Leon seemed a lot calmer than he had been in the previous weeks, which he attested to improving his relationship with The Minds. The emotions that The Minds were giving him were tangible, allowing him to decipher what it was telling him.

  It was pitch black when we arrived. We parked a couple of miles outside the building. At a dirt lot, the air was dry, and I could smell the dust. During the day, the sheer size of the building could be seen from at least ten miles away. But during the night, its walls flipped into giant mirrors that made it vanish from a distance. The night sky was extraordinarily clear, without the presence of a cloud in the sky; the stars hid behind the fluorescent glow of a full moon.

  Flicks brought oversized black hoodies with built-in masks and headlamps that fit snugly on our foreheads. There was no CCTV at the building because of the sensitivity of the work being done. But being seen would give CelTec a reason to take us.

  The trek to the building took over an hour. “Are you sure this entrance is going to work?” Leon asked Flicks.

  There was nothing but shrubs and dirt as we approached the building. “Yes, it is going to work. I heard some of the higher-ups talking about the entrance last week.”

  As we hiked around the side of the building, I saw our reflections against the mirrors, walking amongst the bushes. But the more I looked, the more I realized that our reflections weren’t following my every movement. It seemed to lag in a slow, lethargic trance.

  “Flicks,” I shouted in the quietest tone that could gather his attention. He looked back at me as I pointed at our reflections. We stopped moving as Flick’s and my reflections took a couple of steps ahead of us. I was frozen in sheer terror as I watched my reflection take a step backward, away from me, before it snapped back into where it should have been.

  “They're harmless,” Leon said, his gaze looking over my reflection.

  “A deterrent trying to scare people away from this building at night.” Flicks waved at his reflection as it stood straight up and down, smiled, and waved at him. “We're almost there.” We went about thirty more feet before Flicks stopped walking.

  Flicks motioned for us to be quiet before pointing in front of him. In front of us were at least ten people dressed head to toe in black, moving with the same melancholy movements as the reflections were. These were not reflections and moved in complete silence. I thought one of them might have seen me when it snapped its neck back around.

  The three of us lay down on the ground as flat as possible to not be detected and watched as one by one, they all disappeared into the building. They held the giant mirror open for each one of them.

  “Who the fuck was that?” I asked Flick as quietly as possible. My chest was starting to hurt from being firmly pressed against the dirt.

  “I have no idea, maybe other employees may not, we just need to wait a little till they're gone.

  He knelt beside the plain of glass. His reflection was giving him a confusing look, trying to peer over the glass that held him confined as a reflection. Flicks lifted one of the glass panes, revealing a hole big enough to climb through. “Who's first?” Flicks asked.

  Leon volunteered to climb in, and I shortly followed him. The tunnel went down for a little bit and then back up before opening up at a vent. I hopped down from the vent into a small, cramped room that was only illuminated by one of Flick's cubes that Leon held in his hand. It was extremely cramped. Flicks hopped down from the vent. “Alright, see how the arrow points forward, you follow that arrow and do not take your eyes off of it. This is as far as I'm willing to go. I can't get caught, or my dad might actually kill me.”

  “Flicks, this door is stuck,” Leon said, his hand firmly grasping the knob. “Something's not right.” At that moment, Leon's phone buzzed. Then, almost like it was in a sequence, my phone started to buzz.

  Before I had a chance to silence it, I felt a trickle run down the center of my forehead. I looked around the room, and I could no longer see Flicks or Leon, but the walls had morphed into something that I couldn’t understand. A liquid that was fluctuating back and forth at random. I felt an immense amount of pressure coming from every direction that was immensely disorienting, losing my perception of control over my body. My limbs began to twist and contort inward as gravity seemed to suck me inwards. The crown of my head tilted towards the center of my stomach. From there, I could see into the dark and ever-changing liquid a figure standing just far enough away that my eyes failed to make out who I was seeing. I could feel the figure's presence. It took steps closer and closer to me until I could make out its features. It was my reflection, but devoid of my most notable features besides my carved-out cheekbone. My skin had been pulled over my eyes, nose, and lips. It felt almost curious about my twisted state, maybe even sorry. My reflection reached out, resting its two fingers on my cheeks before sliding down the edge of my jaw. It felt immensely cold, and I realized that I was forgetting to do a very essential thing: breathe. It took a while being stuck before the pain became insurmountable.

