Static Reflections: Book 1 of The M... - Chapter 35: Chapter 35

Spritz, spritz, spritz. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Pierce hummed to themself as they sprayed the mirror, again and again, swiping their cloth over it in little circles. They wanted to make sure it was spotless, enjoying the praise from their manager whenever he saw they had done an excellent job. At Clive's A-MAZE-ING Mirrors, the cleanliness of the building was the most critical part, Pierce felt, of the guests' experience the next day. Who wanted to go through a mirror maze with smudges all over what they are trying to look through? That would ruin the effect!
That was Pierce's job and Pierce's job only. To make sure this place was spotless all by themselves during the night while they slept during the day. Sure, it would have been nice to have a helping hand or two, but this was the perfect time to be alone with their thoughts. And what would they do any other time, anyway? It's not like they had any real friends and, while close with their family, they lived in Portland.
They looked at their amber eyes in the reflection in the mirror. Looking back at them was an animal whose mask consisted of dark rings around the eyes, an almost entirely dark muzzle, and gray fur on the top of the head. There were sharp white triangle-shaped ears on either side and a small black nose.
The white from their mask extended down to their neck, but the red shirt of the company obstructed the rest. A black belt squeezed around their waist, looping through the blue jeans they had to wear. Next, were their colorful tennis shoes. Initially, they were pure white, but Pierce thought that was too boring. Then, they drew on their shoes with markers, making random shapes, and designs. Finally, there was their long and thin striped tail that hung behind them, their favorite feature aside from their eyes.
Pierce smiled at themselves in the mirror, thinking they were a pretty handsome animal. If only they had true friends who appreciated them like this.
The lemur continued to clean the mirror, finishing up the one they had been working on and stepping to the next, where they resprayed the yellow liquid, about to repeat the cycle. As they brought their cloth to the surface, the lights shut off unexpectedly. Pierce looked around, blinking. What the?
A moment later, the loud music they played during guests' journeys through the maze blared to life along with the color-changing lights on the floor, making Pierce nearly jump out of their pelt. Immediately, panic rose in their chest as they knew that the only way the music would have come on was if someone had turned it on themselves. But they were the only animal in the building, right?
As if to answer their question, the door to the mirror maze slid open quickly. Pierce could make out the silhouette of an otter in a suit there. The door slid close behind the figure, and they almost disappeared with how dark their fur was. But they were definitely there.
"Hello!" Pierce called. "W-we're closed, you know!"
The otter just began moving forward, disappearing out of view from the mirror they were looking in and appearing in the one to the right of them. The shape continued to move quickly, traveling from reflection to reflection as Pierce realized they were getting closer. And they were holding something, but what was it?
There was no time to waste figuring it out, as Pierce felt the fear get more intense, their throat dry. The lemur dropped the cloth but kept the spray bottle as they swiftly pulled their dark blue phone out of their pocket. Gotta call the cops! Pierce began running through the maze, turning left, right, left, left. They dialed 911 as they held the phone up to their ear.
The otter was on their trail, though, getting faster and faster, closer and closer. There was the soft thumping of his shoes on the floor, but the music was far too loud to hear much of anything else. As Pierce fled, the colors on the floor constantly changed through the spectrum of the rainbow, adding a layer of chaos they hadn't expected.
It was just so damn loud and so damn annoying, which Pierce knew was precisely why the otter had turned it on. Not only that but there must have been another reason; to make sure no one could hear them scream. It was just like the horror movies Pierce spent most of their time watching and reviewing in their tiny apartment, eating ramen noodles with their legs crossed on their two-person couch.
They panted as they continued running through the labyrinth, the otter right on their tail. To their dismay, all that came from their phone's speaker was static. Pierce kept their eyes forward, wondering just what the otter was planning. What would happen when they got to them? Were they going to--
Without warning, arms wrapped around them, and the two bodies launched into a mirror, hard, shattering through it with their immense contact. Pierce yelped as their face crashed into it, a glass shard cutting along their cheek, arms, torso, and leg. Both animals tumbled onto the floor of the other side of the mirror, still deep inside the maze.
"Aghh!" Pierce yelled. "Who are you?! Stop! Stop!" They struggled against the animal who was fighting them. "Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
But the otter was relentless, constantly grappling their hands for Pierce's neck. The lemur had no experience fighting anyone, but they let their instincts control them. Luckily, they were able to grab the assailant and throw him off of them. Before the murderer could scramble to their feet, Pierce pushed themself off the floor and continued their escape. The otter was already after them. Everywhere Pierce had been cut was stinging, along with their body aching from the impact.
They banged things together in their mind, trying to create a spark of an idea on what to do. Before they could get anywhere, they felt an extremely sharp pain enter their back, knocking them forward onto the ground again. Swiftly, the assailant pulled out the thing in their back, and before Pierce let it return, they rolled out of the way, the otter stabbing what they now knew was a knife down at the floor.
Pierce lifted their foot and kicked him twice in the face, as hard as they could, the otter dropping the weapon onto the carpet as he brought his hands to the injury.
Pierce quickly reached for the blade, and as soon as their finger even grazed it, it was like they had put their hand deep into a fire. They screamed as they pulled it back and held it. "Wh-what the fuck are you?!"
The otter still didn't respond, about to grab the weapon again.
Pierce finally remembered a hammer somewhere nearby, inside the area where they were constructing a new part of the maze. But instead, they began running to the exit. And still, the killer followed.
