[The following report was constructed from video footage, forensic analysis, and agent debriefs.]

It was early morning in the Bureau Arcana breakroom. Doctor Royce Greyson was sipping on his coffee while watching two of his colleagues, Elliott Harding and Maxwell Sharp, play a game of chess.

Elliott Harding was a man whose face had what Royce described as a resting deviousness to it- a perpetual mischievous glint in his eye. Codenamed The Hanged Man, Elliott Harding was The Bureau’s Director of intelligence. He wore a crisp white shirt with the top button unbuttoned, a silk white tie that was comfortably loose, and a slick black blazer that he never buttoned.

Across from Elliott sat Maxwell Sharp, a nearly seven foot tall tree of a man. Royce had never seen his face because it was always hidden behind a hand carved white wooden mask with no features except for the eye holes that showed his brilliant blue eyes. Maxwell was dressed in a tall double breasted gray vest and ruffled cravat. Despite his overwhelming presence and very notable appearance, Maxwell Sharp was the Director of Stealth Ops. Maxwell may at first seem like an odd choice for The Hermit, but the man is a ghost when he wants to be.

Maxwell stared at the pieces, tilting his head silently making an almost theatrical pantomime of thinking. He picked up and moved a chess piece without it making even the slightest sound, then used sign language to say “Checkmate.”

The air escaped Elliott’s mouth in a surprised puff. “Pfff, sneaky prick.” He said endearingly.

Maxwell stood and gave a bow, and Elliott smiled and laughed.

Elliott and Maxwell had an ongoing rivalry, Elliott being the Director of Intel whose job it is to find things, and Maxwell the director of Stealth ops whose job it is to not be seen. Maxwell often kept up his practice by sneaking into Elliott’s office and leaving a small teddy bear as a gift.

Since Elliott lost, he remade the board, putting all the pieces back to their starting positions. Then he turned to Royce. “You’re up, Doctor.”

Royce choked on his coffee. “Huh? Oh nono, I am awful at chess.”

“Cmonnnn, If you win I’ll buy you a sandwich.” Elliott said, looking up at Royce with puppy dog eyes.

Royce couldn't help but smile and sat down across from Elliott. He realized he never noticed Maxwell leave. “Fine, fine. You deserve a break after getting your ass kicked by Maxwell.” Royce said, making his opening move.

“Pfff. I’m slowly learning how he plays. I’ll beat him any day now.” Elliott said, making his next move.

Elliott was playing more casually than he was with Maxwell, more engaged with chatting with Royce. Royce, who was trying his best, was struggling to keep up. Royce strongly considered eating the pieces when Elliott wasn’t looking.

“Cmon, Doctor! What's that PhD good for?” Elliott said.

“I don't have a PhD in chess!” Royce said. The two laughed.

Not much later, Elliott was victorious.

Royce huffed and grumbled, but smiled at Elliott. Elliott smiled back and helped put the board back together.

The two worked in the same wing, so Elliott and Royce walked together, chatting about the various projects they were working on, when suddenly, Royce froze.

“There’s a door that wasn’t here before…” Royce said, staring at an intricately carved Victorian style mahogany door embedded in the bright concrete and tile walls of the Bureau Arcana, as if it were always there. Royce took a heavy gulp of his coffee before he narrowed his eyes at the door like it had just challenged him to a duel. 

Elliott snickered and reached for the door handle. His hand was immediately smacked away by Royce.

“What are you doing?” Royce said, his voice bouncing and echoing down the empty halls.

“It’s a door, doctor” Elliott said with a slight smugness to his voice. “It wants to be opened.”

“But we don’t know what's on the other side.”

“Very good, doctor. That’s why we need to open it, so we can learn!” Elliott said with a giddy excitement as he reached, yet again, for the door handle. Yet again, Royce slapped his hand away.

“Shouldn’t we be a little more cautious about this?” Royce said, words coming out quick and staccato, annoyed by Elliott’s apparent recklessness.

“It’s a door, Doctor! What’s so scary about a door? Oooo, Spooky!” Elliott said, gesturing at the door and waggling his fingers sarcastically.

“It’s not the bloody door I’m worried about. It’s what’s on the other side!” 

