Angela looks and sees the small children in the camp no longer have grey skin like they were turning into the infected.
A girl smiles at her and she tries to smile back, but her face feels so stiff.
Everyone looks healthier now. Longer hair, more colourful hair.
"This nail polish is really good. Matches with my hair. Look, I grew my nails out a little bit. Looks great."
"Yeah, but I could accidentally hurt my baby so I can't grow my nails. I'm going to cut it once a week from now on. My palms aren't peeling and coarse any more, I'm happy about that."
"I went and received the vaccine. Woke up with no black lines. My face just looked younger overnight."
"Ohh, I should ask Luna before she sleeps."
"Did you see Noelle? Just look at all the men just flocking to her for having powers."
"Yeah, they used to be all over Emily for her hair colour changing power. What's so special about that?"
"Hey, I was going to tell you my powers started manifesting. That's so uncool."
"What is it? Let's hope it's something good Tina."
Tina holds up the wand she's had since she was a child.
Linda rolls her eyes seeing her friends laughing thinking it's a joke.
The wand in Tina's hand starts to grow and light energy turns it into a staff. Tina accidentally fires a blast of light energy. It hits a tent leaving smoke on the building.
Everyone looks at her.
"Sorry, the wand helps me focus. I tried to use my power without it and I lost control. I didn't like you guys laughing at me." Tina says walking back to the tent.
Linda walks into her tent.
She looks in her mirror finally getting a good look at herself, she never realised that everyone else was looking better. Too focused on herself.
She wonders what her power could be, everyone who took the vaccine is showing some kind of power, maybe she will have a powerful one too. Maybe the guys will like her now.
She looks in the mirror and sees herself, her reflection is looking for Kyle and he's fast asleep with a room lit by a blue flamed candle.
The reflection tours the entire building with blue smoke at every corner and finds everyone sleeping. She drops the shield so the blue smoke is aired out.
She stands outside waiting for the Infected to enter. Instead they are running from the mall and some are dying before her very eyes.
She sprints inside and puts the shield back up. She takes a sigh of relief for a second and turns around startled by Mira.
Mira is standing behind her with her eyes glowing, "They see everything you do. They see everything you do."
Chronos hugs her from behind waking her up. They have not told the others she has been sleep walking lately. He gently carries her away and tucks her in to sleep.
Angela's reflection takes her mask off trying to inhale the bit of smoke left in the room. She finds a place to sleep closest to a candle and lays there closing her eyes.
The mirror turns to normal and Angela can see a present reflection of herself. She jumps back when her reflection shakes her head.
"So sad, so desperate for attention, so lonely, so fake, so mean, such a failure. You're loser!!!"
Angela jumps away from the mirror and it breaks.
She runs out of the room and finds herself locked in a mirror prison.
"Look at you." Her reflection says right behind her, "Look at what you've become. So evil. Miss perfect, who would've guessed you're not. Oh, right! EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU'RE WEAK!"
Angela runs away and finds herself in a room with infected.
"This is what you want right. The infected to come in and cause chaos, so the new kids getting all the attention go away and everyone looks at you instead. You think nobody knows what you're thinking? They know! They can hear your thoughts. You sick and twisted broken mess!!! This is what you wanted! Why don't you like it? Huh! Because you don't care as long as someone else becomes an infected? Well, TOO BAD! IT'S YOU! ANGELA! YOU'RE THE INFECTED, A DISEASE, JUST LOOK IN THE MIRROR, LOOK AT THE REAL YOU, DO YOU LIKE IT! Mhmm is it nice, seeing that all along you're really screwed up inside?"
Angela shakes her head, "That's not me! I'm not like that! I would never do that!"
"But you would!" Her reflection looks her dead in the eyes not faltering.
"I don't want wanna be like this, I don't!" Angela says.
Her reflection kicks her out of the mirror, "Good, because if you are, I'll be back and you will never leave this mirror."
The mirror turns to normal and Angela takes deep breaths. She closes the door and runs out of the tent and takes deep breaths.
"What's wrong with you?" A girl asks checking her hair through a make up mirror.
Angela's heart rate accelerates and the mirror shatters in the girls hands.
