The Mercenary From Another Time

He woke up in a place he did not recognize, an absolute cold invading his being.

His body lay rigid, as if hours or even years had stopped at that precise moment. There was no sound, no natural light, the only illumination came from floating spheres that emitted a pale, almost ethereal glow, casting strange shadows on the walls. He tried to sit up, but his mind was clouded, a thick fog of confusion that did not allow him to think clearly. He didn't know how he had gotten there, or what place it was.

As he surveyed the surroundings, he realized that the architecture was something out of the ordinary. The walls seemed to change shape depending on the angle at which he looked at them, but they all shared a strange symmetry in some parts that was unlike anything he knew.

Although the memories seemed to come back slowly, now it was as if the memories were being recalled from somewhere far away and almost those memories seemed alien to him. But thanks to those memories returning, he knew that the place he was in was nothing like he had seen before.

The incredibly large room unfolded like a labyrinth of strange shadows that one had to observe carefully to realize, or rather hypothesize, what exactly one was looking at. The walls, of opaque and aged metal, seemed to breathe, as if the structure itself lived and adapted to the presence of those who dared to enter. A faint, almost imperceptible glow emanated from the darkest corners, revealing figures, abstract and biomechanical utensils that merged with the architecture of the room, creating a sense of eerie symbiosis between the organic and the mechanical.

The air was heavy, charged with the metallic smell of some unknown chemical compound, and the silence felt thick, as if every sound was being absorbed by the walls that seemed to want to retain any vestige of life. In the center, tables that reminded him of mollusk shells and benches covered with unusual instruments were surrounded by glass-like tubes connected to mysterious systems, with liquids that moved unnaturally, pulsing in slowly changing colors, as if breathing.

The several-meter-high ceiling curved downward in several parts, forming vaults supported by strange pillars, almost reminiscent of a cathedral ribbed ceiling that would have been built of bones, with strands of wires intertwining at the columns and disappearing into the plinth and base. At each corner, faint lights cast distorted shadows, creating the sensation that something was watching from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to manifest itself.

Columns were also decorated with strange pattern, bases and capitals.

In the far side endless aisles and shelves that stretched as far as the eyes could reach. Every shelf was crammed with books, but these were of an unusual size and shape. The titles seemed to be written in a language he could not understand, and some of the volumes in rich decorated cases seemed to throb, as if alive.

But that didn't matter to him at that moment, now that the memories were coming back other thoughts filled his mind.

His mind kept turning over a single idea: he was dead. Of that he was certain. He had felt the life escape from his body, like a whisper in the darkness. The agony, the fall, the blood... the sounds of battle and then the heat. The heat from the incendiary plasma ammunition that had consumed him, all gone in an instant.

But now he was there, in that strange place, and he wondered if that was some kind of punishment, a hell designed for those like him, those whose souls had been tainted by the sin of taking another life. He didn't remember being a man of virtue. Quite the opposite. Throughout his life, he had committed acts so dark and terrible that even the cruelest of demons might have doubted whether they would be worthy of such fierce punishment.

For years he had been a mercenary, a wandering shadow, with no purpose other than destruction and mayhem. The fact that he never felt part of his world, that he had always had memories of places that did not belong to his time or space, had pushed him more and more towards a life of excess, without remorse.

After all, who could blame him if he felt he had been born in the wrong place, if he felt that the world itself was a prison that had condemned him to eternal suffering?

Self-satisfied bullshit. There was no justice, no punishment. Or so he had thought. If he wasn't dead, where was he? And if he was dead, where was this hell? Maybe it was a twisted version of that technology that had become so fashionable among the dying, and those crazy terrorist fanatics, called Last Second. But it couldn't be. He had never thought of using that thing to extend life, which was already a pain in the ass, to begin with. He had simply bounced from side to side until death once and for all claimed him.

If this was death it seemed strange.

Terror gripped him when, looking around, he noticed something peculiar. At the far end of the room, amid eerie shadows, stood a large gilt-framed mirror against a wall. Its size was inordinate, and the reflective surface seemed to be made of a liquid metal that rippled like water.

Driven by an inexplicable force, he approached, each step echoing strangely in the vast silence of the place. The feeling that something wasn't right grew with every inch he advanced, dizzy and staggering.

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There's something wrong here, he thought.

He felt strange, his vision was different.

