04 Oct Chernobog Station

Chernobog Station was but a hollow reminder of the grim reality of what the Arctic Circle could do in a single night.

Hoarfrost and harsh winds tore apart equipment, covering everything in a slick sheet of icy gray and black.  It gave the impression of a shine as our ship dipped near the main landing platform.

Captain Alan Blayne let out a soft whistle and took off his hat.  It was clear the facility had seen better days, but that wasn’t why he was paying reference.  Among the frozen landscape, we could see the remains of the researchers who had failed to escape the sudden onslaught of cold.

Their eyes were wide with fear, frantically climbing toward any measure of safety that was available.  But nothing that this remote outpost offered would have been enough.

“Thirteen souls, that’s a bad omen,” Abdul, our Iranian guide, commented as we dropped anchor.  The water was at most thirty degrees, and not a sign of life flickered around our boat as I followed the captain to the ladder.

“Everything about this place is bad luck,” I agreed as I checked my portable laptop.  Signal was gone, and not even my normal apps could function in this awful environment.

“Best leave that here; no amount of mathematics will be able to help you with what they uncovered.”  That was Chief Science Officer Seneca Castaigne, a Croatian who claimed to have been a survivor of a previous Arctic mega-storm.  He was the one who said there would be no way the crew here had survived when we had discovered they were radio silent for nearly three years.

Or rather, when we had learned that this place even existed.

“How long do you think their dark winter lasted?” I whispered as we climbed.  Despite the heavy gear we wore, it seemed that each step we made caused sharp, cold pains to shoot through my body.  A dreadful reminder of the impossible climate I would be working in.

“Most likely only a few hours, if they were lucky.  But it goes without saying that despite the evidence of imminent death, these fine men and women did us all a service by sending out that SOS,” Seneca commented.

“Do we happen to know why it took so long for the Arctic Outpost to get the information?” Blayne asked.

We were stepping now onto what looked like a helipad of some kind with a massive drill attached that was pointed toward the iceberg they had been excavating.  From this angle, I couldn’t see anything that made the chunk of ice any different than the hundreds of others that darted up from the frigid sea.

But clearly, the researchers here felt their discovery had been worth keeping their entire operation hidden from everyone on the planet.

To answer Blayne’s question, Seneca was scanning the area for electromagnetic activity, and his equipment was already at extremely high levels.  Even with all of the protective equipment we were wearing, the spiking meter made me uneasy.  “All of the activity here is off the charts; it likely kept any sort of communication from transmitting until there was a soft spot,” the Croatian explained.

The final member of our team, a geologist named Edward Kant, arrived in the rear with all of the necessary tools to take samples of the ice.

“Walk us through precisely what happened,” Kant told Seneca.

The older man gestured for us to follow him to the south side of the station, where the command and observation center were located.

“At precisely 1300 hours on November 4th, a category five mega-storm capable of producing winds up to 140 miles per hour was recorded to have emerged from this location.  There were no factors to indicate that the storm was on the horizon, no meteorological data to provide us with a reason to believe this island was in any danger.  Of course, all of this is somewhat speculative, as the operation was hidden from satellite imagery until after the storm hit.  Then, the research team sent out what little data they had on an unidentified object of massive diameter to our outpost in North Greenland.  The rest … as you can see, is history,” Seneca muttered as we climbed the stairs.

“All of this was filed with the United Nations and Doctor Parker, our Head of Operations.  Did you not read the file?” he asked.

Kant looked a bit flushed, not wanting to admit he hadn’t.  Instead, he focused on the iceberg and said, “I have never actually seen a glacial mass of this size.”

“We should begin taking down all measurements and determine precisely where they stopped their excavation,” Blayne commented.

“Captain, I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said, my mouth going dry.

In the early morning fog, we stood nearly a yard away from a steel platform that reached across a gap of the dead winter to the ice dam itself, revealing a dark hole that bore into the ice like God himself had punched into the ancient cold mountain.

All of us wordlessly followed the platform into the depths of the iceberg, the chill in the air suddenly making me feel claustrophobic.  There was a presence here, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I realized as we climbed down the rope ladder to a clearing below.

I was the first to arrive, my eyes fixed on the form of a completely crystallized woman standing near where the drill had stopped moving.  The massive vehicle itself was actually small in comparison to the object that had appeared from beneath the wintry rock.

It was clear and polished, as wide as Lake Michigan and as dark as the starry sky.  Not a crack or blemish broke apart the shimmering surface, but around the edges, I saw what looked like beveled contours that were made of stones from what looked like every corner of the earth.  Perhaps most striking about the object was what I saw within.  Reflections of myself, the other scientists and the iceberg, a mirror image of our surroundings save for one detail.  The iceberg itself was carved as though a part of a larger city, one made not of human hands.