"Ouch! You cut me." The girl looks at Angela pissed off, but her face changes immediately when she notices Angela is struggling to breathe, "Help!" She screams as loud as she can.
"What is going on here today." Toya runs to help Angela having a panic attack.
~~~
Angela takes deep breaths after calming down, "My reflection pulled me into the mirror."
Toya nods, "Okay, that's scary, look you are not in the mirror. This is real. I am real."
Angela covers her face, "I know that you idiot." She responds.
Angela hears her own voice in her head
_What was that? Is that ungratefulness I hear? Is that any way to treat someone who just saved your life? You ungrateful trash. Just look at how everyone is looking at you. LOOK UP!!!_
Angela looks up and everyone is giving her angry looks.
_Where are your manners? Don't act mute now, this is the part where you get on your hands and knees and apologize. You belong in hell_
Angela gets on her hands on knees fearing getting pulled into the mirror, "I apologize for my outburst. Thank you for saving my life."
Toya looks at her still pissed off, "Pleasure is all mine." He says walking away clenching his fists tight.
_Good, now be a good samaritan and help around with the meal_
Sarah and Sharon grilling the boneless rib for the elderly look at each other as Angela walks towards them.
"Do you guys need help with anything for the elderly?" She asks feeling a pain inside her chest for being so nice, it burns for her to be a goody two shoes.
"Really?" Sharon asks waiting for the punchline to her joke.
"Yes."
_Smile dammit, you have such a mean face you look like some one forced you to do it, kindness makes you friends_
Angela smiles listening to the voice of her reflection, "Please." She says.
"Sure, can you go set up their table. It's behind the door in their room." Sarah says.
"Alright." She turns around and gulps feeling her reflection hovering over her head.
_Its Alright and thank you next time. Bow too, your manners are deplorable. This is why no man is attracted to you. Your mouth should be sewn together you don't know how to use it. Back straight, chin up, and stop feeling sorry for yourself you're not the victim here, you did this. Nobody likes you because of you_ Her reflection says angry with her.
Angela sets the table saying please and thank you. She adds extra chairs Knowing the children will want to join them.
_Since you're wondering. I will not be going anywhere until you become me. So the sooner you stop despising me the sooner you change. You guys just look at her, she's the same woman that wants kids, you will never have any I promise you that. No man in their right mind wants a wailing witch for a wife. You scream day and night. You're delusional_
Angela adds extra chairs for the children and neatly prepares their table.
A group of 4 toddlers enter the room and runaway when they see her.
_Oohh that's just sad_ A pregnant reflection says.
Angela takes a deep breath. She goes outside and tells Sharon and Sarah the table is ready.
Luna comes out of the building walking towards Sarah, "Who set up the kids table in there?" She asks.
"Angela. We asked her to set up for the elderly. We're almost done here." Sharon says.
"Thanks, it looks really nice, I hope you don't mind I removed your candles. The kids always tip things over. It's too dangerous to have it on the table, but everything else honestly looks amazing. You decorated the room so nicely." Luna complements.
_My bad, the candles were my idea, tell her they should have a fire hazardous free lamp to add to dinner tables. Healing energy just makes the kids hungrier and they clean their plates_ Angela's pregnant reflection says.
Angela does as told.
"You're so right. I hate it when they don't finish their food. I'll go talk to Thomas right now about it." Luna hurries inside.
"Angela you look tired, get some sleep I'll wake you up." June says resting his hand on her shoulder.
Angela nods and goes to her room to sleep.
~~~
She has a dream where she meets multiple reflections of herself. There's a pregnant reflection. The others look like her she has no idea what they are.
_We are all versions of where you want to be or what you want. We're your dream reflections. She's the one that has friends that actually like her, unfortunately she has no mouth because people like you better when you shut up, basically at this point in time your odds of making friends are zero. The rest are not important. Step 1 is me, you need to become a kinder and more respectable person and you know what, you suck at it. This will be the last time I tell you what to do. Being good is so easy you just choose evil_
"I want to change. How do I stop being insecure? How do I stop being me? This version of me?"
