Shattered Reflections: A Symphony of Survival

Michelle's slumber was a surrender into an embrace of tranquility, a safe haven where she danced with fleeting shadows of the past. A distant memory, a lullaby from yesteryears, she was transported to the echo of her childhood. The comfort of being carried, nestled securely in her father's arms, and the touch of a familiar kiss on her forehead, cloaked her in warmth as she drifted into sleep on the waiting couch.

Michelle's parents were world-renowned programming geniuses, perennially engrossed in their work.. When they would return home, it would often be very late, and Michelle would more often be found sleeping on the living room sofa waiting for them. Her father would always carry her into the room, put her to sleep on the warm bed, hug her, cover her, and give her a kiss on the forehead.

More often than not, to get this attention, young Michelle would force herself to sleep on the sofa rather than her warm bed, even though she sometimes had to sneak past her stern servant, who had been warned by her parents not to let her sleep on the sofa waiting for them. And more often than not, she ended up falling asleep cold on the sofa without anyone to take her to bed because her parents didn't come home due to work.

When she was ten years old, her driver was picking her up from school when a truck that was fleeing from the police suddenly appeared from the opposite direction at high speed. The truck tried to overtake a car in front of it and entered the oncoming lane where Michelle's car was also speeding.

The sharp, metallic scream of tires protesting against the asphalt announced the arrival of calamity. The deafening symphony of destruction, glass fragments sparkling like stardust on the asphalt, engulfed her world.

Both cars came to a halt in the middle of the street, each vehicle reduced to half its size from the impact, which instantly killed Michelle's driver and the three people in the truck, while she was stuck in the middle of the car, with injuries that shattered part of her facial bones, arms, thighs, and spine. In an instant, her car transformed into an iron coffin, leaving Michelle trapped amidst the cruel wreckage.

Everyone said how lucky she was to have survived given the damage to the car she was riding in and the severity of her injuries.

Michelle had to stay in the hospital for many years, undergoing treatment for her spine that left her partially hunched and necessitated extensive muscle rehabilitation. She also had to undergo spinal surgery and multiple facial bone surgeries. At age 12, she contracted a type of skin disease due to an allergy to using too many chemical drugs to maintain her life, causing her entire body's skin to become scarred like ulcers or severe burns. Her eyebrows and hair began to partially fall out and never grew back.

Her parents visited her less and less as her bodily disfigurements worsened. Besides their busy schedules, they felt helpless and saddened every time they saw Michelle suffering and moaning in pain all day. All they could do was work as hard as possible and try to make money to provide the best care from the best doctors for their child.

Michelle grew up confining herself in the hospital and her room for years without wanting to do anything until the energy rain occurred, and she finally realized her Mimicry ability. A dream of hers became a reality.

***

Michelle woke up and faintly heard the sound of a washing machine running and a vacuum cleaner humming steadily and softly. She stretched, feeling her body so comfortable and incredibly fresh, whenever she got drunk, she would wake up feeling very fresh unlike most people who felt dizzy or tired from a hangover. She yawned and looked around, recognizing it as her own bedroom. Lazily she moved her feet out from under the blanket and sat on the bed, staring at a large mirror next to her and looking at herself.

A woman with hair so sparse she was almost bald and growing irregularly, the skin of her face, head, hands, and feet scarred completely far from smooth, eyebrows growing shyly, two eyeballs of different sizes. Her face was far from symmetrical with the terrible placement of facial bones due to the accident and her nose was almost non-existent.

Her body was also hunched due to a spinal injury from the accident, followed by her arms and legs that were very thin with slightly bent arm and leg bones. If she walked in her original body, she would hunch and walk like a drunk person, swinging forward, left, and right before she could walk forward. Every time she fell asleep, her mimicry ability would also fall asleep, so no matter how beautiful she changed into a woman, after 4 to 12 minutes of sleep, she would return to her original form.

Michelle touched her scarred scalp and her sparse hair, she wanted to shave all that hair because it looked terrible but it turned out to affect her mimicry ability. In a bald state, she would not be able to mimic any type of hair. Although her hair is sparse and full of holes it looks awful but when using her superhuman strength, the hair will change into thick and regular or wavy as she wishes.

Despite the cruel mirror reflecting an image so stark, so marred by tragedy - a silhouette that many might recoil from, branding it monstrous - she held her gaze steady, for she knew, this was the raw, unadulterated essence of her being. It was a picture not of deformity, but of resilience, a testament to battles fought and endured. This was her, in all her fragmented glory - a symphony of scars and survival.

Michelle suddenly remembered something and moved her head searching for something. Eventually, she found her black smartphone next to her bed and quickly reached out to unlock it. But as she was about to access it, Michelle's fingers paused in mid-air and slowly, she closed her smartphone. She knew Andreas must have spread her original photo to everyone through his social network, and perhaps by now her original photo was on everyone's cell phone.

Thinking about this, Michelle put her smartphone back, feeling there was no point in confirming what had inevitably happened. Andreas was not someone who was willing to understand other people's feelings. He was an arrogant person who always enjoyed belittling others, there was no reason why he wouldn't spread her private photo to everyone if it could make him look better.

