On the road to Palm Springs, the way is surprisingly devoid of cars. Mindy looks out the window and tries to control her anxiety. She isn’t sure what to say to Adrian about the information she found. Does Adrian know about what the higher-ups are doing or is he out of the loop? This question bothers her but doesn’t know how to find out the answer to it.
“What’s going on ahead?” Adrian asks aloud as there appears to be a roadblock ahead.
Once they get close enough, Mindy sees that the people guarding the road are wearing masquerade-like masks. Masks that are the same ones that the Doll Factory supposedly wear. Now Mindy is in a sort of panic and starts shaking. Adrian stops the car at the roadblock.
“I’ll see what’s going on. Stay here, alright?” he asks as he holds Mindy’s hand to comfort her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah…I’m fine.”
Adrian gets out of the car and talks to the people blocking the road. Mindy’s panic and nervousness cause her body to shake until she changes into the perversion of herself. She phases through the car and the ground and pops up in the distance overlooking the blockade. Despite the large distance separating her and the blockade, Mindy can still hear the conversation. She also clearly see that some of the people in masks thoroughly check the car and the area around it.
“Where’s Mindy?” one of the people in masks asks Adrian.
“I don’t know. She was just in the car. You would’ve noticed if she left it. She’s athletic but not that fast.”
“Did she have the Human Mirror?”
“What?”
“Speculum Humanae. Was she afflicted by the Human Mirror?”
“I don’t know. She never brought it up if she did.”
“Was she highly stressed?”
“That she definitely was. Mindy always liked working hard every day.”
“That explains it then. People with the Human Mirror are usually capable of doing extremely paranormal things especially if they are stressed with a good reason.”
“How do you know that?”
“Nevermind, we have to find her.”
“What did she do?”
“She has sensitive information on her. Did she mention anything about a Doll Factory?”
“No, I barely even know what that is. What kind of dolls do they produce that she would mention it?”
“Nothing that you should know.”
“Look, I’ve seen you guys before at our HQ and on the news. I’m sure if she did anything wrong, she’ll make up for whatever she did.”
“You better hope she does. Call her and help us find her. Your life depends on it.”
“Ok, ok.”
Adrian calls Mindy, but her phone is now dead so it's unavailable. Mindy runs away and in the general direction of home that is Hillside City.
“This is horrible,” she says to herself, “I wish I was like that boy who found ten million dollars and became famous for throwing it all away.”
A female voice in her mind asks her, “Will you give up your fame? There might be a chance you can keep your fame if you just hand over what you have.”
“It’s not worth it. I’d rather never be heard from again as long as this information gets out.”
“What about the eyes? The attention, the praise, and the love you got from millions and millions of people?”
“I don’t need them.”
“What about the causes you care about so much?”
“I can find another way to help people. There’s always another way that doesn’t involve doing evil.”
A blob of eyes on a gray being appears out of the darkness of the sky and consumes the area around Mindy. It stretches for miles and miles as if the eyes of the country are on Mindy.
“I said I don’t need it! Get away from me!”
Mindy leaps up into the air and tries running away from the millions of eyes but can’t seem to get away from them. She looks into the reflection of the eyes to see that she is the perversion of herself. Upon seeing this, she rips apart her face and skin, which come off like the porcelain casing of a doll. Once all of the perversion is off, the makeup from her face is gone and her hair is back to its brunette color. All of the eyes disappear around her and so does the skin that she just peeled off. As she looks around her, she sees that she’s back in Hillside City and near her house. It’s now morning with the sun beginning to rise.
With joy in her heart, she thanks God and quickly goes back home to see her parents who are surprised but overjoyed to see her. She explains what she found out as she uploads the files she has to the internet. One of the biggest questions in their mind is how Mindy managed to get home in a day. It was only yesterday that Mindy talked to them about hanging out with Vivi and Adrian, so getting from Los Angeles to Hillside in a day without a plane is virtually impossible. This is a question that Mindy doesn’t have an answer and just says that it was a miracle.
The information that Mindy uploads goes viral within minutes and completely ruins the reputation of the Diamond Architects while making Mindy famous. Other companies cut ties to them and the government jails those responsible while leaving those who didn’t anything alone, which includes Adrian. Mindy plans to use her newly gained fame to bring to light the causes and sufferings of the world that never get the attention they deserve.
THE END
THE END
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