  Before I woke up, I felt a sharp pain pulling on my shoulder blades. I opened my eyes heavily. I was in the back of the car lying down, and through the back window, I could see the color orange peppering the horizon as the first light broke through. I strained my neck backward. I was in Flick's car. He was driving, and Leon was next to him. Leon's face was covered in dirt. I reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to look at me, his face sighing with relief.

  “Didn’t know if you would wake up.”

  “What happened?” I said gingerly as I made my way to a seated position.

  “Mirror Dystrophy,” Flicks replied, his eyes firmly locked on the road. He didn’t seem like his usual buoyant self; he was tense, scared.

  “Never seen it act that quickly. I saw it before you went to reach for your phone. Leon also saw it, which was lucky because I wouldn’t have been able to get both of you back here. Leon dragged your ass back most of the way, so you can thank him for that.” Flicks paused before turning around to look at me. “Are you ok?”

  I stretched my arms. “I have had nightmares better than that. Might need to take some time to recover. Where are we going?” I noticed that we were on a road that I didn’t recognize.

  “Those calls, we were getting before you got whacked. Sage took a turn for the worse last night. She’s passed out and had to be rushed to the hospital. They had to put her in a medically induced coma. All of our parents are there waiting for her. Chuck Thorne is trying his best to bring in all of the CelTec gear that he can to help her.”

  “Is she going to be ok?” I felt sick in that moment. I turned to look at Flicks through the mirror. He kept his eyes on the road and muttered, “They're doing the best for her right now.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I could feel my blood boiling. How do we know they're doing everything?” I said, yelling at Flicks. “You don’t know what I experienced there. Why can that building do that? What are they hiding?”

  “If I knew, I would just tell you,” Flick said, his voice remaining calm.

  It was irritating, “Fuck you?” I screwdly responded.

  “Ralphie, calm down,” Leon interjected

  Flicks waved him off, “It's ok, he might still be feeling some of the side effects.” It was then that I noticed the splitting headache and the loud ringing in my ear.

  “Hell, what is this?” I covered my face from the bright sun.

  Flicks popped open the gloved box, rummaging through its contents. He pulled out a pill bottle and handed it back to me. “Take two, it won’t get rid of everything, but it should numb the pain for a while. Until you're back to normal.”

  I took the pills, and within a couple of minutes, the ringing had stopped, and the headache was manageable.

  “I’m sorry if they're capable of doing that, just to keep people out, who knows what else they are doing? I don’t know what piece Chuck Thorne plays in this. But he has something to do with what’s going on.”

  Flicks smirked, “It's ok, I get it. I don't even know where I come into play with all of this.”

  “It will be ok,” Leon's face was stern. “We need answers, but right now we need to see Sage.”

  “What did you tell everyone?” I asked, still feeling some lingering pressure in my head.

  “Told them that we were out camping and that the coverage was spotty.” Flicks made a turn around the corner. “We still have quite the distance to go.”

  When we arrived at the hospital, it was the middle of the day. There was a grim nature surrounding hospitals that I despised. The only hope they offered was that they were designed to help people. But they weren’t pleasant places to be. The walls were painted a very faded sunshine yellow. The waiting rooms were never quite as comfortable as I think they should be. The paintings in the waiting rooms always filled me with existential dread. Several paintings of palm trees lined the walls, a painting of the ocean sunset, and, to my surprise, a photo of a dog belly full holding an apple in its mouth. The painting looked almost identical to the painting that I saw in the CelTec building. It must have been the same artist because the art style looked the same.

  “Studd,” my dad ran up to me, embracing me. I grabbed onto him tightly.

  “How is she?” I asked as he squeezed me. The rest of the parents stood up from where they were sitting.

  “She's good, they have her stable. They said they might be able to allow some of us to see her.”

  “Are her parents here?”

  My dad nodded, “They're talking to the doctors now.”

  I gave him another hug before whispering in his ear, “When there's a chance I need to talk to you.” He released me for a moment, taking a look at my face before he smiled. I could tell he understood it was serious.

  I gave my mom a tight hug, she looked at me with her eyes shimmering, “She’s going to be ok, I’m here if you need anything.”