The buildings were as clear as glass, infinitely stretching beyond what I could see toward a shadowy beach that spanned what should have been the reflection of the gaping hole above.  And amid the chaotic city of up and down, strange creatures that I could hardly fathom coursed back and forth near the edge of the mirror.

“What in the hell is this…” Kant asked, his voice hardly a whisper in the chasm.  He took a tentative step closer to the massive looking glass, his breath catching in his throat as his own reflective image caught his eye.

It was then I realized that his mirror self was acting of its own accord, marching toward Kant as if they knew each other.

At the same moment, the geologist came to a complete stop, his face paler than the iceberg itself.

“I can’t … I can’t move …” he cried out frantically.

I turned toward him, wondering if the shock of the mirror was causing him to panic.  Instead, I saw his lower body was turning to crystal in the same way as the woman that was to my left.  In a flash of light, Kant screamed out, and the strange limpid material covered his entire body, paralyzing him.

“Get away from it!  Everyone retreat!” I shouted.

Seneca was the only one that hesitated; he was fishing for a camera to take a few candid images of our find, not even remotely concerned about capturing the horror of what was occurring around us.

Grabbing his arm, Abdul chastised him, and we did not need any more prompting to obey and escape.

As we hurried to the frozen tundra outside, Captain Blayne tried to get a grasp on what we had just discovered.

“I think I understand now why this facility was removed from satellites,” he said, holding his hand next to his heart.

“It shouldn’t be possible, that thing.  It’s not of this earth, is it?” Seneca asked.

“We have a legend of a world that is laid out across a flat smooth surface.  A mighty king created an underground sanctum to hide from a terrible winter that reshaped the world.  They crossed over into another world, to remain hidden, and there they became gods,” Abdul said.  His eyes were mystified by what we had seen, and I wondered how much of his story could be true.

“The mirror should be worshipped and revered, for it has powers beyond imagination,” he added.

I thought back to what we had learned about the weather and how suddenly it had hit the base.  “That wall of ice came down with a single impact of the drill… revealing the mirror.  When the team saw the object, it must have been what altered the climate of this area,” I reasoned.

“It completely changed the structure of this entire region,” Alan realized.  I could see the gears in his head turning as the air around us grew stiff.

“We need to lock down this entire island.  Maintain the satellite blackout; no one should be allowed near that mirror.  Contact our allies; we need more drills here from every military force that is available to donate their men for a full excavation.  We need to dig this up as soon as possible,” he decided.

“You must be joking.  Did you see what happened to Kant?  As soon as his reflection saw him, he was frozen in place.  We would be risking too many lives if we attempted to move it,” I argued.

“And it’s that sort of power we need,” Blayne insisted.

When the words fell dead in the air, I realized immediately what prompted his sense of urgency.  This was no longer a scientific endeavor but a military struggle.  Whoever held the mirror would likely be able to declare itself the next world power, I realized as I nodded reluctantly.

“I can gather a team, but I can’t make any promises,” I told him.

My mind raced as we left the outpost, the sea below becoming tumultuous as if nature itself could sense the dark plans that had begun.

As we climbed aboard, I took a look at the massive ice sheet again, trying to imagine how much of the pallid stone the mirror encompassed.

“We don’t need just drills.  We need weapons,” I told the Captain.  I hoped he would not suspect the true reasons behind my request, and much to my relief, he agreed to it without hesitation.

I kept my head down as our ship struggled to push away from the forsaken island, my brain working double time to decide how many explosives it would take to sink the iceberg to the bottom of the Siberian Sea.

Little did I realize the nightmares I would be unleashing.

* * * * * *

We did not return to Chernobog until the warm season came, our team tripling in size to fulfill the military’s desire to procure the gigantic mirror.

Our fleet was filled with Russian and Iranian forces, along with a few East-Euro elites who were here merely to observe and bark orders.  Each was armed to the teeth based on the preliminary warnings I had given about our find.  I wasn’t sure, even with the most advanced weapons at our disposal, if it would be enough, for other matters had occurred to the rest of my team after we departed in the winter.

Seneca was the first to experience bad luck, his wife leaving him when he returned to Croatia with the developed photographs of the mirror.

He had phoned me one night, his voice filled with dread as he tried to describe what he had seen in the pictures.

“I … we … we can’t go back there.  The mirrors are a doorway, or perhaps a portal.  Worlds beyond our mortal understanding!  I saw … death.  And life.  It was beautiful and terrifying…”

He offered to send me a copy of the photo but then changed his mind over and over again.  The more he talked, the more I recognized he was losing his mind.  This was a man of science and years of repute, and he was babbling the way an infant would.

