In the morning, Alexa heard the convoy of cars pull up in front of her house, and immediately knew: the expedition was happening, with or without Kurt. They were going to yokai territory whether they wanted to or not.

Alexa waited for them to arrive, taking her time in the shower and in the kitchen with the day’s first coffee. It took all the way to the pour of the powdered creamer she never added  for the first knocks to rap on the front door, and with a sigh, she set the coffee down.

The front door was unlocked and pulled slightly open, just enough for her to ascertain Eric Suthers standing on the opposite side. “Mornin’.”

“By article six of the twelfth section of the Stateship powers act,” Suthers said, reading off the hologram popping up from his wrist-comm device. “You are hereby conscripted into an emergency expedition team.”

“Bullshit, I didn’t sign for any of that." She tried to close the door, but the top of his combat boot remained wedged in the doorway.

“I have to warn you.” He shook his head slightly. “Refusing to follow the direct order of a Stateship representative can be considered a criminal offense with jail time up to five years. I suggest you reconsider your…answer.” His eyes met Alexa, and the unsaid words between them were clear.

Alexa sighed. “Do I have any other legal options?”

“You will be provided a lawyer with which to negotiate your future circumstances after the expedition in case you are conscripted again. Don’t,” he whispered  his eyes darting in the direction of the convoy. “The other one tried, but she just-”

“Aerin’s in the cars?”

“Not by choice. If you don’t say yes, she’s just going to-”

The door shut between them in the split second Alexa felt the pressure in the room behind her change. Displace. On instinct she whipped around, and a pale puff of something forced its way up her nostrils, numbing her lungs the moment she involuntarily breathed in. There was neither time nor recourse her mind as it slipped away, like a leaf against the flowing tide that was sleep. The tranquiliser was in her olfactory nerve and her brain in an instant, doing the exact thing it was developed to do: ensure her cattle-like complacency. There was not a mind in the world, undefended as she was, that could resist.

The last image was of the stone-faced agent as her legs gave out and the world tilted.

She did not dream. There was only the infinite, starless black. All that she could do was stare without eyes into nothing. It was fine at first. No more was there the burden of her senses, of being so painfully frail and human. Her mind wandered, retracing the snippets of dialogue out of the mouths of her friends.

Hmph. “Friends” was perhaps a little too close. Friends didn’t throw each other under the bus. At least Eric could have put up a fight, hopeless as it was.

I don’t think you want to see that.

I didn't ask for your input.

They’ll kill him and find someone else. It didn't matter what he did.

Oh if you know so much, what is this, then?

I dunno, the deepest sleep you’ve ever had?

I don’t even know who you are.

I’m you.

No you’re not.

Am too. Blaming your friends isn’t going to help  you know.

They already failed me.

And if you were in their shoes, what is it that you’d do to be better?

I-

Silence.

I knew it. You’d do the exact same thing. Throw them under the bus, why don’t you? Save yourself. Everything will be just…peachy.

Peachy?

Despite its chattiness, the other voice didn’t reply

The world rippled around her, like the surface of a pond distorted by a thrown stone. There was a face in the darkness beyond, gaunt and pale and emotionless, more statue than person.

Oh.

She was pulled from the space, and her head felt heavy. A light made her eyelids flutter open, blinding her. Alexa moved an arm, but found her limb struggling against a long tunnel of something synthetic. She let her blurry gaze fall to her front where her hands were concealed under a straitjacket, pulled up to cross over her chest. The next instinct she had was to scream  but whatever weighed her head down was also clasped over her lips. Her muffled noises were absorbed by the metal and the plastic of the muzzle, rendering her mute.

Still, she could see and hear, and that was a good start. She was still herself, unlike what the Stateship's agents purportedly did to themselves to blend in.

“She’s fully awake,” the agent said flatly. Eric leaned over from the opposite side, his eyes desperately apologising as he held something to her forehead. There was a tickling sensation, and he withdrew the object. “No signs of permanent harm  except…okay, no, no sign. I misread that.”

“We’re here.” The agent rapped their knuckles on the partition to the front.

The armoured car they were in screeched to a half. Through the slits of the horizontal windows behind Eric’s head, she could only see an unfocused splotch of green and brown. She tried to picture the other face of the southern and the valley beyond. Surely there was smoke and houses and people out and about on the reservation, just like in the cities. She prayed for that and not the middle of the jungle.