Elliott rolled his eyes impatiently. “Doctor, it’s literally our job to examine and explore weird stuff like this. I get it, you wanna plan and be prepared for anything that’s on the other side of that door. But it could literally be anything. We can’t prepare for literally everything.”

Royce tisked, “We should at least have a scout of some sort. An uh… a canary in the proverbial coal mine.”

Elliott sighed and shook his head. “Do you know why I ended up the director of intelligence? I am the canary.”

Royce grimaced, and sighed. It is literally the job of intel to gather intel…

“Fine.” Royce said, “But I’m coming with you.”

“Good boy! Here, I think I have a treat in my pocket.” Elliott said, laughing and reaching into his pocket.

“Oh hush you.” Royce said, sharply. “Here’s the plan, then. We open the door, take a peek inside if nothing immediately tries to kill us, then we go on from there. Sound good?”

“Sounds great, Doctor Doggo!” Elliott said, reaching over to scritch behind Royce’s ear.

Royce growled in response which amused Elliott to no end.

“Cease.” Royce said. Elliott complied.

“Care to do the honors, Doc?” Elliott said, stepping to the side and theatrically posing to present the door to Royce.

Royce sighed and reached for the doorknob…

Then he opened the door.

The door creaked open to reveal a hallway styled exactly like that of the Bureau’s corridors, well lit and sterile, except this one stretched on… and on… and on… Royce and Elliott stared down the hallway, unable to see the other end. Royce became dizzy with vertigo and shook his head.

Elliott looked positively giddy, and stepped through the threshold. 

“Well, Doc? Shall we explore?” Elliott asked, almost impatiently.

“I strongly suggest we tell someone else about this first.” Royce said with a sigh as he stepped through with Elliott. 

“Fine fine fine. I’ll text Maxwell.” Elliote said, pulling out his phone and leaning against the wall of the hallway.

Once Elliott’s shoulders made contact with the wall, the lighting seemed to shimmer, as if the photons were bouncing off of surfaces that weren’t quite there. The black and white checkerboard flooring seemed to shift, fold, and refract in on itself while still staying flat and stationary. Elliott, who thought he was firmly and securely propped up against the wall, fell backwards into a new hallway.

Royce jumped and tried to catch Elliott only to find he was twice as far away as he thought he was, the hallway they stepped into now wider. Disoriented, Royce stumbled and fell forward onto Elliott. 

Elliott was stunned and confused for only a moment before smirking.

“Comfy, Doctor?” Elliott snickered.

Royce blushed and stood up.

“We’re leaving.” He said sharply before turning towards the door… Only to find that it was no longer there.

Elliott popped up and looked down the now infinite hallway where the door they stepped through once was and let out a bellowing laugh that echoed down the endless walls. 

“Oh this is very interesting.” Elliott said as he stood next to Royce.

Royce couldn’t help but crack a smirk despite the anxiety shooting through his body. He looked back and forth between the endless halls, the vertigo making his head spin. He wanted to catch his breath against the wall, but fearing triggering another shift, steadied himself on Elliott, who snickered. Royce ignored him. 

Royce then looked down the corridor Elliott fell through which was dotted with doors, and seemed to have a staircase leading up at the end of it. He took a step in that direction. Elliott immediately grabbed Royce’s wrist, his face turning grim.

“It’s best we stick as close together as is feasible,” Elliott said in a low, serious tone, before he smiled and continued with his seemingly carefree demeanor, “But explore and experiment away, Doctor!”

Royce nodded and walked with Elliott, who took off his shoes, unlaced them, and used the lace to tie his wrist to Royce’s ensuring they don't get separated. He placed his shoes at about where they stepped in before the doorway vanished.

“Clever.” Royce said with a smile. With the way Elliott acted, it was easy to forget that he was actually a shrewd agent, deserving of the codename The Hanged Man.

The two then journeyed down the hallway, each door checked to see what lies beyond them. At first, the rooms they explored were mostly empty; some infinitely wide, while others the size of closets, but infinitely tall. As they got closer and closer to the staircase, the rooms seemed to grow more and more familiar, like distorted furnitureless versions of facilities in The Bureau proper.

