock took a not small amount of time to catch her breath, and get her heart to slow down and stop beating in her chest like a blacksmith's hammer. Though this could have then a minute or an hour, here in the dark it was hard to tell.

But once she’d calmed and thought she was alone again she crept her way to the cellar’s stairs and listened for any signs of life beyond birds and the traps she’d laid. Once she was sure the coast was clear she, pushed open the door, slowly to keep the old hinges from creaking in the off chance she’d missed someone skulking around, the morning light nearly blinded her as she emerged from the dark subterranean hovel she’d made a home away from home.

She allowed the door to remain open, washing the small space below with light. Presentability was of course in this kind of situation more for herself than anything, but with the sweat that now made her face feel dirty and sticky she needed to freshen up in the mirror. In some strangely sick joke or something poetically meta the mirror she now looked in that she’d managed to pull from one of the fallen structures was broken, and splintered out causing her to have echoing reflections of herself.

Within those reflections was a face she didn’t know, save for the one interaction the night prior. As Hemlock turned her head this way and that way trying to take it in and get used to it. She noticed several of the faces in the smaller broken sections of the mirror did not move alone with her. They remained still. Staring at her all wearing different expressions, ranging from fear, to mania, to sadness. As she focused on these strange anomalies the main larger reflection slowly turned, coldly staring, eyes widening as a hysterically mad grin pulled across the face, grotesque in its inhuman proportions as it tore from ear to ear.

It wasn’t long before Hemlock took notice of this horrific display. Jumping in shock she took a step back, far enough if the reflection somehow was able to reach out she’d be out of arm's length. Once she felt safer despite the awful visage grinning at her, she realised her cheeks hurt it was then she realised she was also smiling, not as wide and her cheeks lacked the reflections of torn cheek muscles but she was still smiling the wicked way of the Doppelgänger.

Stepping back farther Hemlock watched the reflection touch a part of the mirror, the shattered piece fell away and broke against the stone floor with a crash. The moment the noise settled, Hemlock opened her eyes and the reflection had gone back to normal. She took a single step forward and the mirror let go of all its broken pieces as it fell apart breaking on the ground in a calamitous racket.

She sighed, not only did she now have a mess to clean up on the floor, she had one to clean up in her head, and had no idea where to even begin. But knew she’d need to try some things on her own before resorting to Soldor’s Library. Whether or not that could contain any modicum of help was anyone’s guess, but going back would raise so many questions about why she was in the body of a renegade angel.

“Perhaps the reaper was right.” Hemlock thought, “No. No. I can handle this.” she reassured herself. “You’ve dealt with worse hands. Remember the Grave Tender with glass bones and paper skin, he was as frail as they come and you still managed to kill more than a few zombies. Exorcising an angel from your head should be easy.” she nodded an agreement to herself. “Easy.”

“You better hope.” the angel said from the dark corners for the room. “Because if you are wrong…and I take control I’ll kill everyone you know and love. Sharing memories goes both ways, Thief.”