When their vehicle had successfully stopped, the agent picked Alexa up via some metal handle behind her head and turned her towards the doors in the back. Alexa’s muffled protestations when she passed by Aerin trapped in the same configuration of herself, near the doors. Her eyes were closed.

Despite her expectation of the burning noon sun it was strangely cool outside as the agent let go and Alexa fell, side first onto the cool sand. The padding in her jacket prevented any damage once she landed on her front, on her crossed arms with her face pitched towards the dirt and grass. The blades before her only slightly gave way to the passage of the  wheels, springing up in defiance of mankind. No matter how hard she tried to look up to see the source of light in the sky, she couldn’t get an angle. With her arms and legs similarly bound, all she could catch was the edge of something pulsating and black. Ink trails spread across the sky dissipating into the featureless grey.

A shadow fell over her, and Alexa moaned in protest.

“Is this one that which I was promised?” Angloc, though with some struggle, to her surprise.

She wasn’t sure if she should have replied. Not that she could.

A clawed foot flattened the grass in front of her. The nails were curved, but the foot was mammalian, not avian. “Or is this one a stray intruder, left behind by the pack?”

The foot moved away, leaving a bright red flower with thin, outstretched petals, more saturated than the trees all around them where it had been planted.

Then Alexa felt the claws digging into the fabric of her straitjacker, pushing her in the side so that she flipped her face up. The sun was a dark, tumourous blotch in the sky, situated at noon, bleeding trails of ink.

The silhouette case against that unlight came into view. Her visitor wore a simple faded blue robe and a broad hat from which white cloth hung, obscuring their features. “Does this one yet fight?”

Alexa nodded. She wasn’t sure if it was obvious, given the restraints from her jaw.

The dark sun’s light bounced off the wave-like patterns on the side of the yokai’s blade, the edge chipped in multiple places. It wasn’t shiny with oil, but dull and caked with the remnants of a white powder, quickly giving way to rust. The end rested under her chin, lifting her head as little as it would go.

“So be it.”

The yokai raised its weapon, grasping it with both hands.

Alexa squeezed her eyes shut.

The blade came down, and she expected, slicing through the straps of her mask. A claw grazed her cheek as the yokai yanked the device off and crouched above her chest. “Name yourself.”

“Alexa Romilly,” she panted, trying to frown to drive the sweat off her lower face. “”I don't know who you are, but thank you!”

Then, without the protection of the mask, the smell hit her in the face. A rotten, almost sweet scent, augmented by the mental image of a portable toilet at a festival. She fought with every fibre of her being not to retch up last night’s dinner all over her own face.

“Tell me, ape, will you fight.”

“Yes. Yes!” she tried to turn her head away, the smell was overwhelming. The urine was beginning to develop a sour taste in the back of her throat. “Fuck, why do you smell so bad for fuck’s sake!”

The yokai leaned away. The smell went with him, but she could still feel it burning her throat. “Insolence. I should leave this one here for the animals.”

“Wait, what are we fighting!?”

The blade was raised again, pointed past Akexa.

On her back, Alexa could now turn to see. It was difficult to make out given how the saturation seemed to sapped you of everything, but there was a shape in between the trees. No, she corrected herself. It had the same twin pinpricks of minute light as when she’d seen it before.

“It feeds on this one’s guilt,” the yokai said, lowering his blade. “Will you fight?”

Alexa’s breath caught in her throat. Kurt, it seemed, was right on the money after all. “Can you not get super close again?”

The yokai tilted his head in response. “One does not understand.”

“That’s some bull-” She caught herself just in time. The man had a sword, and she was still immobilised. “I’ll fight it. Just free me.”

The yokai seemed to consider it for a moment, and then his hands flashed, quickly slicing off her restraints.

Alexa scrambled to her feet, tossing the restraining garments into the grass and stretching as she stood up. A joint in the back cracked, relieving pressure. “Oh thank goodness.”

The yokai frowned. “This one religious? A god one does not know?”

“It’s just an expression. Now, you said you wanted me to fi-” She turned to the dark figure, only to find it had moved closer. It was no longer behind a bush, but instead, stepping out of one. “Uh…”

“This one must keep looking. One will return with great speed!” The yokai exclaimed.