"Damn it!!! I wish I was dead!!!" Michelle yelled loudly and then started to cry. She threw herself back on the bed and hugged her pillow while crying loudly.

***

I was holding a vacuum cleaner and a rag when I heard a loud scream from Michelle's room. I quickly threw everything down and ran into her room. "What's wrong?" I asked, finding her covering her face with a pillow and crying while roaring loudly. "Michelle, what's wrong?" I asked again, and right when she lifted her face towards me, I choked and jumped backward, "My goodness Michelle, change your appearance first!"

"No way!!!" she replied between sobs., "Why should I change when everyone has already seen my face."

I scratched my head and turned to leave, "I've prepared your breakfast, come out when you're done crying."

"Jaime!!!"

My steps stopped and I saw her sitting on the bed.

"Come here, get closer."

I looked in her direction and for the sake of her tears. Regardless of her very ugly form, they were still tears, and again, I could never resist a woman's tears. I quickly approached and sat beside her bed. Michelle hugged me and started crying again. I grimaced and could only imagine a poor man being caught by a living corpse just out from the grave with a decaying body, maybe now is the perfect time for me to scream in terror and run away.

(AAAARRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! )

"Jaime, don't leave me, okay," she sobbed. Both of my hands immediately embraced her, touching her skinny, hunched back, feeling her still-warm petite body .

"I won't leave you because of that stupid photo, especially since I've seen your real form," I replied.

"Why is he so cruel to me."

"Who?"

"Andreas…"

Perhaps it's grudge, I thought, but I couldn't possibly say that because I vividly remembered that I too once had a bitter experience similar to people who first came into this coyote den. Those who sleep beside Michelle would probably be surprised and shocked when they see her real form for the first time, especially when that face is right in front of them.

It's easy to guess what you would do if one day you slept with a very beautiful woman but when you wake up you see a horrifying living corpse next to you and that corpse's hand is even on your chest or hugging you.

I guess everyone would react the same.

If that person suddenly gets scared and wants to run away as soon as possible, they've made a big mistake. Michelle's room is locked using an electronic key that uses her own fingerprints as the unlock key, so without Michelle, they would really be trapped inside.

11 out of 20 of Michelle's boyfriends that I remember destroyed the electronic key with their superhuman strength and ran away as fast as possible, the rest were forced to flee to the corner of the room and sleep hugging their knees for fear of waking Michelle up.

(Surely they had a very bad dream.)

"Have you seen your photo that's being circulated?" I asked, curious.

Michelle hugged me even tighter "Not yet, why should I look at my own photo. I'm scared...."

Both of my hands immediately pushed her body away and released Michelle, "Maybe you really should see the circulated photo, then cry and scream like earlier."

Michelle's teary eyes stared at me in disbelief. I immediately stood up and left her room, "Look at it first."

***

Michelle's fingers navigated her smartphone screen, darting between the threads and posts on the forum and bulletin specific to BtP. Her heart pounded in her chest as she searched for any trace of the previous night's events. Yet her face, her secret, was nowhere to be found. No sign of Andreas either, as if he had vanished into thin air. Even the usual sources of heated gossip held no news.

Baffled, she dialed Auriel, the reigning gossip queen of BtP.

"Whatsapp Michelle," Auriel's voice crackled over the phone, sharp as a whip, "you really killed him..."

Michelle's breath hitched. "Did Andreas... did he share my photo?" she managed to choke out, words jumbling together.

"What?" Auriel's surprise was palpable over the phone..

"I can't find anything about Andreas," Michelle's voice wavered, "What happened last night?"

"You really don't know?" Auriel's disbelief echoed in her ears. "I fell asleep. I don't know anything."

A heavy silence hung between them before Auriel finally spoke. "Andreas was arrested by the BtP discipline body."

"Why?" Michelle whispered, her mind swirling with confusion.

"Did you have no hand in this?"

"I swear, Aurel, I didn't."

Auriel sighed. "Last night, Andreas tried to share a photo that he claimed was yours, with everyone and on the bulletin. But... he ended up spilling all his darkest secrets to everyone instead."

Michelle's breath caught in her throat. "Dark secrets?"

Auriel's voice shifted into an excited whisper, her gossip mode switching on. "He was blackmailing wealthy businessmen, exploiting young girls and boys, purchasing illegal items, even... even committing rape. All his sins, spelled out in photos, video links, and data sent directly from his own phone."

The world tilted. "What?!"

"BtP had to step in. They pulled all the data and photos he sent, and issued a gag order to prevent damaging BtP's reputation. Andreas was arrested last night, and now... no one knows what has become of him. You really did a number on him, Mich."

A heavy silence fell. Michelle could hardly process the revelation, her mind a whirl of shock and confusion.

"Are you still there?"

"I...I'll call you later."

"Alright. See you at the masquerade party tonight."

And with that, the call ended, leaving Michelle alone with her thoughts.

And there she was, looking at the LX super quantum laptop and small LXX smartphone right beside her bed