“I cannot look at myself in any mirror any longer.  Only the True World is what can give me solace.  I need to return.  I need to release my captive dreams,” he whispered over and over again.  It sounded like a chant at some times.

Then, after speaking to his wife, I learned that his madness descended upon their household much like the megastorm.

She said that he had smashed every surface in our place that even had the slightest glimmer of his face showing.  Then, with the broken, jagged pieces of glass, he began to ram them into his eyes over and over again.  She said it took her full weight to make him stop from bleeding out.

And the way she described him, Seneca did not sound like a man at all.

“His face is covered in permafrost, paler than a ghost and flaky.  Yet it doesn’t peel; it hardens and solidifies the way icicles do as they drip from firmament…” she told me, her voice hollow and afraid.

I did not hear from them again; instead, I saw an article on a news blog that informed me of their fate.  Authorities had raided their house after hearing complaints from the neighbors of a foul smell.  It was like crystallized poison wafting through the air, or so they claimed

, and within, they found both the dead body of his wife and the shattered remains of what some described as a statue of a man that was completely glass.  Yet I knew this had to be the result of what the mirror had done to poor Seneca.

Captain Blayne was next; he said he was haunted by the images of the mirror in his dreams.  Each and every night, his shadow self would take a step closer.

Blayne said sometimes he could feel his reflection closing in on him and choking the breath from his lungs.

“It’s impossible to describe, but it reminds me of when I thought I might drown at an early age,” he admitted.

When he heard what happened to Seneca, he immediately resigned and sought treatment in the States.

Only our Iranian friend remained steadfast with my new team as we approached the island.  The fog lifted as we scanned the waters, and I tried desperately to recall where the iceberg had been.

“You’re certain the coordinates are correct?” the lead researcher asked.  Parker was her name, and she had a steely gaze that told me disappointing her would cost more than just my career.

We scoured the waters for the next few days, our men growing anxious and frustrated as none of the advanced equipment would provide even a hint of where the iceberg had disappeared to.

“This should not be possible.  We have traversed these waters for nearly a week now,” one of the captains said as our resources became scant.  We tried using satellites but only received more blurry images.  The island seemed to constantly be on the move.

Abdul had a suggestion, but it didn’t seem practical from a scientific perspective.

“The wards of this gate are protecting it fiercely.  If we wish to find it again … a sacrifice must be made.  When the kings sealed it away, a pact with the other world was made.  This is what our scriptures teach,” he told Parker.  He wasn’t merely talking about the loss of more resources.  He meant a human ritual.

“We’ll take that under consideration,” she promised.

I couldn’t tell if she had lost her mind as well.  The next day, I found out how far past sanity we were.

Abdul volunteered himself, along with several Iranian soldiers who believed this would be the only way they could ever see their families again.

“The sea has turned against us, the same way the storm destroyed the others.  The gods are testing our resolve, and we must show them our loyalty, and only by blood can this be done,” Abdul told them.

He managed to block off the entire south deck of the ship we were on as the air itself went still in the eerie northern sea.

“We have to stop them!” I told the captains as some of the soldiers blocked off stairwells and shot anyone who came close.

Parker crossed her arms and cocked her head as she observed the ritual.

“We shouldn’t be hesitant to embrace unknown concepts, gentlemen.  This may, in fact, be our salvation,” she told us.

Blood was streaking across the entire deck of the ship by midnight.

And then, as I tried again to get the captains to sail back toward the eastern shores of Siberia, strange auroras rippled across the sky.

Colors that I recognized at first and then morphed into strange, unrecognizable pigments that made my head hurt.

All of our equipment went dead, and the power shut off, completely darkening the already foreboding sea.

The cascading rainbow of strange and abstract colors became like a raging river, constantly flocculating back and forth over the sea as we watched in awe.

Then, the entire sky seemed to split apart.  Waters rose from either side of the boats, our massive warships being tossed about as though they were mere toys.

The waters were pushing toward the vortex that formed in the sea, pulling our ships forward into a whirlpool of roaring thunder and iridescent lightning.

“The entire ocean is falling into that pit!” the men shrieked as we all hurried to the inner hull.  Our ship rumbled and shook, threatening to tear apart as we began to tip toward the waterfall.

There was no escape to be made, I realized, as I looked through the fracturing glass windows to the void below.

We were plummeting into the unknown.

I closed my eyes, grabbing ahold of the rail as all noise and all sense of surroundings faded away.

The crewmen around me seemed to split apart into separate shadowy reflections of themselves, each wailing like lost souls as we kept falling.

Blood rushed through my head, and I closed my eyes, feeling a wave of nausea hit me as water struck us on both sides.

I collapsed to the ship deck, Parker at my side and the crewmen tossed about like rag dolls.  Some of them were fortunate to survive; the rest were torn apart by the constantly changing waves.

