Mirroring

Makura

Makura's instincts had controlled her throughout the period of time after Crystal found her in the ice room. She didn't know what to do instead of pretending everything was normal, and nothing happened. She was just doing her job of cloning Crystal's movements and practising for the Mirroring Ceremony.

However, just staring into Makura's eyes could tell she was actually thinking otherwise. No, she wasn't following the rules; she wasn't doing anything she was supposed to; she was being no better than Crystal's rebellious actions in her school; and she definitely wasn't as calm as she was pretending to be. She knew that, rather than ignoring what she had done to pretend her actions were actually legal.

Soon after Crystal's annoyed mother left Crystal in peace after her incident, Crystal reached below the mirror to investigate - exactly where Makura left the invisible homework book. Soon, she'll feel it.

Before, Makura never knew the feeling of being "frozen in fear".

But now she did.

Luckily, Crystal was bent too far down to see Makura's expression, but when Makura bent down to mimic Crystal's pose, her eyes widened and she froze. If Crystal had any thoughts about anything invisible, Makura's secret will surely be half-exposed. Even worse, if Makura's Vanishing spell wasn't casted correctly, the book might materialise in Crystal's hands, showing the world Invisibility magic was real. That would set off a chain reaction, starting with fear, then trying to learn the skill, then trying to hunt those down who knew the skill out of jealousy. Makura knew humans long enough to know that much about them. None of these would help Makura's dimension, nor Makura herself.

Time seems to be so slow now. Makura wished Crystal wouldn't feel the book, but seconds later, Crystal stood up, holding an invisible block in her hands. Makura, being able to feel what Crystal is feeling, knew it was rectangular. She just hoped the red book won't appear, the Vanishing spell doesn't last too long.

Crystal dropped the book. It landed with such a loud THUMP that Makura's heart began to beat quicker.

When she mirrored Crystal looking down, she saw the red edges beginning to materialise slowly - in front of Crystal's feet.

As if the gods decided to spare Makura today, Crystal decided to have a nap right at that moment the red colour started spreading faster, creating a single spot of red on the blue carpet.

Makura let out a sigh of relief as soon as she made sure Crystal was actually sleeping. The red book spread a red stain from the edges to the centre. Seconds later, the whole book appeared.

Makura quickly picked up the original book and flipped inside. The doodles were still there, so were the words. Since everything in the mirror dimension is duplicated from the human dimension, Makura hurried to Crystal's backpack in her dimension and pulled out the other red book that she suspected Andromeda made. When she flipped it open, it wasn't empty but filled with many equations, essays and graphs. Makura compared the two red books she now had. Not even one word was the same inside. It confirmed one of her many suspicions.

This only got Makura more confused. How did Andromeda duplicate her own homework book? There was no way she could have done it if she was a normal human, she can't write that fast. The whole process only took a few seconds. Either she has a gene mutation that gave her Mirror Dimension magic, or, more probably, she was actually Kimberly's clone, Kyoko, that got teleported somehow into the human world. Makura knew there was no way to access the human dimension normally. Since Kimberly's mirror was destroyed, was Kyoko banished to the human world? Or is all this a part of the Mirroring Ceremony? Or, did Kyoko finish her test so well she got the key, something only one in a million mirror dimension habitants could do?