Elliott followed behind Royce and knocked on the walls, deliberately trying to trigger another “shift” as Royce had started referring to it. Much to Elliott’s disappointment, and Royce’s comfort, nothing more than a couple square inches of wall would shift, and even then, only very rarely.

At the end of the hallway, at the base of the staircase, the two Bureau agents looked up and sighed. It looked to be quite the climb. Royce sat on the bottom step before his wrist got tugged on by the shoelace around his wrist as Elliott began ascending the staircase.

“Ack! H-hey!” Royce cried as he stumbled to his feet.

“I’m thirsty,” Elliott replied, “And I am not gonna wait around to drink my own pee.” 

“Why was that your first thought?” Royce said as he followed Elliott up the stairs. 

Elliott simply snickered.

As the two climbed the stairs, Royce made an unsettling discovery… the climb was getting easier, as if each step was getting more and more shallow, but the steps remained the same size as they went along… A few more floors of climbing, and it felt like they were descending. Sure enough, at the top of the staircase, Royce and Elliott found themselves at the bottom of the staircase.

The two breathed heavily, out of breath from their long accent/descent, a pair of double doors in front of them. Royce shivered.

“These doors…” he said.

“They look like the front door to The Bureau…” Elliott replied.

Elliott gripped the door handles and pushed the doors open, leading him and Royce into what appeared to be the main lobby of the Bureau. Everything was off, though. The atrium was impossibly sterile, not like it had been thoroughly cleaned, but more like not a soul had ever stepped foot in it at any point past or present. Walls that Royce and Elliott were used to having large marketing posters were now totally barren. A wall of monitors usually playing fluff pieces were now off, adding an eerie darkness. The reception desk, usually occupied with a busy clerk chatting with rookie agents, was barren, leaving nothing but an auditory void.

Elliott thwacked Royce on the shoulder to get his attention, then pointed up. Royce looked up to see the balconies of the atrium. Normally it only went up three stories, but here… There were countless stories, stretching up into infinity. 

Royce was hypnotized by the endless architecture, but his focus was broken when something caught his eye on one of the higher balconies. Royce squinted and strained to see better. It was a blurry white figure, but through Royce’s glasses, it looked like whatever it was was smeared and refracted through a prism.

“Do you see that?” Royce said, pointing at where he was looking. Elliott looked and stiffened. 

“It looks like… you…” Elliott said without his trademark playfulness.

Royce blinked and  it became clearer… There seemed to be a tall, thin man in a lab coat. It was impossible to make out the face. All that could be seen above the shoulders were two shimmers where the eyes would be. He took off his glasses to try and see through the smear of his glasses, but the aberration was only more clear…

Elliott cupped his hands together in a makeshift megaphone and called out to it. 

“Hellooo! Do you know where we are?” He shouted. Royce elbowed him. “

“What the hell are you doing?” Royce said in a scream-whisper.

“It clearly knows we are here. Why be quiet about it?” Elliott replied.

A low, ephemeral hiss slowly filled the atrium. More figures emerged from the shadows of the balconies. Closer… and closer still. The hiss growing louder… and louder still…

From behind the reception desk emerged one of the figures which gave Royce and Elliott a clear view of its face, or lack thereof… Instead of a head, there was a constant swirl of chromatic aberration, like whatever was supposed to be there wasn’t quite turned to the right tv station. 

Elliott drew his weapon, a small silenced pistol, and aimed it at the figure which shambled towards us. It shifted in and out of our vision, similar to how the walls and floors shifted in the infinite hall.

“Identify yourself.” Elliott demanded. The aberration continued its approach, it reached out an arm, the vague suggestion of a hand seemed to claw for Elliott.

He opened fire, his shot hitting the abbaration square in the lapel of its lab coat. The creature continued its approach, but a yellow shadow of it seemed to detach and fly back from the impact. In the balconies, many of the figures seemed to mirror the impact.

Elliott continued to fire upon the entity, the undeterred. Each shot sent a different color of shadow flying from the aberration, a different sect of the balcony flying back in perfect sync of each shot, but the creature continued, unrelenting.

Elliott turned to Royce with a distressed look and let out a panicked sigh. The aberration then lunged for Elliott and Royce yanked on the shoelace connecting them, pulling Elliott out of the way.

