Respect is hard to earn and easy to lose. It requires hard work, sometimes years of it to earn someone’s respect. Success is a measure of it but not a guarantee. There are many successful people hated across the world. The opposite of which is also true. Good ethics lays a great foundation to earn respect, but fear seems to triumph over every other quality.

Easier yet is to lose respect. You fail once and the respect you have earned over the years evaporates like wax from a burning candle. Leaving a bright and entertaining hue that people remember you by for the rest of your life.

I believe I lost my mother’s respect, if she had any for me when I broke the mirror. Perhaps, it happened over time, and the mirror was the last thread of respect she had for me.

She was waiting for me when I got back from school. Unlike most days, I found her sitting on the sofa playing with her phone, watching a repeat telecast of her favorite reality show. She ignored me, as did Rani, which I found very strange and disturbing. I kept wondering what was happening while I was changing clothes. I threw the ones I was wearing into the basket of dirty clothes and jumped into my comfy pajamas and shirt. Like every other day, I then asked my mom for lunch, which she told me she forgot to make. I thought sure, she was angry at me for breaking the mirror. Then I decided to get lunch by myself. It was not a hard job. I got a plate, put two bowls on it for curd and dal or sabji, and then went into the kitchen. Then seeing nothing cooked or cooking at the gas I understood that my dear Ma wasn’t joking. She hadn’t cooked me anything.

I know that because there were dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, implying that she had eaten. She hadn’t washed the dishes at all and the sink was overflowing. One more spoon and the mountain would crumble, causing a cacophony of the order of a war siren. Imagine all the dishes falling to the ground in the middle of the night. That would scare the ghosts away for sure.

The next thing was for me to decide whether I wanted to confront her and get slapped, politely ask her to make me something, act spoiled and make something myself, or order something online. No money and experience suggested I apologize for breaking the mirror and put this ordeal behind me. That was what I did.

I eased out of the kitchen and sat beside my mom on the sofa. “I’m sorry ma,” I said softly. “It won’t happen again.”

“Hmm,” My mom said without taking her eyes off the phone.

I waited for her to get up, but she didn’t.

“Can you,” I got goosebumps hearing the cold voice coming out of my mouth. I hurriedly checked it and asked, “Please, fix me something to eat?” I started with my heart beating a war song in my chest.

“Can you please, fix the mirror first?” She said and looked at me with a grin as if she had been waiting all day to say those words to me.

I was left flabbergasted.

It was such a nonsensical request; it flattened me out without retort. I stood in front of her like a lamp with a flickering light bulb wondering who was at fault here. Definitely, I was, but I was also tired after a whole day of school and just wanted something to eat.

“I can’t fix the mirror.” I told her and asked, “Tell me how I can make it up to you.” I could hear the aggression in my voice but I was not having it. My pride was both my enemy and my friend.

She told me to get a new mirror. I told her I didn’t have any money. And that was where she was waiting for me.

Her lips rose like the horns of a bull and her eyes seemed to be looking at the prize. Shivers took me and I knew she had something horrible cooking in the back of her mind.

That was two hours ago. Now here I was doing the dishes. Have been for the past -- I checked the time: I started at 2:45 and it was 4:15 pm now. So one and a half hours and counting. Leathering, cleaning, and wiping dishes as if I were on dishes duty in a restaurant. The only difference was, that my pay was a suitable serving of lunch instead of money. I wouldn’t be so hysterical if it was a one-time thing. No. My mother wanted to teach me a lesson, a weeklong one. She made me promise to do the dishes for a week, twice a day, in the evening and night. So fourteen multiplied by 90 minutes was the time I was going to waste cleaning dishes. Valuable time I could have used to…

“Did you learn anything today?” My mother said stopping behind me as I was finishing up the task for the day.

“Yes.” She watched me as if expecting me to continue. I exhaled the bad breath in my chest and said, “I learned that actions have consequences.”

“And,”

“I learned that time is a very valuable thing.”

“And?”

