The Valley of Mirrors wasn't made of glass. It was a geological scar where desert sand had been fused into pure obsidian by some catastrophic magical event in the past.

  The ground was black and reflective. The canyon walls were giant prisms. The sky reflected on the ground, creating the dizzying illusion that we were driving through nothingness, floating in an infinite blue abyss.

  "Stop the truck," I ordered, feeling a nausea that wasn't physical.

  "Engine's already stopped," Valéria replied, hitting the dead dashboard. "Electronics fried. Too much mana refraction. We're on foot."

  We got out of the vehicle. The silence was absolute.

  When I stepped on the obsidian ground, my reflection looked at me.

  But it didn't mimic my movement.

  While I looked down, the "Arthur" in the ground looked forward, smiling. He wore an impeccable white lab coat, with no blood or oil stains.

  "Don't look at the ground," I warned. "Look at the horizon."

  "Too late," whispered Luna.

  She was paralyzed, staring at a crystal pillar to her right.

  Inside the pillar, a version of Luna was trapped. But not the warrior Luna of now. It was the "Idol" Luna from years ago. Pink sequin dress, heavy makeup, a frozen plastic smile.

  "You were flat on the last note," the Crystal Luna spoke. The voice didn't move the air; it moved Luna's mind. "Nobody wants to hear you scream, darling. They want to see you smile and shut up."

  "You shut up..." Luna muttered, hands trembling on the sonic baton.

  "You're just a stage prop. A doll that broke and now plays soldier."

  Nearby, Gristle snarled at a puddle of water.

  From the reflection, an Orc didn't emerge. A humanoid Wild Boar emerged, drooling, with eyes devoid of intelligence. The beast society said she was.

  "Meat... kill... eat..." the reflection grunted.

  And Valéria... Valéria stared at a machine. A version of herself made of rusted scrap, falling apart, gears jammed.

  "You fix nothing," said the Scrap Valéria. "Everything you touch breaks. The truck will fail. And they will die because of you."

  "Arthur!" Luna screamed, falling to her knees, covering her ears. "Make it stop! It's a psychic attack!"

  I tried to run to her, but something blocked my path.

  An invisible wall.

  And then, he rose from the ground.

  My reflection.

  He wasn't a monster. He was Hélio Veras. My father.

  Or rather, me, at his age. Me, if I had stayed in Sovereignty's clean lab.

  The "Scientist-Arthur" adjusted his glasses. He held a crystal clipboard.

  "Fascinating," he said, with my voice, but without my soul. "Subject displays signs of moral regression. You think you're a hero, Arthur? You're just a dirty scalpel. You like opening things to see how they work. You don't want to save your friends. You want to dissect them."

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  [MENTAL INTRUSION ALERT]

  [CORTISOL STRESS LEVEL: CRITICAL.]

  [PARASITE SUGGESTS: EAT THE TARGET.]

  "Shut up," I growled, drawing my real scalpel. "You are a solid light projection based on neurosis. You aren't real."

  "I am the only real part," the reflection smiled coldly. "The rest is just the monster's host. Drop the scalpel, Arthur. Let science take over. Let's finish daddy's work."

  He snapped his fingers.

  Around me, I saw visions of the future.

  Luna dead on an operating table. Gristle in specimen jars. Valéria disassembled.

  And me, writing it all down in a notebook, feeling nothing.

  It was my greatest fear. Not dying. But losing my humanity and becoming the coldness I fought against.

  "See?" the reflection walked toward me. "This is what you are. A functional sociopath."

  He touched my chest. His hand was as cold as absolute zero. I felt my heart skip a beat.

  I looked to the side.

  Luna was crying, huddled up, while the Crystal Idol laughed at her.

  Gristle was dropping her cleaver, accepting she was just a beast.

  If I did nothing, we would die of magical depression in five minutes.

  I needed a differential diagnosis.

  What separates reflection from reality?

  The reflection is perfect. Reality is flawed.

  I looked at Crystal Arthur. He was immaculate. Symmetrical.

  I looked at my hand. Scars. Nails dirty with grease. The callus on the finger where I hold the scalpel.

  And, pulsing under the skin, the Parasite.

  The filth. The mistake. The symbiosis.

  "You're wrong," I said, grabbing the reflection's wrist.

  He tried to pull away, but my grip was firm.

  "What are you doing? Let go! I am perfection!"

  "Exactly." I smiled, and my eyes glowed with the monster's red, chaotic light. "Perfection is static. Life is messy. Life is mutation. And I..."

  The Parasite covered my arm with black, spiky armor.

  "...I am the error that's going to cancel you."

  I pulled Crystal Arthur close and delivered a headbutt.

  It wasn't an elegant strike. It was brute force. Forehead against glass.

  CRAAAACK!

  The scientist's perfect face cracked.

  He screamed—a sound of shattering glass.

  "Luna!" I shouted, blood trickling down my forehead. "You aren't a doll! You are a Siren! Break the glass! Scream until he explodes!"

  Luna raised her head. She saw my cracked reflection retreating.

  Rage replaced fear.

  She stood up.

  "I... don't... do... LIP SYNC!"

  She spun the baton and let out a primal scream. Not a song. A distorted, dirty war cry.

  The Crystal Idol tried to cover her ears, but the frequency of reality shattered her.

  PING!

  The perfect doll exploded into diamond dust.

  "Gristle!" I called. "You aren't an animal! You are a Chef! And chefs control the meat!"

  Gristle looked at the Wild Boar. She picked her cleaver off the ground.

  "I... prefer my meat well done."

  She charged and split the reflection in half with a perfect technical strike.

  Valéria, seeing the others win, kicked her scrap version.

  "I fix what matters!" she yelled, firing the shotgun point-blank into the machine's chest.

  The Doppelg?ngers dissolved into light and smoke.

  Only mine remained. Scientist-Arthur, now with a cracked face, tried to retreat into the ground mirror.

  "No! Logic! Order!" he wailed.

  I stepped on his chest, pinning him to the ground.

  "Order ended when the sky opened up, Doctor. Now, we improvise."

  I drove my scalpel into his crystal "heart."

  He shattered into a thousand pieces, which flew away in the wind like glittering dust.

  Silence returned to the valley. But now, the obsidian ground no longer showed distorted reflections. It showed only four dirty, tired, and victorious people.

  I fell to a sitting position, panting. The Parasite retracted the armor, satisfied with the emotional "meal."

  Luna walked over to me and offered a hand.

  "Are you okay, Doctor? You headbutted a rock."

  "Shock therapy." I touched the bump on my forehead. "And you? Killed your pop career?"

  "Buried it." She smiled, a real smile, crooked and tired. "I prefer punk rock, anyway."

  Valéria tinkered with the truck. The engine roared back to life as soon as the crystal ghosts vanished.

  "Interference is gone. The path is clear."

  We climbed into the truck.

  As the vehicle accelerated out of the Valley, I looked one last time at the mirrors.

  I didn't see my father. I didn't see the monster.

  I saw only Arthur Veras. The man who was going to kill God (or whatever was in Brasília).

  "How much further?" asked Gristle, sharpening her cleaver.

  I looked at the horizon. The purple sky of the Cerrado was giving way to a golden, artificial glow in the distance.

  A dome of light that touched the clouds.

  "We're arriving," I pointed. "Brasília. The Capital of Light."

  The dome shone with a purity that hurt the eyes.

  But I knew the truth.

  Light that bright only serves to hide bloodstains on the carpet.

  "Prep your masks," I warned. "The air inside must be so holy it's unbreathable."