“Expedition over!” Royce screamed, helping Elliott up from the floor. The two rushed to the stairway they came from only to be blocked by a horde of aberrations. Royce looked around for an escape. He grabbed Elliott by the hand and dashed to a door that the two were used to leading to the East Wing of the Bureau. 

Behind the door was a twisted copy of what Elliott and Royce were used to, but they could not take time to fully analyze their surroundings. The hallways spiraled, floors and ceilings switching places. Junctions mirrored. Doors lead to hallways that lead to doors that lead to hallways that lead back in on themselves.

Eventually, the two agents were far enough away from the hissing static of the aberrations to catch their breath.

Elliott held up his hand which was still held by Royce.

“People may talk.” Elliott said.

Royce huffed and threw down Elliott’s hand.

“Focus!” Royce said, taking stock of their surroundings. The two were in what appeared to be the Bureau’s locker room, but the rows and rows of lockers spread on ad infinitum. The lockers stacked atop each other to form columns that connected to the ceiling which mirrored the floor. 

There were showers between the rows of lockers. Royce tested to see if they had running water. To his relief, they did. The liquid pouring from them smelt and tasted like water, so at least the two of them wouldn't die of dehydration.

Royce collapsed on one of the benches alongside the lockers as Elliott drank from the showers.

“Well, Doctor,” Elliott said, “in your professional opinion, what the hell were those things?”

“Hmm,” Royce said, staring up at the ceiling/floor, which gave him a nauseating sense that he was about to fall upward. “They seem to operate on the same sort of non-euclidean logic as the rest of this space. With how they look, it almost suggests they are an entity being refracted through a prism.”

“So like,” Elliott said, “If we can find the source, the thing that is being refracted, could we affect it?”

“In theory.”  Royce said. He draped his arm over his eyes so he didn’t have to look up any longer. “I have no earthly idea where we would even begin to find the source though.”

“About that.” Elliott said after taking a heavy gulp of water. “I’ve been thinking. This place seems to kinda loop in on itself, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“And it seems to vaguely resemble the Bureau, yeah?” 

“Yeah?”

“If we find the place that correlates to the door that led us here… Maybe that could give us an answer.”

Royce sat up and turned to Elliott with a weary smile. “Or it could lead us into an even more screwed up world.”

“Only one way to find out.” Elliott said and held out a hand for Royce to get up. He froze before he could fully reach out to Royce.

“Woah…” He said, “You feeling okay?”

Royce raised his eyebrows, “I’m fine. Why?” He said, reaching out a hand before gasping. His hand seemed to have a slight chromatic haze to it like the creatures they ran from.

Elliott grabbed Royce’s hand and the haze corrected itself. He helped royce up.

“Seems we can’t waste any time.” Royce said as the two left the locker room.

Royce and Elliott Made their way through the Bizarro Bureau as Elliott started referring to it. They had to head to the bowels of the facility, which was no easy task since often staircases down would lead to floors up, and straight hallways would lead down. Aberrations roamed the halls, paying the two no mind as long as they remained quiet or still. Elliott made sure to keep note of the paths they traveled since they seemed to maintain some sort of consistency.

Eventually they made it to the place the door appeared in the regular Bureau, and sure enough, there was a door. It appeared exactly as it did before,ornate and made of a rich dark wood. Elliott looked at Royce with a proud and excited look.

Royce chuckled and smiled. He had to admit, despite the danger, this has been an exciting adventure.

“Ready?” Royce said with a steadying breath.

“As I’ll ever be.” Elliott replied.

Royce opened the door. The other side looked noticeably older, like they had stepped into a completely different era. Everything was darker, more well worn. It no longer felt like a never inhabited, eerily sterile place. It felt like someone lived here… And that was almost more unnerving.

“This is promising.” Elliott said, the first to step over the threshold. 

Royce followed, and the two cautiously trekked on.

“Shh,” Royce said suddenly, “Do you hear that?”

Elliott stopped and listened with Royce. Just under the constant buzz of the lights, something else could be heard. Something melodic.

“I think that's… A piano…” Elliott whispered. He instinctively drew his gun.