  “Love you too, mom,” I said. I was exhausted, running on only a couple of hours of sleep.

  Chuck Thorne was there along with his wife, Lisa Thorne. They embraced Flicks before Chuck Thorne turned to me. “I’m sorry, I can’t imagine how hard this is on you.” I smiled, “You have no idea.” Part of me wanted to ask him right then what the letter was about, but I stopped myself.

  “Luckily, we have her stable. We think it's some kind of bug she picked up at CelTec. Chuck Thorne’s eyes softened, “I didn’t even know that such a thing was possible. I have our best doctors and scientists looking into it. When you go in there to see her, just be warned, she looks a lot worse than she is.”

  It took about an hour before the nurse came out to tell me I could visit. The rooms were colorfully decorated with yellow rubber ducks. Sage lay resting on the bed, her arms wrapped in a plastic film. Underneath the film were moving snakes in the shape of squiggly lines running slowly up and down her arm. She had electrodes connected to the back of her head and tubes that ran into her neck. She was slowly breathing in and out. I could feel my stomach rise into my throat, and a deep feeling of despair began to well up within me that kept growing. I grabbed onto her hand. I could feel the snake-like appendages underneath her skin moving. I felt helpless, and my vision was still blurry.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  There was a white orchid that was sitting on the bedside, its petals drooping towards the ground. It was like everything around me had suddenly become important, and I had to remember every little detail. I left suddenly; it was too much for me.

  When I got outside, both of my parents were standing outside waiting for me.

  “How are you feeling?” My dad looked concerned. “She doesn’t look good.”

  The room had cleared out, and several people had gone home. I nodded, peering around the rest of the room. Chuck Thorne was still there. “I’ve been better,” My gaze peered over at Chuck Thorne; he was preoccupied. “We need to talk.”

  “Of course,” my dad said.

  “Let's walk outside," I said as my eyes darted around.

  My Dad waved as we walked past everyone. “We're just catching some air.” He said as he passed Chuck Thorne.

  When we got outside, the sun felt nice in contrast to how deathly tired I felt. “What's going on? You're nervous.” He crossed his arms confidently.

  “What did Mom design for CelTec?”

  He looked at me, confused, “What do you mean? She didn’t design anything for CelTec.

  “You got a letter from Chuck Thorne shortly after you got engaged to Mom. In the letter, he says you have to be careful about her designs and something about a soft death.”

  My Father sat there thinking for a second, “Now that I think about it, I think she made shirts for CelTec for a while. But other than that, I don’t know about any designs.”

  “Shirts? This isn’t about shirts. They tried to pay you off with 3.5 billion dollars.” I looked at him in disbelief. Was he lying to me?

  “That's a lot for a shirt,” he smiled.

  “No, it's not funny, there had to be something they wouldn’t be after you for a shirt. The letter was sometime after you joined CelTec’s Academy, right after college.”

  He chuckled, “ CelTec’s academy! I’m disconnected, I can’t even set foot in that academy.” The concern in his face relaxed. I could tell he had no idea what I was talking about.

  “What do you mean you never joined. Then why are there records of you joining? You were there for a whole year. What are you talking about?” I looked at him strangely. Had Leon been wrong? Was the letter fabricated? It could have been, but why?

  “I don’t know what to tell you. I mean, maybe I worked a small gig. It was a long time ago, and I honestly can’t remember. But I sure as hell didn’t attend that academy, especially for a year.” I sat there blinking at him. I managed to stutter out, “What about the letter?”

  “What letter? Where did you find the letter that you keep talking about?” He hesitated and looked at me thoroughly. “Does this have something to do with that man?” He asked

  “No, he didn’t attack me,” I responded quickly.

  “But he did approach you,” he asked with a little anger in his voice. “Why do you protect this man?”

  I hesitated, not knowing what to say. I didn’t know something of a sixth sense, something that I never ignore. The man felt familiar. I didn’t see what he gained from me.

  “No, he didn't approach anyone.” Leon had been standing by the door. I had no idea how long he had been there. “I got the letter,” he said.

  My dad swung around, “The letter from him?”

  “Not sure, as far as we know it's anonymous. But we can’t rule it out. It also wasn’t just a letter; it had all of your information.” Leon said

  “Do you have it with you?” Ralphie asked

  “Ya, it should be in the car, let me go get it.” Leon jogged off to his car.

