Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter Two

Bay

They gathered around the bed, where the girl was beginning to twitch and move. Her eyes fluttered open for the first time in many years, revealing hazel eyes. They widened, taking in the world around her.

People. People, she thought, were surrounding her. Like her. Well, she thought they were like her. She wasn't sure what she looked like. But she knew that, from the teachers, the things before her were called people, and she herself was a people. Person, singularly.

She didn't know what was going on. She had been in school, where the teachers were telling her that she would soon be in the real world. They said that people would be there to help her, to guide her out of school. This is what she had been preparing for her entire life. Her journey out of sleep. Even though it didn't feel like sleep. Or what was described as sleep.

And now here she was, in what the teachers claimed was the real world. The world outside of school, outside of sleep. The world of the living, as they'd called it. As if she wasn't living.

She didn't know what to say. She didn't know if she could talk. She had talked in school, responded to the questions the teachers gave her, but this was the Real World, something completely foreign.

Then she heard something. "Can you talk?" she heard one of the...women, they looked like, say.

She thought of the answer to that. Yes, she could talk, but could she? Could she talk in this world? She remembered what the teachers told her to do – just talk like you would in school, in English, moving your mouth. She did move her mouth, but she didn't hear anything come out. That probably meant the others didn't hear it as well. You were only talking if you heard something, and you were thinking if only yourself heard something, as she'd learned a while back.

A woman, with shiny black hair and funny shaped eyes, handed her a plastic cup. She looked inside, and there was water inside, something she never actually tried but knew plenty about. As she learned, she held the cup up to her lips (anatomy class) and drank, letting the water fill her mouth, and then go down. It felt refreshing, something she never felt before in school.

She then realized she could feel everything, something the teachers told her she would experience. The five senses, only two of them were active in school, in her dreams. The teachers told her that in the Real World, she would be able to feel things, to taste things, to smell things. She knew what all of these things were, of course, through science class, but she had never really...knew them. She was aware, she could smell the people, one woman had perfume on, she could feel the comforter beneath her, she could taste...well, she could taste the water, still on her tongue. It was overwhelming, like everything was just crashing down on top of her.

Then it all came back to her. She had experienced this before, she...remembered. When she was a lot smaller, she remembered being in the Real World, a woman brushing her hair, the feel of the brush against her hair. Then, when she was slightly smaller than she was now, a woman changing her clothes, the feel of the fabric against her. Granted, she hadn't been fully aware then, like she was now, but she still vaguely remembered those things, not that she ever had before, which was strange. She thought she'd remember something like that.

She moved her tongue around in her mouth, swishing the saliva around, tasting it. It tasted a little like the water. She tried to talk again. "Yes," she heard, coming from her, because that was what she was trying to say.

"Oh, good. That makes things a whole lot easier. Do you want to know where you are right now?" a woman with blonde hair asked gently.

"Yes," she said again, her voice louder, more confident. "Is this the Real World?"

The man, the only man in the room, laughed. A sound the teachers said was laughter, a sound that acknowledged when something was funny. She didn't know what she said that was funny. "Yeah, kid. You're here now. Hope it doesn't disappoint you."

It hadn't disappointed her so far, it had fascinated her. "Okay," she responded. "Thank you," she added. It seemed right.

"Welcome, kid."

Welcome. As in welcome back, or – oh, right. You're welcome. "You were saying you were going to tell me where I was?" she said to the light blonde woman. Her hair blended in with her pale skin.

"Oh yeah. Well, you're in your room right now, in the heart – middle – of the Byrd Building, an office, and in your case, apartment building. You're a part of an e-, um, a project called Project Mirror, where you and your teammates, people who have been woken up like you, who you have yet to meet, have powers, that may or may not have set in right now. You work for a man called Mr. Sanders, the owner of Sander Industries, who gave you these powers. He'll give you missions, and in return, you get free housing, food, an unlimited credit card, and everything you could need or want. A pretty good deal, in my opinion," she said, smiling at her.

"I guess so. Can I see the others?" she asked. People like her. Someone she could relate to, that was what she needed.

"Not yet, they're not awake yet. Now, I'm going to tell you something you might've already guessed – you've been asleep for fifteen years." she said.