Royce nodded, and the two got down in a crouch and continued silently, following the sound of the music. Methodically, they secured the area until they reached a long hallway lined with paintings. Each painting looked vaguely similar, using primarily red paint smeared on in violent, wrathful strokes. Elliott thought it was abstract gibberish. Royce thought it looked like a human being forced inside out.

At the end of the hallway was a door that seemed to be the source of the music. The two agents steeled themselves and carefully opened the door. 

Inside was what appeared to be an observation room with two chairs and a desk facing a large glass wall that looked out into a… lab. The equipment inside it seemed decades old. In the center of the lab sat a grand piano with a man sitting in the player’s seat. He was dressed in a lab coat, and had a similar frame to the aberrations, but his face was clear. He looked like a young man, but something about him seemed ancient. He had slick dark hair that came to a widow's peak up front. His eyes were hardly visible under the shadow of his brow. The man stopped playing. Elliott and Royce froze.

“It has been a long time since I have seen a shadow behind that glass.” The man said, his voice slow and deep, with a rasp of atrophy, like it hadn't been used in ages. The man turned towards Royce and Elliott.

Royce looked nervously over to Elliott. Elliott spoke.

“Hello. My name is Special Agent Elliott Harding with the Bureau Arcana, Who might you be?”

The man stared at us, observing us, studying us. Although looking directly at them, his gaze felt far away. Royce and Elliott could see a chromatic haze around the man. 

“Bureau… Arcana…” The man repeated, the works seeming to bounce around in his head, sparking distant memories. “So you are here to stop me from my research.” 

“Sir,” Elliott said, “We don’t even-”

“Doctor.” The man said coldly, the chromatic haze around him seemed to scream, his face twitching. “Doctor Escher.”

The man named Escher stood up, arms behind his back and head low, eyes fixated on the two agents as he walked towards them until he was right against the glass.

“Your arrival is… very fortunate for me. You see… I had just run out of live test subjects…” Escher said, his eyes looking between Royce and Elliott almost hungrilly. Elliotte took a step back and raised his weapon.

“We are not test subjects.” Elliott said, gun trained on Doctor Escher through the glass.

Doctor Escher smirked, the aberration around him seeming to laugh.

“The moment you stepped into my creation…” Doctor escher said, the haze around him growing more and more wild, like an analog signal slowly being detuned, the hiss of static filling the room before very suddenly going silent. The next sounds seemed to come from all around them. “You were.”

The light vanished from inside the lab on the other side of the mirror, leaving nothing but black void. Elliott opened fire into the glass where Dr Escher stood. The glass cracked and splintered, several of the shards now reflective instead of transparent. Royce saw him and Elliott’s reflection and grabbed Elliott’s wrist to stop them. Royce looked towards the bullet holes in the part glass part mirror, then turned to where the door was. There was no longer a door, but simply a wall riddled with bullet holes as if they had been shot through from the other side of the glass.

Doctor Escher tisked and shook his head, “So quick to violence. That simply will not do.”

Elliott tisked back sarcastically. “Oh yeah? Let us out and we will be more friendly.”

Escher simply laughed. It was a dark, dry laugh. Royce was watching Dr Escher closely through the splintering glass, obscured somewhat by the shards of mirror. Dr Escher cracked his neck and the pieces of mirror suddenly had Escher’s face in them. Royce turned to see an aberration behind them.

“Elliott!” Royce cried.

Elliott turned and raised his gun with a look of shock. The aberration grabbed Elliott’s gun, which fizzled and phased out of existence in a burst of colorful shadows. Elliott’s eyes went wide as the aberration then grabbed them by the throat. Royce grabbed onto the aberration to try and free Elliott only to shriek in pain as his hands spasmed, phasing in and out of an aberrant haze.

On the other side of the glass, Dr Escher paced back and forth, watching them intently. With each step he took, he left an Aberration behind him that shambled through the mirror window. Each one took hold of Elliott. With each chromatic hand that seized Elliott, Elliott’s being became more and more unstable, his face started to twist and swirl like the aberrations that held him.

“Don't worry, I’ll figure a way to get you out.” Royce said, backing away and trying his hardest to think of a solution to save Elliott.