  My dad put a hand on my shoulder, “I get it, I see the same things that you do. We know that CelTec isn’t trustworthy. Chuck Thorne knows that most of all. The position he is in is very sensitive. There are a lot of things that you don’t know about.” He looked over his shoulder at Leon walking back. “We will figure this out together.”

  Leon looked flustered as he walked back, “The letters are not there.” I looked at him, concerned, “What do you mean it's not there?”

  “It's not there; someone picked through the lock,” Leon said in disbelief. “Everything that was in the folder is gone.”

  “Did they steal anything else?” My dad asked.

  Leon looked back at the car, “There wasn’t much else in the car.”

  “I’ll go grab security.” He said as he ran back off into the building.

  I looked back at Leon, still stuck with disbelief. “What the hell happened? Someone just took it out of your car?”

  “No, but I found this.” Leon handed me a folded note. I grabbed the note, then looked up at him before opening it.

  It read in scribbled handwriting, “Don’t trust anyone.”

  “Whose is it from?” I asked Leon

  Leon grabbed the note out of my hand, shoving it back in his pocket. “I’m guessing that's our masked man. Apparently, he's writing us notes now.

  It took three days before Sage woke up. Chuck Thorne had called my parents. I raced over to the hospital. Leon, Chuck Thorne, Flicks, Petey, and even Grace were there.

  “Grace, it's good to see you.” She hugged me, her eyes swollen. She had been gone for quite a while. It had been almost a year. “How was your trip? I hope your research went well.

  She sniffled as she talked, “It was good, we did a lot of good work.

  Chuck Thorne walked into the room. “Ralphie, do you want to go see her?

  I smiled at him, “Yes, please.”

  As we were walking towards the hospital room, Chuck Thorne looked at me, “I got some good news for you.” I perked up a bit. “We found your shooter. He was hiding out past Third Street in a warehouse.”

  “Who was he?” I asked

  “He was an old employee who had been fired for working on an illegal aging project a couple of years back.”

  “Why would he come after me then?” I asked

  “We're not sure. He was practically dead by the time we found him. He had shot himself through the leg, which he had tried to patch up, but it was deep. When our Blues found him, he attacked them, so they shot him dead. But we don’t think he was working alone. He has an accomplice, the same one who approached you and Leon. We believe that they are a part of the string of illegal experiments that have been going on within CelTec. Ralphie, I need you to do something for me.” He grabbed my shoulder. “I need you to promise me that you will be careful. There are bad people out there. People who will do whatever they can to exploit you by whatever means necessary. If you know anything you have to tell me. I can help you.”

  “I will,” I said, patting Chuck Thorne on the shoulder. He smiled at me, “Alright, here we are, I will give you some time.”

  I walked into the same room that I had walked into three days earlier. It was different. A bunch of red balloons spelled out get well at the foot of the bed with what seemed like a dozen get-well cards. The room was filled with bright colors, the sun beaming inside.

  “Took you long enough.” She said, smiling. She no longer had the snakes that could be seen underneath her skin. Instead, she has a series of scars that run all across her body; the scars resemble the nanosnakes that had inhabited her.

  I smiled, “I just wanted to sleep in.” I grabbed hold of her hand. “How are you feeling?”

  “Feeling like I just slept for a week. I want to get out of this bed.”

  “I hear you. I would want to do the same. What did the doctor say?” She has the prettiest eyes, I thought to myself.

  “Not much to be honest with you, I think they're going to keep me here for a couple more days. Somehow, the nano snakes that were in the Evolution room infected me. They're not supposed to be able to access humans, but they did, and now they have taken the snakes to try to extract what data they can from them. Hopefully, they got all of them.”

  She chuckled a little, “This would happen to me.”

  “It could have happened to any of us. I’m actually surprised that it didn’t.” I grabbed onto her hand tighter.

  “I don’t know about that. The CelTec scientist who was in here before you told me that it might have something to do with my unique genetic makeup.”

  The last thing that I needed was to have to worry about this. “There was a CelTec scientist in here?”

  “Ya, he took my blood and my vitals.” She struggled to sit up. So I pulled her up by the arm.

