Eyes of a Stranger
A/N: I've not played the game through to completion yet, but when I do, depending on the ending, I might revisit this idea. I have a few things drifting round my head based on this and H. P. Lovecraft's The Outsider, so watch this space. Sorry if there's anything in this that contradicts what may be later revealed in the game, but like I said, I've not finished playing it yet and this is supposed to take place during the earlier levels before the prison. (I've currently just got out of the sewers and I'm deliberately trying to avoid anything on the internet that reveals what happens later.)
Disclaimer: I don't own Amnesia: the Dark Descent
The instant he sees the flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, it's enough to trigger panic. He doesn't look closer – doesn't dare to – but instead runs and hides. The oil lantern he carries is immediately snuffed out as he finds a dark spot in the corner and crouches down, trembling in the shadows as he waits for the danger to pass. He wants to close his eyes, but that prospect scares him just as much as keeping them open. Instead he just stares fixedly at the blurred shapes of shadows on the floor, paralysed by the fear of what he might see if he chances to look round.
For several minutes he waits there, his mind growing hazier and more disturbed under the weight of darkness. The sign that whatever is out there has gone doesn't come, but as he fights to quieten his own breathing and not give himself away, he realises that's the only thing he can hear. There are no heavy footsteps, no sinister growls or grunts; just Daniel's own ragged breathing and the blood rushing in his ears.
It still takes him a short moment after that realisation to get up the courage to move again. Hesitantly, he turns his head to peer in the direction from which he first saw the movement. His eyes scan the shadows for several seconds, and seeing nothing that resembles the horrific creatures that stalk the castle's halls, he decides that it's safe enough for him to continue. Fumbling with the oil lamp in his desperation to get it lit again, Daniel moves from his hiding place and back into the centre of the room. As he finally restores his dim source of light, he raises it in front of him before he dares take another step out into the dark corridor. Just as he persuades his feet to work, he sees it again: that movement somewhere in front of him, and it causes him to jump back in panic.
However, a moment later his addled brain manages to process what he's seen. There's no monster: instead, it's just a mirror. The silvered pane of glass has fallen from where it hung and now stands on the floor against the wall, with several cracks running through it that distort the dark image of the room. In it, Daniel can see the distorted reflection of himself, replicated multiple times in the broken shards still held within the frame, and he almost wants to give a giddy laugh in relief. There was never anything there; he was just startled by his own reflection, but as he looks closer the relief quickly fades and a chill grips him.
He doesn't remember what he's supposed to look like. Indeed, he doesn't remember anything but his own name and the horrific fragments of memories that are sporadically returning to him, but he's sure that there's something deeply wrong about the face staring back at him from behind the broken glass. That pale, gaunt face doesn't belong to the young man he thought he was supposed to be. Those haunted eyes - deep set, bloodshot, and wild with fear - seem like they should be in the face of a madman, and although Daniel fears that's what he's becoming, he's still desperately trying to retain his grasp on sanity. But there's no denying that the stranger through the glass is him.
He's been wandering this castle for God knows how long, facing up to the monstrous things in the dark, but now there's another horror in the shadows, and it's himself that he's confronted with. That demented thing looking back at him… that's a reminder of what he's really doing here. He can't even remember how it came to this or what exactly he and Alexander did or any of it, but he does know that now his only purpose for continuing and not trying to escape is because he intends to kill someone. Those were the instructions he'd left for himself. Kill Alexander.
Was that the kind of man he was? A murderer? Or worse. The words in the letter that he's been trying not to think about - "redeem us both" - are returning to haunt him as he finally sees who it is he's supposed to redeem, and wonders what it is he needs redemption for. What things must he have done, to believe that salvation could be granted through killing a man? He'd trusted that the note he'd left himself had been written with good intentions, but how could he even know? How could he be sure that Alexander was the only guilty one here? Because the more he began to remember, the more he began to doubt that he was truly the victim in this whole thing.
Daniel had never really noticed the shortage of mirrors in the castle before, but now that he'd finally found one, he wished that somehow it could not exist and vanish like all the others that ought to be in a castle this size. Because although it hadn't been one of those creatures that he'd seen moving out of the corner of his eye, he wasn't so sure that what he found himself looking at wasn't a monster after all.