Elliott sighed and chuckled. “You better. Otherwise… You owe me a sandwich in the next life.” He said. The shoelace that had connected the two up until now dropped to the floor as Elliott was brought through the mirror window, completely dissolving into the aether. 

Dr Escher adjusted his tie which shimmered with various colors and textures as the aberrations stepped back into Dr Escher.

“What… What did you do to him?” Royce said as he fell to his knees.

“He has been freed from the confines of the third dimension. He should be overjoyed.” Dr Escher said, one of the corners of his mouth twitching up as he tried to refrain from smiling.

“Oh? Should I be disappointed then?” Royce said, scowling at the twisted doctor.

Dr Escher couldn't contain his smile anymore and his voice dripped with sadism. “Oh do not fret.With him dealt with, I can take my time with you.” He said. Dr Escher then took a step through the mirror window. The shards ripped through Dr Escher, half of his face swirling into that of the aberrations, but brighter and more intense. 

He grabbed Royce by the throat just like Elliott. Royce fought back, but his attempts to grab Dr. Escher resulted in his hands passing right through his arms. Royce stared into Dr Escher’s dark eyes. Doctor Escher staried back, his smirk growing more and more as Royce felt his cells, his soul, his essence being torn apart. 

But Royce remained.

Dr. Escher’s smirk remained, but his eyes narrowed with bafflement. Aberrations began to split from the twisted doctor. Each aberration gripped Royce by the throat. Then each aberration split, clawing and grasping for Royce and each aberrant shadow to try and rip them free of Royce.

But alas, Royce remained.

Finally, Dr. Escher’s smirk disappeared. Royce swiped for Dr. Escher, a feral claw grabbing firm hold of Dr. Escher’s face. Royce looked into the mirror and saw his wolf self in his aberrant shadows. 

Royce growled and arched his back. He let out a piercing howl and the all transparent parts of the mirror window shattered until only sheer mirror remained.

Escher released Royce and fell to the ground, gripping his face. The rest of the aberrations gripping Royce dissipated.

Royce snarled and looked down at his hand. He was still human, but a wolfish haze flickered around him. He took a step towards Dr. Escher, who stood, cradling his face, a thick chromatic fluid oozing from behind his hand. His smirk returned.

“It seems the Bureau has made a habit of hiring mad scientists as their Moon.” Dr Escher said. He took a step back through the mirror. Royce rushed for Escher, punching the mirror. Royce’s fist smashed into the mirror and halted while his aberration swiped right through.

“I am not mad!” Royce screamed, pounding into the mirror.

“Oh my dear Doctor Jekyll, look at yourself.” Escher said.

Royce stared at himself through the mirror. His fists were twitching, his face was snarling. His aberrant haze twitched between human and werewolf.

“I cured my werewolfism. That's why they hired me.” Royce growled.

“Oh, did you? You must have tested your ‘cure’ on someone besides yourself, yes?”

Royce frowned, eyes falling closed. When he opened his eyes, the mirror seemed to flash the face of everyone Royce had sacrificed to make his treatment. 

“That’s what I thought.” Dr. Escher said, coldly.

“They chose to participate. They knew the risk.” Royce said in a shaky voice.

“Did they have a choice, though? Was the Bureau just going to let a werewolf roam free?”

Royce turned away from his reflection. 

Dr. Escher chuckled, his head low and arms out spread in a ‘there you have it’ pose. “Your sacrifice will help me free myself from this prison.”  He said.

Royce locked eyes with himself and drove his fist through the mirror, completely and totally shattering it. The rest of the room seemed to shatter with it. Royce found himself surrounded by empty void except for a long, narrow concrete path, each side flanked by an endless fall into oblivion. 

Royce looked on into the abyss, shambling along the path in a daze. The path branched off into a maze. Stairways up and down, endless. All sense of time seemed to vanish. 

 He heard a chuckle from inside his own head.

“Just step into the darkness.” His own voice said.

“Give up.” Said another part of his voice.

“Fall”

“Jump”

“Tear Yourself apart”

“Focus”

“Focus?”

“Hah.”

“Hahaha”

“Focus”

“On what?”

“It’s hopeless”

“You're stuck here forever.”

“Just like him”

“Focus” 

“It’s a Prison.”

