Mind Shatter

Chapter 1

               “Hellfire Squadron's a distinguished unit,” Ruben complained to his roommate Darius, “we even prevented that rogue Zolean unit from crossing the border two days ago and had two casualties. Now we have to clean the barracks?! ” Darius stopped sweeping and pointed to Ruben's side of the room. “You're going to get your week's rations halved if the General sees that mess,” he raised an eyebrow.

           “Ra- I don't care about rations!”

              “Just like I don't care about my gun on the battlefield.”

             “I'm gonna get some fresh air,” he sighed.

             Now, General John Maxel was giving himself a buzz cut in his bathroom. You can understand Ruben's confusion when he saw him hop out of his bathroom on one foot, grimacing with his hair in his face. He froze. He failed to look calm and managed to make something between a straight face and a grimace. He stopped hopping but he remained on one foot. His face grew redder every second.

         "What are you-" Maxel's straight-grimace face turned into a glare as he cut Ruben off.

         "Listen grunt, I slipped on some water, dropped my mirror, and my darn clippers fell on my toe. Go clean up the mess while I... Grab a drink in the mess hall..." Ruben was trying his hardest not to laugh at him. Maxel had only cut the hair on top of his head. His unkempt dark brown hair and scruffy facial hair wasn't helping.

          "Y-yes sir," he let out the slightest bit of a laugh. Maxel's frown intensified as he muttered something.

             “Get to work!”

             They both moved on as quickly as they could. Ruben stopped halfway to Maxel's room to look back at him. He hopped casually towards the mess hall, but turned and sprinted as fast as a person could on one leg to the doctor's office. “And this guy is my commander...” Ruben continued to the bathroom. He saw the pile of mirror shards and buzzing clippers on the floor. He also saw a spider about the size of a big toe. Maxel is terrified of spiders. Seeing the little thing probably caused the chain reaction of nonsense.

             Ruben was lucky that the mirror didn't break into a lot of tiny pieces. Curiosity struck him: I wonder if I could piece these together in less than a minute, he thought. He stood back and imagined them rejoining. They slowly came together like a jigsaw puzzle. Arranging, rearranging, until they became a complete mirror again. “Darn, just over a minute. It was pretty easy though.”

             He grabbed a broom and dust pan to dispose of the mirror. I thought mirrors were banned in the army. He must've smuggled it in here somehow, he realized. His heart began pounding. He knew he wasn't supposed to look at his reflection, but he couldn't remember what he looked like. He thought it strange that he didn't. “I might as well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

             Suddenly he found himself captivated by his own image. His black mustache and beard, hairline, dark skin and brown eyes. The barber sure did a fine job! Suddenly he felt guilty. “Oh right," he said sarcastically as jerked his face away from the mirror. He tried, but not too hard, to feel guilty instead of letting a large grin form.

             He started to sweep up the glass, but then a strange vision took shape in his mind. It looked like Ruben as a small child and an older version of him were in it. The child was laughing wildly as the man ran while holding him child piggy-back. Running through a grass field and jumping over stones and logs, the man seemed to be having as much fun as the child. Eventually they stopped at a tree to take a break and bask in the sunshine and breeze. The vision left Ruben senseless and even the vision became distorted. His hands trembled and beads of sweat stung his eyes. He felt lightheaded and after a few seconds tried to snap out of the vision. “I don't know what's going but-”

             “You're my son,” says the man in his vision, smiling and patting the child on the head. Ruben suddenly felt strange. He felt like he was missing something in life. He'd never given the thought that he had any family. Suddenly the vision dissipates and he was left with the darkness of his psyche. “Wait.... Wait!” he unintentionally shouted as if to hail some far away person.

             His undershirt was visibly dampened with sweat. He panicked, knowing that someone would come to check on me. He snatched up a piece of glass to put it in his back pocket. However, he felt like some invisible hand was pulling his han back. An angry grimace took his face, veins popped. As dark as he was, his face must've gotten a little red from the struggle. Finally, he shoved the glass into his pocket. He scrambled to sweep up the glass and managed to dump the pile into the trash bin.

             *Crack* One piece fell to the floor and broke in half.

            One of the halves slides to Ruben's feet. “What's going on in there!?” Someone shouted.

             “I have to do it.” He slowly picked up one of the pieces and observed his image again. Nothing happened.

             “What are you doing?!” someone behind Ruben Said. He was so dumbfounded that he didn't notice anyone enter the room. Before he can gather himself and react, he felt a blunt object ram his head. He felt arms wrap around him and drag him as he blacked out.