Then we heard nothing.

My feet were wobbly as I got up and began to climb to the outer deck, my skin tingling with fear as I saw what was before us now.

Cities of lights and angles unlike any made by man hung in the air.  Twisting and smooth architecture mixed together to form a sprawling metropolitan maze of grey ziggurats, crystalline walkways and amalgamated structures that stretched over the sky and toward the familiar icebergs that I had seen before.

Except that instead of a single massive reflective surface now, I saw hundreds of them, all floating ominously in the frigid air, waiting for us to reveal ourselves.

“This is not our earth,” Parker realized as we moved to the captain’s quarters to see if any of the power would work.

“Nothing.  We are sitting ducks out here,” the captain commented.

Parker was not so easily discouraged.

“We have longboats and oars, is that correct?” she asked.

An hour later, with less than a dozen men in a dingy, we were rowing toward fate.

The water felt thick, as if we were trudging through sand, and it was becoming more and more difficult.  The darkness below seemed to stretch for eternity, and strange, indescribable shapes flowed about the waters, reacting to our movements the way predators would if on the hunt.

“Seneca’s speculation of this being a portal was well founded, it seems.  What do you suppose the connection here is?” Parker asked as we got close to one of the larger icebergs that touched the water.

“A portal to an alien world?  I’m not sure if even the most intelligent and philosophical minds could conjure up a hypothesis, ma’am.  This is beyond my scope.  But the only thing I truly feel here is … unease.  We don’t belong.  And there is an invisible force that seems to be growing heavier with each breath we make.”

“You may be right … but it is also enticing.  We are likely bait for a power that is beyond the reality we have comprehended our entire evolution.  We are reshaping history.  So let us not balk now,” she decided.

The row came to a halt on the western side of the pillar of ice, with strange carved stairs revealing themselves to lead to the mirror’s edge.

“Someone has been down this path already; I see footprints,” one of the soldiers warned.  We kept our wits about us as we went forward.  Not even our voices sounded like humans anymore as we reached the mirror itself.

I couldn’t help but notice that Kant was still in the same place where we had left him, except now he was merged with the woman that we had discovered the first time we came to this arctic wasteland.  The two of them seemed to be tearfully begging us not to go further.  And beyond the mirror’s surface, I saw those same abstract forms wailing.

“We need to reach the other side.  Determine how the portal works,” Parker said as she ordered her soldiers to lay down landmines.  “Without the proper drills, this will be the only way to remove the mirror safely.  Make sure they aren’t too close to the mirror, or it could damage the specimen,” she added.

I peered toward the crystallized, inhuman form of Kant, looking at the woman’s face closer.  A dark realization dawned on me.

“We need to leave this place; this is not a suggestion.  This is a prophecy that we are fulfilling.  An evil that is being awakened!” I told her as I pointed toward the victims of the mirror.

The woman wore Parker’s face.  And here in this strange history, she had already been fated to be trapped forever.

“Don’t you see that we need to turn back now?” I told her.

Parker was seemingly unfazed by the revelation, instead ordering the others to begin blasting as she sought cover.  I was one of the few who remained close to the mirror to observe.

One by one, the explosives went off, rocketing across the surface of the ice and the mirror.

I did not know what to expect, but the end result was more frightening than I could have ever anticipated.

The glass reflections of ourselves shrieked louder than a rumbling quake.  And long dark tendrils of crystal snaked out from the mirror’s surface as sharp as glass, ripping through the soldiers as lightning bolts.  They were consumed and dragged into the widening maw of the mirror-like morsels for a lumbering beast.

The mouth of the mirror showed me the familiar platform of the Chernobog outpost, and I shouted for Parker to run toward it.

A final blast rocketed me toward the opened void, and I felt the shards of the jagged mirror close in on my leg as I fell through.

* * * * * *

I awoke on a medical ship, time itself slipping away as I faded in and out of recovery, the madness of the mirror echoing in my memories.

My rescuers were part of the East Euro agencies that had chosen to wait beyond the Arctic circle and found me lingering in the water alone, clinging to life.

“We could not find any of the other vessels or any other survivors.  The entire island vanished before our eyes … a flash of light, and then it merged into the sea as if watching a massive gateway close,” the soldiers told me.

Given what I had seen on the other side, I believed him.

I filed a report, recommending the entire area remain closed off to all vessels for the foreseeable future, and resigned from my position not long after.

The excavation has ended, and the remains of the strange mirror are nowhere to be found by the search parties that have been authorized.

Of course, I can, but only speculate as none of them have returned either.  The ocean seems to swallow all that enters the zone.  And perhaps, as gruesome as it may be, it is better that way than finding what else the mirrors hold for our world.