He fought back to awareness of his body, and knew he was dying — now. He felt it in his arms and legs. His heartbeat was slow and his breath came in gasps that had all but ceased. He couldn’t find light with his eyes any longer. There was only the great, empty shadow into which he was slowly drifting. This was death.
At first he could not discern the enemy. He had believed there was no life but his own. Now he was aware that there was life all about him. While his own was decreasing, this other was growing, drawing from him his own vital force of existence.
He reached out involuntarily to struggle against that enemy and felt it react. He felt the sick flood of its revulsion wash through him, poisoning, destroying. But an understanding came. He could make a bargain —
The enemy was supporting him — how, he didn’t know. But his demands had been too great. The enemy rebelled for its own safety and had begun first to withdraw its support, then actively attack him. He could offer to curb his demands, to lessen his requirements. Then they could both survive. He didn’t know if it would be accepted. He was at the mercy of the other. But he sent out his offer and his appeal —
Faintly, the fires seemed to rise in the distant cells of him. The liquids were renewed. His offer was acceptable. His life was restored to him again.
But not so high as before. Some of the ecstasy was gone, and the fear remained — the deadly fear that if he demanded his full portion he would be annihilated.
Where did such a nightmare arise? It had diminished, but he was still shaking in every muscle as he became aware of the panels of the Mirror. Perspiration soaked his clothes.
It was nothing that had ever happened to him. Of that he was certain. For some reason his imagination had been harboring this fantasy of death, controlling him with it. It had to be a symbol of something else, having no reality in itself.
Hesitantly, he glanced at his watch and then at the panels of the Mirror. It didn’t seem possible that he had spent half a day with it already. He ought to call it enough for now. Wolfe had cautioned him to not spend more time than this at a single sitting. But he had to get another look at that symbol of terror and find out its meaning. If it had one —
He went back again and again to look more closely each time, to feel more intimately the sense of death. Until at last he was able to look continually without cringing.