  “You're not worried about them at all?” I asked, and she didn’t seem worried at all.

  “I need to shower; my hair feels greasy.” She yawned. “No, I’m not worried, maybe because they still have me on painkillers. There is also not much I can do about this. Do you think regular doctors can handle this?” I shook my head.

  “Exactly, so as far as I see it, I don’t have much of a choice. But I don’t want to think about it. I want to know what's going on with you. I heard that you and Leon were attacked.”

  “Ya at the park, we got shot at. Did they tell you that Leon has The Minds?” I asked as I sat down on the foot of the bed.

  “No, good for him. But was that why you were attacked?” A shiver ran down my spine.

  “No, Leon was put in an academy by Chuck Thorne for The Minds. While he was in the academy, he found a record that my dad was a part of the same academy.”

  Sage looked at me, slowly processing everything, “So what did your dad have to say?”

  “Nothing, he was completely clueless; he had no idea about the academy or the letter that the masked man gave us.”

  “Who’s the masked man?” Sage asked

  I forgot how long she had been out. “He is this man who wears a mask.”

  “Creative,” she said.

  “He originally approached Leon and me. He didn’t hurt us. Instead, he warned us we were in danger and gave us half a letter from Chuck Thorne to my parents. So we tried to get the full letter from Chuck Thorne's office with Flick's help. But then you got hospitalized, and I got trapped in something called mirror dyskinesia.”

  “What is that?” Sage asked

  It was some kind of defense inside the CelTec building. I felt I was oscillating between sane and insane. Being pulled, ripped apart, tortured. It was gruesome.

  “That's awful,” Sage said. “This all happened when I was out.”

  “Ya, the worst part is I don’t know who to trust. The masked man doesn’t seem trustworthy, and Chuck Thorne just told me that he was a former employee who was working with the shooter. But that makes no sense. Why would they try to kill me and also warn me that I’m in danger? The masked man also said that he helped prevent the shooter from killing us. Which makes sense, if it were a trained sniper, then he would have killed us. Part of me wonders why Flicks couldn’t have just snuck into the office himself. We might have been set up. So I don’t know what to do now.”

  “You can’t ask Chuck Thorne about the letter,” Sage asked

  I paused, “If I do that and the letter is real, then he could just get rid of it. I made my dad promise that he wouldn’t say anything to Chuck Thorne. I don’t know about Flicks, but I don’t think he will say anything.”

  “So if you get into Chuck Thorne's office, you can either get the full letter or confirm that the letter is not real.” Sage yawned again.

  She looked tired. “Exactly, I just don’t know if we will be able to get in. Also, the last time we tried, there was a group of people who went in before us. I have no idea why, but they might have caused us to get trapped.”

  “Weird,” she said, thinking. “Why don’t you ask Chuck Thorne about your father in the academy. Just make something up, don’t mention the letter or the payments. But see if what he says lines up with what your father said.”

  I smiled at her. She was much smarter than I was. "That's a good idea.” I kissed her on the forehead gently.

  She looked up at me, “When I get out of here. We're going to spend some time together, ok. Promise?”

  “Promise,” I said, smiling.

  Chuck Thorne was conveniently in the waiting room as I walked out. He had been talking to one of the doctors, and what I could only presume was the scientist. I approached him confidently. “Hey, Chuck Thorne, I've got to ask you. The other day, I was going through some of my father's stuff, and I found some old things of his with the same logo of the academy that Leon is currently in. Some of the things had your name on them as well. I was wondering if you two were in the same academy together.”

  Chuck Thorne looked at me in disbelief. He chuckled, “Wow, yes, that was a long time ago. A very long time ago.”

  “How was my father a part of the academy without The Minds?” I asked.

  Chuck Thorne smiled, “Well, he wasn’t exactly a part of the academy, but he helped me construct a labor robot that was a part of my thesis. I did the design part, and your father helped me with all the manual labor. Why do you ask?” Chuck Thorne said curiously.

  “I just had no idea. Thank you, I’ll see you around soon.” I said, walking out of the room as fast as I could.

  Chuck Thorne shouted out to me, “Don’t forget, I’m here if you need anything.” I did not doubt in my mind that either Chuck Thorne or my father wasn't telling me the truth. The building was the key to who I could trust.