The space was tight. Cold, too. I was surprised my breath wasn’t fogging the mirrored interior. The three-hundred-and-sixty-degree mirror reflecting my image to infinity in all directions, making me sick. “Hey, what do we do in here?” I asked, nearly shouting. But my voice was contained to this soundproofed chamber. My words dying the instant they exited my mouth. Muffled like there’s no air. A candle snuffed in space. Which made it hard to breathe. The thought of that. It felt like I’d been in for minutes and it’d only been a second or two and I didn’t know how long this would continue. The final moments of me as the man I knew then. On the precipice of some unfathomable change. My eyes grew wide and I banged on glass that didn’t rattle or crack or make a sound of any kind. Screaming in the silent vibration of my chest and throat.

And I couldn’t stand to look at myself in that way. The impotent maniac in the mirror. The soundless rage that won’t help me escape. I lowered my arms, tried to relax, and failed, but at least presented a believable image. He was watching, I was sure of it, and I wanted to maintain some dignity. Or at least fake dignity through composure.

I would have preferred blindness to the sight of my own reflection, but my eyes had nowhere else to go. They scanned my pot belly. My pale, flaky skin. The receding hairline that had revealed asymmetrical moles. Sagging flesh, craggy wrinkles, grey hairs. There was once a time I’d spend hours staring at my reflection, flexing like some amateur bodybuilder. Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? If so, how far back?

At last, my eyes found themselves. The only feature that doesn’t change. Not physically, at least. But I saw a change in them nonetheless. Fear where I used to see confidence. Cowardice where I used to see ‘fuck you’. The man who was going to storm the world got sucked down a sewer drain and wound up here. And now the echolocations are beginning – dear God, help me – widening the void.

The companion comes as a series of images. An unfolding rose, black. A spinning six-pointed star. The horned head of a goat.

I am ejected from my body, viewing it from above. This skin suit that can only inhabit one entity at a time. And my expression changes in an instant. The rage has returned. The anger. My snarling lips are trembling. The violence in my eyes is no empty threat. A furious laugh of silent malice that I now hear in the mind I’ve re-entered. The cackle of my companion, entangled with me inside my skull.

My eyes are blank. I feel complete indifference, the total absence of hope. Bracing against a frigid wind blown across eons of ice.

Finally, I’ve found you.