Bare Reflections Novels & Stories

As soon as I reached the second floor, I heard Vivian’s heavy breathing mixed with Allen’s husky voice, which was thick with excitement. I took out my phone, aimed it through the crack of the door, and hit record. On the Smith machine, a blonde woman was lying on the bench. She wore only a sports tank top and yoga pants. Each time she lifted the barbell, her ample curves strained against the fabric. Allen stood in front of her, holding the barbell to assist her. As she lowered the weight, he bent slightly, his lower part nearly brushing against her face. With a gasp, Vivian whined, "Coach, I don’t have any strength left. Help me rerack the bar."

Jasmine threatened and turned off the phone. Brave looked at the dark phone screen and wanted to scream loudly: "Okay, I quit, I won't do it anymore." Unfortunately, that was just his heart of words. In fact, his expression was as gloomy as a family, thinking to himself: "Life is so boring.” He did not know that his misfortune had just begun. His wife - Bright in a pink apron, with a cute bear print on her chest, holding the long big chopsticks, angry bullet-shaped eyes looking at him questioningly.

a sympathetic brother uttered. The men were near the burnt palace premises now, following Jonah behind. There was the sound of someone coming through a partially charred door. It was kept ajar. A young man strode out from it. He stood a few yards away from the men. He was difficult to identify; for his face was partly covered in blood. When he came close, the men cringed in fright, for he wore a skirt of bearskin like theirs. From his belly to his head was bare save for the blood that covered his face, and he had in his right hand, a glittering sword, which he held upward, keeping its sharpest tip above his head. With his left hand, he held a man’s head which had been cut off from the body.

The last one… was Elara. Mira stepped forward, and the reflection moved with her. “You’re not me,” she said. The Elara-mirror smirked. “No. I’m what’s left of who you tried to bury.” Mira clenched her fists. “I buried her for a reason.” “She’s not gone,” the reflection said. “You absorbed her. You wear her bones.” Suddenly, the mirror cracked—from the inside. Black static spilled out. And Mira woke up screaming. Carl was at her side in seconds. “What is it?”

Ezra, choosing silence over words, listened intently, realizing she had no answers to the myriad of questions Scarlet presented. A sudden pause hung in the air, and Scarlet's gaze shifted from the plate to Ezra. "I am getting old," she confessed, her eyes distant. "I want you to come back and live with us. I don't want to hurt you, but you can't leave us like that." Scarlet's plea hung in the air, the vulnerability in her eyes revealing a loneliness that had settled in over the years.

“Now I can scrutinize myself freely” Mane remarked as he stood within the walls of the relatively large bathroom. There was a bucket of water right next to him, and a large rectangular crystal called a Reflection Crystal bound to the wall that served a similar function to a mirror. Although the image that appeared in the crystal wasn’t as clear as a mirror image, it was pretty good and would serve the purpose for which Mane wanted it to.

Jabari cried out in pain as the armor along his forearm shattered into a thousand razor-sharp fragments, throwing him backward into the dirt. The shockwave didn't stop there. It rippled outward, knocking over a stack of wooden supply crates and causing several civilian refugees watching from the terraces to cover their ears and cry out. "Hold!" Baraka commanded, the violet sparks instantly flaring across his skin as he stepped between them, projecting a dampening kinetic field to absorb the remaining acoustic energy. The training ring fell silent, save for Jabari groaning in the dirt as his skin slowly reverted to normal, bleeding from several shallow cuts where his own armor had splintered.

JELENA “Sit,” Mira says. “Uhm... okay,” I reply as I walk toward the sitting area where several bowls have been laid out on a small table. The room is still as silent as ever.The strange glow around us flickers softly, making everything look unreal that I hesitate before taking a seat. “Each bowl contains the qualities you lack as an individual,” Mira explains. “Before the judges, not even the smallest atom of weakness can be shown.” My eyes drift toward the bowls again, they all contain the same thing, a transparent liquid so clear that I can see my reflection in it.