The next morning began something like this:

Beep! Beep! Beep!

"Goshdarn you! Shut up!"

Beep! Beep! Beep! Slam!

"Erg … Who set that thing to go off so early?"

There followed a relatively peaceful ten minutes and then a knocking on my door.

"C'min," I slurred sleepily. The door opened and one of the morning volunteers stepped in.

"It's almost six," she said. "We've got breakfast at 6:15. You need to get up and dressed."

Oh. That's why my alarm went off before God got up, I reflected ruefully. I made an effort to get out of bed. I swear, I really did. It just … didn't work too well.

"I'll be out in a minute," I muttered. She nodded and retreated.

Indeed, I was out in a minute. "Out" if you take it to mean fast asleep.

Needless to say, I was late for breakfast. I probably didn't give a very good first impression, but that wasn't a high priority on my priority list. The reflections were much higher up there.

We walked into the cafeteria late, but I still had time to eat before things took their usual, daily dive. We were walking out of the dining hall again when there was a screech in another hallway and the sound of pounding footsteps. One of the staffers came pelting into the hall like there were gunmen after her.

Maybe there are, the way my luck's going. I hoped to gosh there weren't, though I wasn't sure how much that would help anyway.

The nurse came racing up and past us, back into the cafeteria, presumably to talk to the workers in there. As one, nearly all of us turned to listen.

I was in the back of the crowd, so I didn't catch much. I caught "Karen," "collapsed," "asthma," and "hospital," and although it wasn't much, I got the big idea. Karen was the nurse who'd given me the tour yesterday, I surmised. Maybe she had suffered a severe asthma attack and they hadn't had the equipment on hand to treat it. Conveniently inconvenient, I thought. I wasn't trying to be cynical or pessimistic, I don't think; But you'd figure someone who has asthma would at least carry an inhaler with them if nothing else.

But lately I'd been finding that logic liked to take frequent lunch breaks whenever the reflections became involved; this was probably one of those times.

A lot happened while I stayed there; for one thing after the death that morning, things slowed down. I looked into the mirror with trepidation that night … and found it blank. It didn't even show my reflection – there was nothing in it at all.

I was so confused that night that I didn't get much sleep. After all this time, the mirror was blank … and what did that mean? Did it mean that all this was finally over? Did it mean I really was crazy? Did it mean that I was simply too tired to control this … this power? I pondered this a lot, and came up with no conclusion.

But however it had happened, it was an incredibly welcome respite from the confusion I'd been burdened with since I came to live with my aunt and uncle. The day after the blank mirror, I managed a whole, uninterrupted half-a-night's sleep, which was definitely an improvement. The next week I began to wish to talk to people, and it was then that I also began to realize how much I'd pulled away from company. It was almost like if I got too close, something bad would happen.

A week-and-a-half of blank mirrors later and that theory was dissipating, slowly but surely. I spent more time in the common room with my fellow patients. I talked to my aunt and uncle on the phone. One night, while lying in bed, the thought that maybe this was all over sent me into tears. I still don't know why. Maybe it was all the pent-up stress releasing itself. Whatever the case, I spent a good ten minutes in tears before I calmed down and fell asleep.

That night marked the first full night of sleep I'd gotten in a long time, and when I woke up in the morning I felt more refreshed than I thought possible. I felt almost like I was … recovering, and the feeling was exhilarating.

I met my fellow patients and got to know them, befriended some, grew to be rivals with others. It was just like school. We sort of grouped together, and the groups rivaled each other – but here it was mostly friendly. I think I almost grew to like the place. I mean, I'd never like it as much as my house, or even Aunt Deb and Uncle Daren's, but I didn't loathe the place with all my heart and soul now. That made things a lot easier for me.

A lot of the other patients in my wing were around my age and incredibly diverse where personality was concerned. They ranged from Sterling, the shiest boy I'd ever met, to Michelle, who was almost too outgoing. Interests and hobbies differed vastly, but they were also good chat topics. You'd often find two or more kids sitting around the table in the common room, chatting about their favorite pastime and why they loved it so much. When I first got to see what they were like, I couldn't figure out why they were here at all – they were so normal-acting, it was impossible to imagine them like I had been earlier that month. But there it was.

I myself got involved in a lot of discussions with the groups I hung out with most, and we all learned about each other, the way new friends tend to do. Sterling was a computer-savvy honor role kind of kid; his twin, Dara, was an almost anti-social sort who enjoyed heavy metal and rock. Alex was a wanna-be painter who always had an MP3 player full of Celtic music in his pocket. Dana enjoyed old-time radio shows like 'Our Miss Brooks' and classical music.

We learned such things about each other, but we never looked any deeper. We didn't ask each other why we were here; it was just an unspoken no-no. We were friends, sure – but we weren't the kind of friends who keep no secrets from each other. I think we were all curious, but none of us ever asked.

There was some group therapy stuff as well, and in those sessions it was inevitable that everyone would clam up and go stony and silent. It's just the way teens are, I suppose. My favorite time of day was still bed time though – a time I could just disappear to my room and get away from the sensory overload outside.

And for a while, as odd as it sounds, I almost forgot about the reflections. I put them in the back of my mind, did my best to ignore them. As far as I was concerned, they were in the past. I didn't need to worry about them anymore, did I? Not if they weren't troubling me anymore.

And it chafes me to remember how incredibly close I was to getting out. I was a hair's width from going back to Aunt Deb and Uncle Daren. I had gotten better. I wasn't crazy. I didn't break mirrors with my bare hands. I wasn't stoic and silent and I didn't run off and get hysterical for no good reason. I was stable. I was normal. Everyone thought so, I'm sure.