When he finally arrived in front of the mirror, he let out a sigh of relief as he saw his own face.

Although the reflection seemed blurry, the outline was that of a man like any other, or at least it seemed so. However, as he looked more closely, something began to happen. The surface of the mirror began to distort, wrinkling and rippling as if it were a cloth crumpling under the weight of an invisible object.

The air around him became thick, as if something was manifesting itself from the very bowels of the reflection.

And then he saw it. It was not him. It was not his face, not his body. What was staring back at him from the other side of the mirror was something strange, something that defied all human logic. It was a creature that did not belong to his world, or to any other that his mind could conceive. Its head was an amalgam of strange shapes, with three eyes that were enormous, it had a sort of tentacle from which sprouted a series of four trumpet-like protuberances. From its skin, which looked like a hybrid between metal and flesh, emerged folds and protuberances that twisted as if they were organisms that mutated every second. Its hands, or what looked like hands, were now two pincers. He had no mouth, but he could feel that he was being watched by something beyond his comprehension, something that penetrated him to the depths of his soul. Where the mouth should have been now waved fine appendages like fine tentacles.

The creature made no movement, but its mere presence filled the room with an unbearable pressure. He felt as if he was being sucked into the darkness itself, as if his entire being was being consumed by an ancestral force. The figure distorted further, and for a second the reflection showed him his ancient reflection. The one he knew. But it was short-lived. As if it were someone constantly changing channels, his human figure appeared and disappeared and was replaced by that creature, and something else.

He thought he understood his mistake, that was not a mirror, it had something inside. A specimen or something like that in preservation. When someone touched the surface that which was inside appeared but otherwise it was only a reflective surface that could well pass for a mirror. But at the same time he and the creature were not the only things in there. The reflection he had taken for his own had transformed.

Was he in some kind of synthetics? The reflection he now saw was too tall to be his own even though it had a certain resemblance. No. That reflected body was at least eight feet tall if not taller. Where his eyes should have been, he had a kind of biological armor covering his eyes and other parts of the skin had a series of marks like small holes that followed parallel lines and were lost in other parts of the body. He wore a kind of metal armor or metal brackets similar to those of training exoskeletons on his naked body.

No, that was not a synthetic. That was not his body. It didn't have Neurowire either. And what was starting to drive him crazy, he was feeling horrible pangs in his head.

Jansen raised his arms in fright and saw his hands. The memories of his life began to crumble, as if they had been nothing more than fragments of a rapidly fading dream, his human form in the reflection disappeared completely and only that of the giant body eyes and strange anatomy remained.

He fell to the ground with a stifled scream, his mind struggling to assimilate what was happening. What was that thing? Why was it seeing through the eyes of that monstrosity? He couldn't process what he was seeing, what he was feeling. Her body began to tremble uncontrollably, as if it was about to break under the weight of that revelation. His skin felt strange, as if it had changed shape, as if his whole being was undergoing an involuntary and terrifying metamorphosis.

The creature behind the glass was looking at him, as if waiting for something. But he didn't understand what. Why had his body changed? Why did he see that thing instead of his own face? A torrent of thoughts and fears invaded his mind, an uncontrollable whirlpool of despair that choked him.

But it was all in vain. The answer, if it ever existed, seemed to be getting farther and farther away. The man once called Jansen, defeated and filled with terror, collapsed to the ground, unable to comprehend what was happening. And as the shadows of the place lengthened, he began to understand that perhaps he would never find the answer. Maybe that place wasn't hell. Maybe it wasn't even a place. Maybe he had simply never gotten out of his own nightmare called life.

While his mind was in chaos he didn't turn for a moment to the place he had woken up from when he woke up. It was a bed that had a structure reminiscent of some sort of antediluvian jellyfish. On one side was a small pilaster, almost as if it were a kind of nightstand. On that pilaster was a book in a case in that strange language and other characters that were recognizable because it was written in the Latin alphabet.

On top of that book was a piece of scroll of strange texture that by the light of the spheres might appear to have some kind of circuit board engraved on it. On the scroll were written some words in English in black ink:

Everything is written in this book. Please open it and do not leave until you are sure of its contents. Follow the instructions and notes in the book. Your life and the life of my species is likely to depend on it. I am sorry that the extraction was so confusing, but you will understand shortly.

The final sentence of the message only increased his doubts.

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