_Its simple really, stop being her. Practice being nice until she's gone. What else can you do?_ A reflection with a crown on her head replies.
"I can do that. I will do that."
~~~
When food is Ready June wakes her up.
"Thank you. I'll be there now." Angela says. She looks in the mirror and looks different. No lines and anything like that, she practices smiling but gives up on it.
She takes her food and sits in front of the bonfire alone.
Dodge sits next to her, "Your reflections only want what's best for you. They want you to be the person you've always wanted to be. Your power is more powerful than you think. I saw them decorate the room after you left. The pregnant you is funny."
Angela cries, "I don't mean to be a bad person. I don't mean to hurt people. I just don't know how to make people like me. So I make them look at me instead, all eyes must be on me. Because if they can see me they can get to know me and know the real me, but I'm never given the chance."
"Take it one day at a time. If they refuse to see the new and improved you it's their own fault. Just start looking at you more and expect love from yourself. If people love you it'll be even better, if they don't it's because they don't want to see you. They will never see you. Brush them off."
Angela cries and Dodge gives her a hug. A little baby joins the group hug.
Chronos sits down sad, he wants to cheer her up, "First time my power manifested I locked myself in my own time vault for a week and didn't know how to come out. Rex searched high and low for me that he went outside knowing the Infected are out there. I saved his life and we got stuck in there a whole month. Eventually I stopped freaking out about my power and I learned to use it. Not everyone has a pretty awakening, fearing your power gives it power over you. That reflection is probably going to keep coming back until you face it, there's no other way to own your power than to face yourself." Chronos says looking Angela in the eyes.
Angela nods, "Okay, I understand."
"No one is born evil you know. They just have bad things happen too often to them they display what they've been through in their personality. No one knows what it's like to wear a hard shell to stay alive or to look out for number one because no one ever chooses to take care of you. They choose everyone else but you. You don't need to wear your scars on your sleeves, no one is meant to see them, except for the people who should see them and it won't be hard for them to love you anyway. That's the point I wanted to make telling you my story." Chronos gives her a hug.
Toya sighs, "I'm sorry too. Are you okay?" He asks sitting beside Dodge.
"Yes." Angela says.
"Where's Mira? The sooner she explains to you what your power is the better it will be for you." Toya says.
Mira sits down joining the group finally done serving food, "Ohh, that's a nice power. It's dream clone. You can make clones of whatever version of yourself you want. Any power at all you name it." She says smiling.
"Thank you. That makes it a lot easier to understand what has been happening to me." She takes her food and eats.
~~~
Kyle wakes up when he's woken up by Luna to eat something everyone is up and ready this morning he's been fast asleep since yesterday.
He sits up and eats Ribs for breakfast still hot.
"We'll meet when you've taken a bath." Luna says leaving.
~~~
At Murasaki Lily and Colin are talking about the expansion for people to move into houses.
Thomas built a device that rewinds buildings so that Chronos doesn't have too. Close to the water firm there used to be a neighborhood with houses, but they only have a few of those houses inside the shields.
"We need to cover the entire city and get the house inside the shield. Over 100 houses is what we are looking at." Colin says
Lily nods, "We can do it. We can expand our territory and have people live in houses instead of sharing camps. I will design a housing plan using my power and we'll know from there how far we can go, call Thomas back he'll like this."
Colin nods his head and finds Kevin to ask him to bring Thomas back from Camp Moon.
Kevin calls him, "I'm coming to get you. The expansion is in discussion."
Angela notices how chipper Thomas is and says goodbye in a hurry.
When Thomas arrives at Murasaki he hears about the expansion idea and they need help to make it happen.
"From pushing the Infected out of the territory to a shield that's bigger. Better Comms signal, the phones rarely work across large distances. Stark was more than just a mall, big hotels and hospitals, there was a large neighborhood that way with 500 or more houses, and buildings called schools, and more things like gas stations and even cars. Can you transform this place into what it was?" Lily asks.
Thomas drools with a sadistic look on his face, "OH, you just know how to turn me on. I can do it, and I will do it." He goes mad running around like a headless chicken.
Lily sighs, "At least he loves what he does."