“Crystal?” A person said behind the door, they knocked twice and spoke again. “Is everything alright? You’ve been in there for a while.”

I turned to the door and then back to the mirror, my left eye back to normal black, “Yeah, everything is alright.” A voice came from me, but it wasn’t mine. It had a kind of feminine robot voice, more natural and dual. I start breathing faster, touching my neck frantically, “I’ll be out in a minute.” The voice said again.

Words started to type in the corner of my sight, “Finish the Mission.” written out.

‘What mission?’ I thought, looking around for any clues to indicate what to do.

The person behind the door knocked again, seeming annoyed. I made my way towards the door, my hand reaching out, and then another word appeared with red letters.

“Smile.”

I took a deep breath, and I walked out, a man standing to the side of me leaning on the wall with his arms crossed on his chest. He was red-headed, freckles on his nose, wearing a light peach suit, and a golden watch on his left wrist. He straightened his posture and walked up to me, putting his arm around my shoulders. He leaned in close with his mouth barely off my ear.

“Let’s go.” the man whispered.

He lightly pushed me down the bronze marble hall, on the walls there were carved angels presented naked. It was a long and large hall with a two golden sided door at the end of it. We stopped a foot in front of the door. The man straightened his posture and took a deep breath, he slowly made his hand down to my waist and pulled me closer. I turned to him with shock as he opened the sided doors and walked us in.

The room was large and fancy, with flowers at every corner. There were golden tall tables spread around the room with people wearing suits and slim dresses like the one that I’m wearing now. There were some men wearing military uniforms and badges on their suits. A stage in front of the room, lit up by lights shining above it. In the middle of the stage stood a silver podium reflecting the lights. We walked beside it, taking a tall table near the corner, and then again, he pressed against me lightly, softly kissing my cheek and whispering in my ear.

“Be a good girl.” I shivered at that moment while he walked away from the table and to the next table close by, talking to an old looking guy with a lady way younger than him on his left side.

Minutes fly by, me standing there alone analyzing the room and the people that take slight glances at me, my heart beating faster every minute.

“How do you like the party?” The man said, coming back to the table holding two wine glasses in both hands, “I heard it took ten thousand to set this up.” the man crackled, handing me a glass. “We’ll leave after I get my reward, these parties are always boring.”

Nothing came out of me; I just titled my head down and stared at the glass that was in my hands.

“Ding Ding Ding” An old man said, wearing a military uniform with a glass in hand and a fork in another, “Welcome to the annual 5th anniversary of the Mutatus Alumni, with the great works of great men moving humanity forward and changing the world for the greater good. We are here to congratulate and celebrate these men and their achievements over the decade. Sadly, there are some men that can’t be here with us tonight, such as Frederick Miller, Charles Ford, Jason Tree, Fergus Bush.”

“Can the old man get on with it?” The man said under his breath, taking a sip of his wine.

“And Kevin Stormshek, they all passed before their time. Now please let me present to you the winners of the Mutatus Alumni reunion.”

The old man starts naming off people one by one as they come up to the stage with a smile, each person saying their speech and bragging about their accomplishments. Every name called that wasn’t the man that I am with got annoyed more and more with sighs after name after name.

“Philip Baker,” the old man said.

The man straightened his stance and fixed his tie. He turns to me, puts his hand around my neck turning my face towards him and puts his mouth on mine. Clearly wanting to show people that he has more than just money. The man strutted up the stage, shaking the old man’s hand and taking the little trophy from him, and went to the podium.

“I am truly honored to accept this award,” The man said, raising up the trophy, “For the past few years I have worked hard helping the unfortunates with the fortunate that I have. Like that incident with the kids and the fire.”

I choked on my wine, holding in my breath to keep the coughs in. Some people turned to me as I pushed my hair in my face so no one would recognize me.

“When that happened 8 months ago the whole world was devastated, I took it upon myself to help the victims' family members by giving them 1 million dollars each.”

Multiple hands started to clap after his speech, he smiled and raised up his trophy again and walked down the stage. I chugged down my wine while he walked towards me, ‘8 months? It’s been 8 months? What is going on?’. The man kissed me again, putting his hand on my waist.

“Let’s go.” He smiled, taking his hand into mine and leading me out from the crowd and to the empty streets at night. Put me in his car and drove off into the traffic.

No words exchanged in the car until we reached the hotel. The second we got through the door, the man's hands were on me. Touching my arms, waist, butt and my legs, I try to dodge his remarks to kiss my face. He took me to the bed and as I tried to push away, he grabbed my legs and pulled me down to the bed.

“Shouldn’t this be in the payment?” He leaned into me, kissing my neck.