But things couldn't stay that way, I guess. Someone high up had it in for me. I was so close to being done with everything even slightly supernatural, and then everything supernatural came back to bite me in the butt.

I hate how life works now, and I hated it just as much then, too.

Kaid

Kaid was utterly sick and tired of biding his time and waiting for Jana to return to normal. He thought the other spirit was bored as well, though he couldn't prove it.

But the other spirit didn't matter. Kaid was tired of waiting. Surely Jana had had enough time to get her thoughts back in order – surely he could proceed. And of course he could, because nobody needs a whole month to do some cleaning up in the brain.

Kaid wasn't quite sure that was true, but he rationalized it to himself until it did make sense anyway. He repeated it over and over until he couldn't remember why it shouldn't make sense. Of course it made sense. Of course.

The night of June 7, Kaid started work again. He was pleased to have something to do instead of just sitting and watching the world go by; he was tired of being here, frankly. Maybe he would move on after all. Life in this place was so dull – day after day, it was all the same. Ah well. He was going to spice things up, at least for Jana, so he wouldn't get too worried about that. Not right now.

It was June 7, a day just like all the rest of them that had come before. I was headed down the hall for the showers just before I got into bed. My arms were empty but for a towel, and I was humming the melody of some song that Dara had made me listen to that afternoon.

I passed Emi, another patient, headed the other way and we greeted each other in that way casual acquaintances do. I pressed open the door to the shower room, glanced casually at the mirror, and saw two things.

The first thing I saw was the familiar, horrifying vision of shapes appearing, disappearing, forming and shifting and whirling …

The second was one reflection, slowly but surely rising to the surface. My feet carried me forward against my will. I thought I was over this! I yelled inside my head. I thought I was over this! But apparently I wasn't.

I stood before the mirror and stared into it, watching the reflection slowly solidify, rise to the surface of the mirror, almost seem to press its nose against the glass.

I'd have said it was my own reflection but for two things. One was that she was dressed in a different outfit, and the other was that her arms were empty, whereas mine were full of towel. Oh my god, Oh my god, oh my god … the chant rose in my head, a mantra, something I wasn't consciously thinking but that was rather like an automatic reaction.

She was me. I could tell. But she was different – she wasn't just my reflection. She was the power again showing me …

Showing me the next victim.

I couldn't help myself. It was partly due to the terror – I was the next victim! – and partly due to anger – I thought I'd gotten rid of this a long time ago. I screamed. It started with words, but then jumbled into a wordless, half-terrified, half-confused cry that bounced off the hard walls of the bathroom and brought the staff in this wing and several of my fellows running. Well, the female fellows, anyway.

They streamed into the little washroom one after another to find me banging my fists madly against the mirror, trying to break the thing like I'd done the one at home. This one was made of stronger stuff, though; it held against my fists and I only bruised my knuckles.

The staffers rushed forward to pull me away from the mirror, and I let them. I yanked my gaze away from my reflection, but I could have sworn it was grinning at me. Maybe not. I don't know now, can't quite remember.

They towed me out of the washroom and deposited me back in my own bed, where I yanked the blankets from where they were tucked in and pulled them around me. My bed was in the middle of the floor – the only wall that touched it was the one at the head of my bed – so I pulled everything into the center and sat there, trying not to remember what I'd seen in the mirror.

I'd gotten rid of this a long time ago … and did the reflection mean I was going to die now, like all the rest? And why? Could power turn against its wielder like that? Was it possible?

With an expression of "rules can take a hike" fixed on her face, Dara stalked into my room and plopped on my bed. There was a moment of silence in which only my hitching breath could be heard. Then she spoke.

"What happened, then?" She sounded rough and uncaring, but that was the way she always sounded. I was used to it and didn't take offense.

I shrugged. "Stuff," I muttered, half-ashamed of myself for reacting like this.

"Like what?"

"Like … the problems I was having before."

"And?"

"And nothing. They're just … back again. I thought I got rid of them."

She nodded mutely. I think she'd had problems like that before herself; she looked like she knew exactly what I meant. She reached out and patted my back like it was the most awkward thing she'd ever done in her life. "It won't kill you," she consoled gruffly.

Oh yeah? I thought sardonically. Say that again tomorrow night. If I'm still here to say it to, then maybe I'll start believing you.

I couldn't sleep that night. I didn't even doze off near morning like I usually do. I stayed up all night, sitting in the dark and worrying about what would happen in the morning. Would I fall and hit my head? Would someone come and shoot me? Would I get caught in a car like Morgan, die of a heart attack like Rye? Possibilities raced around in my head, scaring me senseless. I thought I heard creaking in my room. Thought someone was coming in the door. Thought that it must be now – the sniper, the robber, the nameless phantom was coming to get me.

I wrote a lot that night. Filled up a lot of pages of my notebook with mindless ramblings, poems, short stories – morbid things that all ended in death and destruction and all began with terror. I'd never written such things before that night, but my notebook was filled with them by morning. That was all I did. And I listened to the spare MP3 player Alex had lent me ("Poor, deprived Jana – you've never had one before?") and that was the only thing that half-calmed me. If I get through the night, I'll have to thank him, I thought distractedly. The rhythms of the Celtic music coming through the headphones weren't soothing enough to put me to sleep, but they gave me something else to think about besides what would happen in the morning. I didn't want to face the morning. As much as I hated the night, I didn't want it to end.

Of course, I can't control the night. It ended whether I wanted it to or not.