Alexa kept staring at the figure. She heard the bushes to her side rustle. She blinked.

The figure had taken another step forwards, now completely out of the bush. Unlike before, she could see its mass was writing, but with that she didn’t know.

“Motherfucker!” she exclaimed. The yokai had abandoned her. Now it was just her and this…thing, inching closer, an arm outstretched. The two pinlike eyes were locked squarely onto her.

She took a step back, and out of some misplaced curiosity, blinked as quickly as she could.

The entity had moved another half metre forward in the milliseconds it had taken. If she ran now, it would be upon her moments.

Well that was stupid.

Huh? She thought, and in that moment, lost her focus and blinked again. She stumbled back to avoid the shadow’s grip. There had scarcely been a chance for her to look for a way to run, much less do it backwards. A single knotted root or a stray rock would be the end of her.

Would it, though?

Shut up.

It’s never hurt you before.

And how would you know?

You’re not as scared as you could be.

Alexa bit her lip. That was right. Before, when it had been in the dark of the attic, she had only seen the eyes and the shape, shrouded in shadow. It had reminded her of-

Fuck that.

A rustling came from her left again. “One has returned!”

Her eyes drying, Alexa sighed. “Get this thing off of me!”

“One cannot,” the yokai said, moving behind Alexa. Something cold and metallic, handle-shaped, was being pressed in her palm. “This one must look in it.”

“What?”

“Mirror. This one must look at itself in the mirror.”

Alexa’s fingers crawled up the object, and she found a flat, smooth surface. “I have to keep looking at it.”

“This one does not. Only look at oneself.”

“You sure.”

“Are you doubting one’s…expert?” the yokai asked, having searched for the word in its limited vocabulary.

“If this kills me, it’s on you.”

The yokai didn’t respond. Or perhaps he did, in a way Alexa couldn’t see.

She whipped the object around in front of her face, cutting off her vision to the shadow creeping towards her. It was heavy and bronze and flat, and through the surface of it was studded at points around a circle, the metal had been polished so much that her face was clear on it.

She could have sworn that the other her, in the reflection, smiled.

Alexa turned to the yokai and instead found a wooden wall staring back at her. Her hand was light again. There was no mirror, no forest, and no darkness shrouding everything. She was on a tatami mat, in the clothes she had put on that morning. Half a dozen candles lit up the small room, their steady flames casting shadows across the paper screen stands that surrounded them.

“I must apologise for the smell.” The yokai appeared before her, motioning to a small table with a ceramic kettle and two matching cups on it. Gone was the outhouse experience. “Please. We do not have much time.”

Alexa drew her gaze around the square space they were now in, only to flinch when the shadow appeared, standing with its arms by its sides, cast onto one of the paper screens from an outside light source. “W-Where are we?”

“In a world between worlds,” the yokai said, pouring himself a cup. “Outside, we are still in the forest.” He snapped his fingers, showcasing he had claws there too, and another silhouette appeared. It was her and the yokai and the shade, still standing there, all three of them looking into the mirror in Alexa’s hand. “Time does not flow here conventionally.”

“How long do I have?”

“On the outside, it would flood you. Burn you out and replace you with whatever despair festers within it.”

“So how do I-”

The yokai nodded towards the screen with the silhouette. “In this place I can help. You must relive the life and death of this shade. Only then will you know how to dispel it.”

“So do I just…touch it?”

“Yes. Give it what it wants. One step at a time.”

Alexa took a deep breath. The sensation was strange, and she remembered the earlier experience of being bodiless in the infinite black. At least right now it felt like she had lungs, and it was going to stay that way.

She reached towards the shadow. “So do I have to punch through the-”

The paper screen ripped, and a dozen hands burst forth to grab her wrist at once. Her mind was assaulted by a flurry of images, most of which took place in scenes as cold and dark as that atrium she had glimpsed.

Slow down.

It wasn’t the yokai, but herself.

She took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. The little tea room was gone, replaced by a cramped room built in between sections of bulkhead. The walls were bare save from a banner, similar to the one Kurt had brought to the museum.

But most curious of all was the figure sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her with a look in her eyes Alexa had fantasised about, that not even Aerin had given her. But the woman was also Alexa, and they sat there, taking each other in.

The other Alexa smiled, as she had in the bronze reflection. “Here we go again.”