I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes. My body wouldn’t move, it just laid there as the man touched all over me. I rolled my hands into balls when I heard the unbuckling of a belt and the unzipping of a pair of pants. The sound of pants getting pulled down made me want to haul and run out of the room, but no movement of my body came. After the minutes of non-stop movement, the man exhaled in relief, he sat up straight raking his hand in his hair. Finally, the body listened to me, and I moved to the side, words appeared again saying mission complete. I sighed in annoyance while the man pants in exhaustion.

“Eliminate the target” More words typed out.

My eyes widened; I turned my head back to the man that was looking like he wanted round two. I looked at my hand grabbing a remote on the nightstand beside the bed, gripping hard, and turned back to the man again. He leaned down towards me with a crooked grin, he stared at my lips and to my eyes coming closer I swag the remote to the side of his head. The man stumbled backwards off the bed.

“Ow! What the-” he said in confusion, touching his head with his hand that was bleeding now. He looked at his blooded hand and back at me, anger grew from out of his face. I got up from the bed as he rushed towards me with his hand reaching for my neck, “You bitch” he snarled as I pushed him away from me. I grabbed a lamp on the nightstand and kicked the side of his knee, so he fell down. He was turning his head left and right confused on what happened, I got on top of him raising the lamb high above my head and I dropped it down to his head. He jolted his head onto the floor, he started yelling curse words at me as I constantly slammed the lamb to his face. I took another hit to his face before I realized he was already gone, his hand stopped moving, and his smashed head slightly bubbled in place. He didn’t look handsome anymore with all the blood on his face, his eyes still opened, it looked like he was in the cloud.

“Completed” words typed out.

I dropped the lamp and got up from the floor, exhausted and panting up a storm. I looked back down on him and then around the room, my mind was racing. I killed so many people and for what, I’m not getting any closer on why I am doing this or why this is happening. I started staring at myself in the window reflection. I stepped over the man’s dead body and touched the big window with my hand. My tears rolled down my face as I made a fog on the window with my breathing. I stared at myself for a long while wanting things to end, here and now, I looked out from the distance seeing a tree on a skyscraper in the light blue moonlight. I felt comfort from the tree, standing there alone with the peaches dangling from its branches, my heart started aching like it was longing for the tree to be with it. I turned around to see a chair on the left of me, I picked it up above my head and walked to the window.

“Sleep,” the words appear again.

I ignored it and kept on walking towards the window, preparing to swing at it.

“Sleep,” the word showed up again.

I felt dizzy and heavy, I stopped for a second, gripping the chair tighter. Now stumbling closer to the window, I swung the chair with all my strength, cracking the window a bit.

“SLEEP,” again with bigger red letters.

I fumble onto the floor, I struggle to get up and grab the chair and swing at it repeatedly until it breaks, and glass shards fall down the building.

“SLEEP,” the words came up one last time as my eyes slowly closed with my hand reaching towards the tree, and I felt my face hitting the cold floor of the hotel.

I feel a pounding on my lower stomach, I toss my head left and right, grinding my teeth in the agony. Opening my eyes to see that my stomach is bloated as big as a house, barely able to see my speeded knees pointing up at the ceiling. The pain started to get worse every pounding in my stomach, like someone was stabbing me over and over again. I looked around, seeing I’m in the lab again, but no man in the dirty white coat was to be seen. I moaned in pain, tightening up my fists in the medal chains melted down on the long table.

“You’re awake.” The words came from behind my humongous belly. I moved my neck to see beyond my stomach, but it was to see farther than the beeping machines in the distance. “Just in time.” it was him; he popped his head up behind my stomach, “The head is out, now the real fun begins.” he rolled his chair to my head, leaning close to me. “I need you to push, can you do that?”

Tears started coming down my face making a puddle right by cheeks, the pain was getting worse, I couldn’t think right on what he was saying. As I started to moan harder, he put his hand on my forehead and stroked it back and forth and started breathing in and out wanting me to join the rhythm. I slowly followed suit as the pain got a little bit tolerable.

“1, 2, 3 push.” he said and then rolled back behind my stomach.

I tossed my head again, feeling the pain all over my bottom half, I started to push as I felt something was ripping me apart from inside. I started to yell in silence as I pushed harder, the pain getting worse. And then suddenly everything stopped, the pain was still there, but it got better. I felt a great sense of relief, like the feeling of finishing a marathon or 2 non-stop. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“It’s a boy!” He spoke.

I jerked my head up, trying to look beyond my large stomach.

He rolled his chair towards me, holding a raggedy cloth in his arms. He stared at the cloth and then looked at me with a big smile. He tilted his arm at my head, showing me a reddish small head, its eyes were closed and blood all over. It wasn’t crying, it was just lying there, something was clearly wrong. ‘It’s mine’ I thought and then looked up at the man who was looking back at it again.

“He looks just like her,” he commented, “doesn’t he? So pink like a raspberry, what should we name him?” He looked at me and then back at it. He spins in his chair, lifting it up in the air, “Rubus? What do you think?” Turning to me, “Rubus Tree.”

The baby finally cries.