Fifteen years? That was...she did the math quickly in her head. About 5,475 days. A lot of days, and days were twenty four hours. An hour was the length of a class. Or at least that was what she had been told, as the teachers said that time moved differently in the Real World.

"So school wasn't real. Sure, you learned things, but it wasn't really real, it wasn't real life. This is real life," she said, gesturing to the room around her. "Do you know your name?"

She thought. She hadn't ever been called anything by any of the teachers, she realized. She never called herself anything. "No..." she said uncertainly.

"It's Bay. And as for us, I'm Stephanie, that's Maya-" Stephanie pointed to the woman with funny eyes. "That's Shawn-" She pointed to the man, "and they're Francesca and Chloe," she said, pointing to the brunette and the other blonde.

"Well, nice to meet you all..." she said, trailing off.

"Hey, don't be shy. We're your friends, not your supervisors or whatever. H*ll, I'm only a few years older than you are. I'm 18. I can't even legally drink yet." He smirked. "That doesn't mean I don't, though."

Bay, as she now knew, raised an eyebrow. Shawn seemed like the bad boy stereotype she had read in school. Her dreams. Whatever. She studied him, the brown hair that curled over his blue eyes. He reminded her of a character in one of those teen reality shows she had seen in school, to see how people talk, act and live.

"You said you never drank again after that one party!" Stephanie hissed at Shawn. Shawn just smirked.

"Well, I lied."

"I swear to god, you little-" Her eyes flickered to Bay. "I'll continue this later. So, Bay, is there anything you'd like to do in the real world, as you call it?"

Bay thought. She didn't even know where to begin. "I don't know, maybe catch up on the news?" It seemed like the right thing to do, considering she'd been asleep for fifteen years. When she was old enough to understand things like the news, the teachers had told her things going on in the Real World, but they hadn't really dwelt on it.

Shawn rolled his eyes. "That's boring. Don't you wanna go out, see the world?"

"I'll see the world after I know what's going on in it."

He sighed. "Whatever. Tell me if you want to do something fun." He then left her room.

She smiled. "I will. Now, do any of you sensible people have any news articles?"

Stephanie gave her a laptop that was sitting on the small table overlooking the view of New York, as Bay learned where they were. Bay had learned how to use a laptop in school, and used it with ease. She had mostly seen articles and videos about global problems, like world hunger, the nuclear disaster, animal species going extinct, and other depressing things like that.

She flicked through different articles, until one picture, full of people in bright clothing and different weapons. The article was labeled "Avengers Save The World After Defeating Ultron". Her head tilted, something Bay noticed she did a lot, and clicked on it.

Apparently, the Avengers were some sort of team of people with superpowers. Like Stephanie had said about her. She looked around her room, Maya was there, but Stephanie and the others weren't. "Hey, um, Maya?" she said. Maya didn't really talk much, so Bay felt a little unnerved by her.

Maya glanced up from her tablet at Bay. "Yes?"

"Who are the Avengers?"

"Well, the Avengers are superheroes, as we call them. They have powers or exceptional skills, and use those powers and skills to defend Earth against global threats. Why?"

"I just found an article on here. I was just wondering. You said they have powers, though? Like me?" Powers. It was funny, she thought. She hadn't lived a normal childhood, now she had special abilities no one else had – how could she be more different? At least she'd have teammates to take comfort in. To talk to.

A family.

Maya broke her out of her thoughts, thankfully. "Actually, yeah. Except that the Avengers just kind of do whatever whenever. They don't follow anyone, they just go help when help is needed. You don't. You take orders."

She was beginning to think that she had missed out on a lot of life. It made her sad. And then it made her angry, for Project Mirror taking away her childhood, her life.

Her family?

"Why can't we be like the Avengers?" Bay asked, tilting her head. It was an honest question. She had read a lot and watched loads of reality shows, and she knew that some people in the world were just bad. Bad people, for whatever reasons. And now she was thinking that these "Project Mirror" people might be some of them.

"Because life isn't fair," Maya said simply, sipping her steaming drink and staring out the window.

OFFICE POOL! What are your suggestions for names for the remaining kids? (Boy, boy, and girl.)

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