“It’s a prism”

“FOCUS” Royce screamed. He looked at his hands and realized upon closer inspection that the aberrant haze wasn't random. As he moved, the chromatic shadows trying to break free seemed to follow a focal point far off in the distance. He was in a prism, being refracted. Royce followed the refractions of himself and made his way to the center of the abyssal labyrinth. 

It felt like an eternity, but Royce found an alcove where his aberration seemed quiet and focused. In the center was a chess board with a lone gray pawn. Hesitantly, Royce took hold of the pawn. As he took the pawn, it split, leaving a black pawn in his hand. The room around him shifted into a hollow pyramid of glass. The floors and walls were all mirrors and Royce could see his reflection stretch on and on and on and on. Each reflection wasn't quite an exact copy though, instead, each copy of Royce seemed to be a different spectrum, like the aberrant haze had been filtered out and separated. The face of each reflection became more and more twisted until it resembled the aberrant monsters they faced when they first arrived. 

These weren't reflections, they were refractions. This was the inside of the prism. Across from Royce stood Dr. Escher with a white pawn in his hand.

“No one has made it here before.” Doctor Escher said, an absolutely ecstatic look on his face. “You are my breakthrough.”

“Explain your hypothesis, doctor.” Royce said, voice exhausted but full of venom.

Doctor Escher rolled the pawn between his thumb and index finger, changing texture from white wood to marble, then glass, and so on. 

“This realm… It is linked to me.” Doctor Escher said. He changed his gaze from the pawn to Royce. “If we were to… switch places. If we link this realm to you…”

“And then? You’re still trapped here.” Royce said.

“Patience, Doctor Jekyll.” Escher said with a smirk. Royce could swear one of his refractions off in the distance howled.

“My theory is…” Doctor Escher continued, “If the linked individual were to… cease to be… This realm would collapse, and I would be back in my old lab in the bureau.”

Royce’s eyes twitched defiantly. “And why would I do that?”

Doctor Escher placed his pawn in the dead center of the chess board and waved a hand, gesturing behind him. In the far refracted distance, several Elliotts could be seen. They seemed dazed but quickly regained their bearings. They saw Royce and Doctor Escher and sprinted towards them. All of Elliott’s refractions moved closer and closer together until they all converged and he was just outside the prism. He pounded on the glass.

“All you have to do,” Doctor Escher said, giggling with excitement. “Place your pawn into mine.”

Royce Slowly brought his black pawn towards Escher’s white pawn. 

Elliott screamed through the glass. “Don’t you dare! You aren’t the canary here!”

Escher’s face twitched impatiently. “If you don't, others will come along.”

Royce looked to Elliott, who stared back at Royce, but not Royce, one of Royce’s refractions. He whispered into the ear of Royce’s refraction, and Royce heard it clearly. Royce focused, and only the refraction nodded.

Royce moved his pawn into Escher’s, combining the two into gray once more. As he did, the prism shifted, the black void beyond the infinite refractions of glass becoming white. Elliott’s gun rose from the chess board, materializing the same way it was disintegrated by the aberrations, but in reverse.

Dr. Escher sighed with relief. “Now grab the gun.”

“Elliott first.” Royce said.

Doctor Escher rolled his eyes. “This is your realm now. It's in your control.”

Royce looked to Elliott, and with a bit of focus, Elliott fell through the wall and into the prism. 

Elliott sauntered up to Escher and decked them square in the face. “You're nuts if you think Doctor Greyson will just let you leave.” He said.

Escher yelped out in pain, an aberration leaving his body from the impact. Itgrabbed Elliott and slammed them to the ground.

“You know… I have been here a long time. I know exactly how much I can tear you apart and keep you alive.” Escher growled.

Elliott snickered, an aberrant arm separated from his and grappled with Escher. “It seems I learned some tricks too, thanks to your experiment, doc.”

Escher seethed, separating himself more and more to try and overtake Elliott. Elliott did the same, countering Escher with every step.

Royce watched as the two devolved into a chromatic mass of a brawl. The blur of color was incomprehensible, and Royce looked away. He noticed that each outside refraction mirrored only one of the split aberrations duking it out in the center. Just as Elliott said would happen when he whispered into Royce’s ear.

