Room Of Mirrors (LIKELY NOT TO BE FINISHED)

Clara

I awoke sitting in a plain white room. It was the roughly the size of a large living room, and it had no windows nor doors. At least, none that I could see. There were a few foldable chairs stacked up against the side of the wall on my right. Sitting in a circle with me were thirteen people wearing crisp hospital robes. Rubbing their eyes and shifting in their seats, it seemed that they too had just regained consciousness. Whispering agitatedly into his earpiece at the far corner of the room stood Mr. Lance. He fidgeted nervously with the silk of his suit coat. "But the mirror... yes, but... interference? But how... WHADDYA MEAN BY 'YOU DON'T KNOW' ?!" At this, he whipped around sharply to face fourteen pairs of curious eyes peering at him.

A blush of red creeped up his neck and face. "Oh, um... you're awake!" Then, he straightened and smoothened out his suit. "Mr. Lance, is everything alright?" I asked. He looked down at his hands and resumed fingering his coat. "Oh... er...." He began, stuttering. "Nope! I mean, uh, YEP! Everything's fine! Nothing to worry about!" He laughed nervously, putting on a wide smile. "The technical team is doing their, uh, daliy system checks! Yeah! Haha... Well, uh, in the meantime, welcome to the Safe room!" He gestured at the walls and the floor. "I'm told that you'll be here for quite a while, given your real- life physical conditions, so I've decided it would be good to get to know each other with some ice- breaker games!" He grabbed a chair and fumbled to unfold it before adding it into the circle and plopping himself down. "Let's take turn to introduce ourselves, shall we? Tell us your name, your occupation, favourite hobby and a fact about yourself. We'll go in a clockwise direction starting from... you!" He pointed a thin finger at a red- haired girl on my right. She didn't appear to have heard anything Mr. Lance just said, much less him asking her to begin the game. I tapped her lightly on the shoulder, and she jerked her head up and looked wildly around the room. "Huh? What? What did I miss??" I told her about the situation and she went "ohhhhh" before speaking.

"Hi everyone! I'm Michael Dorothy Applesteins, I'm a high school student, I like to read Marvel comics and I have an amazing dog named Max. He's the best!" She smiled widely and sat back down. My turn.

"Hi, I'm Clara Forester, I work at GoldHealth Clinic as a nurse, I like folding origami and I am currently taking an online course on coding in HTML5." Then I waved a little and returned to sitting position.

The person on my left stood up and said," I'm Nico vom Engel, I work as a cabin counsellor at my summer camp, currently I like thinking of ways to get out of here, and I need to get out of here as fast as possible so that Will doesn't freak out." He was short, skinny amd pale, with black fair falling over his eyes. He spoke with an accent I couldn't place and he looked like he would punch anyone who dared trigger him. Mr. Lance smiled and said," Don't worry, Nico! Like I said before, as soon as your body heals, your consciousness will return immediately to it and you can go back home, regardless of the situation here. In the real world, your body is recovering from a coma caused by overstraining your body, though we are not sure what caused you to lose so much energy." He said, projecting live footage of his room into the center of the circle. His body lay motionless on the hospital bed, and we saw a mop of blonde hair lying next to it. "Who's Will?" A girl opposite me asked. Nico looked her right in the eye and replied," My boyfriend. And if anyone has a problem with that, you can go to hell." He sat back down and the room was plunged into awkward silence. I felt something strange about his aura, but I couldn't place it.

The introductions went on for some time before it became Mr. Lance's turn. He stood up, like the rest, and spoke. "Hello, my name, rather my full name is Lancelot Bluefern Knightsely, I work as a guide at the Room of Mirrors, I like forming connections with other people and I have a wife and two wonderful girls, Odette and Anette." A few "aww"s echoed around the room as Mr. Lance smiled proudly and sat down.

Soon, all the introductions were done and I'd forgotten the names of nearly half the people with me. I hoped I would get to know them better during this... whatever this is.

A loud bell rang out through the room, causing us to wince a bit. Knocking his ears, probably to ease the ringing, Mr. Lance yelled," I THINK I'LL TELL THEM TO DECREASE THE VOLUME NEXT TIME!". After we'd all recovered, he told us that the danger, in this case the 'routine checks', had concluded and that the next mirror was open. The last thing I saw was a bright light before I was sucked into nothingness.