Dare Brave the Reflection

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the line: "I'm not going in there."

Dare Brave the Reflection

With the cranial probes were in place, Dr. Szokoly hurried to the "event" switch.

He wanted to commit as quickly; before his conscience could pipe in with "Don't we want to sleep on this one?"

"Let's rock and roll," said First Lieutenant Briggs with a smile.

Szokoly marveled at the naiveté of these young officers. They were bright, fearless – immortal in their own minds.

It's ironic, thought the doctor, Their minds tell them to be fearless, and yet...

I'm sending him to a fate worse than death, Szokoly thought. After dozens of trials and an equal number of failures, he knew there was little hope.

"Little hope is better than no hope," he said throwing the switch.

Briggs fell through conscious reality into a world of fuzzy edges.

"I'm hungry," he said using the insertion script.

An apple appeared in his hand. He took a bite and tasted purple.

"I see a bird," again, from the script.

A parrot flew by squawking triangles. It landed on a nearby tree bending a branch. The tree moaned A Rhapsody in Blue in protest.

Satisfied, Briggs moved onto the main objective – Fear.

A staff of white lab coats was monitoring his neural pathways. When he found Fear, they would know.

Knowing were Fear resided in a man would be a powerful weapon indeed.

"Show me fear," Briggs said.

A shallow cave appeared. From the entrance, Briggs could see a full length mirror.

Something about the mirror didn't feel right. At first he thought, "I'm not going in there."
Then his training took over.

"Dr. Szokoly, we've got scatter," said an assistant.

Scatter – another term for a hyper-schizophrenic event.

"Bring him back," said the doctor; wondering, not for the first time, What can be so terrifying that the bravest amongst us cannot face it?

Word Count 300