Royce took the white pawn, closed his eyes and focused. He sensed through each of his refractions and carefully approached each of the brawling pairs. 

“Now!” Royce shouted. Elliott, and all his aberrations, all of his refractions, seized Doctor Escher in what appeared as a firm handshake, then pulled away, hands raised in surrender.

Before Escher could react, Royce, and all his refractions, grabbed Escher by the hand. The white pawn phased into the black pawn Elliot left in Escher's hand, and Royce held Escher’s hand tight, keeping the two of them bonded.

Escher looked at Royce in shock as Royce pointed Elliott’s pistol at Escher’s head.

“Checkmate.” Royce said, pulling the trigger.

Doctor Escher stumbled back. At first, the shot seemed to have no effect, but as he stood there, staring at Royce in disbelief, a crack emerged from Escher’s eye, like the whole room was solid glass, the crack spread and spread until…

Reality around Royce and Elliott shattered, fractured pieces falling one by one, revealing an old lab with dusty abandoned equipment. Royce and Elliott took a moment to gather themselves and take in their new surroundings. Elliott spoke first.

“Checkmate? Really?” He said with a snicker, giving Royce a playful elbow.

“What?” Royce said, rubbing the back of his head, “You never concluded a mission with a cheesy one liner?”

“Guess you need to go on more missions with me and find out.” Elliott said with a wink. He turned to the door and gasped excitedly. His shoes were waiting for him, exactly in the position he left them. He put them on and sighed with relief. 

Royce sighed with relief as well and put his hand on the doorknob. 

“I miss my own lab. Let's get the hell out of here.” Royce said, then opened the door. A part of him was truly terrified the door may lead to another endless hallway. He looked left and right, and hesitantly stepped into the hallway and Elliott followed. The two carefully walked down the hallway, worried that each step could shift the hallway into another nightmare. They turned a corner and saw Maxwell walking down the hall.

“Maxwell!” Elliott shouted with excitement. 

Maxwell, who was very not used to being surprised, jumped before seeing Elliott and Royce. He closed his eyes and smiled behind his mask, then waved in a silent ‘ohi!’ gesture before giving a silent ‘ACK!’ as Elliott tackle hugged the big man. Maxwell, a bit stunned, gave Elliott a pat on the back before Royce came up from behind and picked Elliott up off of Maxwell.

“Sorry. It’s been… an exciting day.” Royce said.

Maxwell got up, and bruised brushed himself off, somehow not making a single sound.

“Where have you been?” Maxwell said in sign language.

Elliott turned to the door, then back to Maxwell. “The Escher wing.”

[[Royce’s report on aberrations]]

Although direct analysis of aberrant subjects is impossible at this time, I was able to cross reference agent Hanged Man and my observations with notes found in Dr. Escher’s former lab after the collapse of the “Escher Wing.” Doctor Escher was obsessed with transcending three dimensional space. The aberrations seemed to be a direct result of his attempts to become a sort of 4 dimensional being. He seemed to manage this with a sort of dimensional prism that he used to split himself into multiple spectrums. That is why they had a perpetual look of chromatic aberration around them, like he was split and couldn't quite fully refocus himself. Hence why we have deemed them “aberrations.” The creatures seemed quantum fluid. Physical interaction with one aberration often didn't have an effect on the aberration itself, instead affecting other aberrations. The aberrations seemed to have the ability to pull whatever it touched into the same dimensional space as itself. According to his notes, Doctor Escher had full cognitive awareness of everything his aberrations experienced. This leads me to believe the aberrations are not specifically creatures, and more an extension of Escher himself. 

Take a piece of paper. Draw a circle on it. That is us. Now take the pen, and stab it through the paper next to the circle. That pen is Doctor Escher, and the space where the pen is piercing through the paper is an aberration.  Just like a 2d circle can only perceive and comprehend a 3d pen via the area it intercepts with the paper, (its perceivable world,) we could only perceive these 4d manifestations of Doctor Escher through our 3d world view. If you take the piece of paper and fold it in half, the one pen can go through the paper multiple times. It is my hypothesis that this is what the Escher Wing was; a work of origami made from a piece of our dimension.