The pain in their back was immense, but the fire inside kept them going. The consistent thumping from behind them told them their assailant wasn't letting up. Finally, they reached the maze's exit and sprinted past the desk to the front door of the building. Pierce placed their hand on the handle to push it open, and they were met with the knife from before being stabbed into their hand. "Motherfucker!" shrieked Pierce.
"How are you still alive?!" came the voice of the deranged animal. "I stabbed your back!"
"And I kicked you in the face! Leave me the fuck alone!" Pierce yelled, bracing themselves with all of their might and grabbing the handle, the sound escaping their throat, unlike anything they've ever heard. The sheer pain that shot up their arm was immense, but they held on just long enough to bring the knife back and stab it right into the otter's shoulder, but instead of entering the flesh, the blade wholly shattered in an instant.
Pierce's eyes widened as they let the intact handle go and ran away, their arm still aching to no end. It was like the pain that lingered after getting a shot but times ten. Pierce headed for the stairs up to the pitch-black darkness of the second floor.
The otter grabbed their ankle and pulled them back, Pierce toppling forward and bumping their chin against the step, their teeth clacking together, sending a strange feeling throughout their head. The killer kept their leg gripped tight, grabbing their other one and beginning to pull them down the stairs, their head hitting step after step, making them dizzy. They fumbled their arms forward, slipping their fingers in a space between two wooden stairs, grabbing the back edge of the lower of the two.
The suited otter pulled them as hard as he could, and they clutched for dear life, feeling like their arms were about to be torn off. "Let me fucking go, creep!!!"
The other animal brought a fist into the back of the lemur's left knee, and their hand slipped, which caused them to completely let go of the stair and get hauled down the rest of the steps. "No! No! I don't wanna die!"
The otter was still silent as they were dragged along the floor, clawing the tile. As they passed the desk, the murderer pressed a red button to open the maze's exit, pulling Pierce back inside the colorful darkness. The door closed behind them, and the otter twisted their leg, flipping them over onto their back. With astonishing speed, he grabbed their arms and pinned them to the floor, then added his knees where his hands used to be, crushing their arms with the hard round surfaces. Pierce continued to struggle as they looked at his face. The otter's big tail rested on the rest of their torso.
What they saw wasn't anything like they expected. They weren't the eyes of a killer, but rather the eyes of a sad animal, who looked like they didn't want to be doing what they were doing.
Pierce swallowed. Could he be reasoned with? "Please . . . don't. I know you don't want to."
The otter shook his head. "I have to . . . I'm sorry."
The lemur remained calm. "Can you at least tell me your name before you do it?"
The otter sighed. "Boris . . . It's Boris." And what happened next was completely unexpected. The otter reached his hand to a mirror and pulled out the same dagger from before, now whole. The knife had a golden hilt with a round pommel, and a red gem inside.
Pierce sighed. "Boris, please don't kill m—"
And then the otter was stabbing them, again and again, blood spraying out from the wounds and hitting his fur. The assault continued as they grunted and panted, and blood bubbled up from their throat, and they turned their head, coughing it out onto the carpet.
"Just die!!!" Boris yelled, not ending the attack.
The warm liquid leaked out of the corner of their mouth as the stabbing just didn't end. Red was everywhere. All over Boris, covering the mirrors, staining the carpet beneath them. The otter panted and heaved, leaning over them. "Twenty-three times . . . I stabbed you twenty-three times. How are you still--"
Pierce was in overwhelming pain, their body extremely weak, but they could feel their heart still beating in their ears. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The lemur just stared up at Boris. I'm still alive.
The otter set the knife down, looking at the mirror. "What do I do? You didn't tell me about this."
"What?" Pierce blinked. "Who are you . . . talking to . . . ?"
"Yes. Okay. I will," the otter nodded. "Alright." He looked back at Pierce, getting off of them. "You passed."
The lemur furrowed their brow. "Passed . . . ?"
"I need to try something," Boris told them, still straddling them.
Pierce was so taken aback by what just happened that they didn't answer.
The killer grabbed the knife and held out his left arm, slowly sliding the edge of the blade against the flesh as he slit it open and blood ran out and dripped against Pierce's shirt, staining the company's white logo. "Open up."
The lemur could barely comprehend the words spilling out of his mouth. "H-huh?!"
Boris huffed and grabbed their chin with his right hand, squeezing it and forcing it open. Pierce's eyes stayed bulging as the otter held his self-inflicted wound above their head, letting the crimson liquid fall into their mouth, sinking into their throat.
Besides the sheer terror Pierce felt, something inside them changed. All the pain in their body burned away, and there were tingling sensations all over. They felt an overwhelming power consume them, filling them with strength. They had no idea what was happening, but Boris seemed to be extremely shocked by it if his bulging eyes were anything to go by.
The otter got off of them, moving his hand along their shirt, Pierce realizing that there were no longer any wounds there. The lemur blinked, sitting up and advancing their own hands along their body and finding no injuries. It was as if everything that just happened hadn't happened.
Boris just kept his gaze on them. "Pierce Tucker?"
". . . How did you know that?"
The otter shook his head. "Well, you're a very special animal."
"I am?" Pierce wrinkled their brows. They had never been called special before, besides by their family. No one in Austin, though. Still, this animal was clearly mental and tried to kill them.
"Yes, you are," Boris nodded, standing up and holding his non-bleeding arm down to them. "Come with me."