“I also learned that my mother is a very hard-working person. And I respect my mother very much. And that I’m only being able to enjoy my days because of the work she quietly does every day.”

“Hmph,”

“So… can I go now?” I said holding puppy eyes. The tears weren’t acting. I was really on the verge of crying.

“Yes.” She said. I turned around only to hear her say, “But don’t forget to wash the dishes tonight.”

She was the devil. I was slowly starting to regret falling into the system's advice. Couldn’t there have been a better way of getting the power? Did I have to break the mirror?

I was hanging the wet apron outside to dry when I heard a familiar laughter echo in the alley. I looked around and saw the girl next door, a grown woman in her late twenties laughing at me from her balcony.

“Were you doing the dishes? Your mother finally put you in your place, huh.” Kangana said. She was a beautiful woman; big and soft in the right places. If she had a problem, it was her loud mouth. It was not normal for a girl in her late twenties to stay unmarried in our area. Especially an unemployed house rat.

I was in no mood to take shit from a piece of shit. And I was hungry to boot. Hunger makes me cranky.

“Look who’s talking?” I fired back. “The pot is calling the kettle black.”

It took her a while to understand what I meant. I was at the gate when I heard her yelling behind me, “Oye, what do you mean by that? Don’t you know how to talk to your elders? Wait till I tell your mother.”

“Go wrap your hands around someone else’s neck,” I told her. “You are already rotting. A few more days and you will start stinking too, old hag!”

Kangana kicked up a ruckus behind me. I ignored her, closed the gate, and went back inside the house. This was the first time I had talked back to her and it made me slightly warmer, physically. Walking back, I even had the thought of disguising as someone she would like, and then … I shook my head and got the thought out of my head. Kangana deserved a beating, but not from me. Life would teach her the lesson she deserved. I didn’t need to dirty my hands with her.

As for her ratting me out to my mother, I had no worries about it. My mother was stubborn and bossy, but she was also very protective. There was one-time Abhey came back home crying because a boy slapped him. My mother looked at the handprint on his face, grabbed his arm, and took him straight back to the boy's house. By the time she came back, the whole block knew not to mess with her. Not only did she slap the boy silly she fired a few slaps on the boy's mother too. Even told the lady to keep her litter in check or she would do it for her. She was never that protective of me though. I wondered why.

Shaking my head, I went back inside. The rice was still cooking so I had nothing to do for a while. Normally, I would waste my time with a movie or something until it was dinnertime. Today I had something else on my mind. I went to my room but I didn’t feel safe enough. I needed some quiet and privacy. I wanted to test my disguise, the highs and lows of it. I wanted to close the door, but that was not possible in my house. The bathroom was the only place left where I could get some privacy in the house and that was where I went and locked myself in. Making sure the hatch was holding, I stood in front of the sink looking at my quite handsome face in the new mirror. I wouldn’t have agreed to wash the dishes if I knew my parents had put up a new mirror already. Thankfully, I didn’t need to sneak in one of the broken mirror shards from the kitchen under my mother’s nose. That would have been asking for trouble for sure.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I know I could change the shape of my face. What else could I do? I wanted to leave no rocks unturned. I had my phone on the side to make sure I would have some reference photos. The otherwise was quite scary, to be honest.

Having learned my lesson from the previous mishap, I started small this time. No face swapping out of the gate. I started by trying to see if I could add and remove skin marks, moles, wounds, etc. And found all of them not only highly realistic but also quite easy. The disguise held well even after I rubbed my face. I was testing if external force could damage the disguise. It could not. For the first time in my life, I saw myself blushing. It started as a disguise, but then I saw the red creeping over my brown skin and then actually I started blushing.

I tried to hide the wound on my knuckle next and it worked. I tried creating a new wound, a gaping cut on my forearm and that worked too. Surprisingly no blood seeped out of my skin even though I could see the muscles underneath. That was a bone-chilling experience that I didn’t want to experience again if I’m honest. I then added calluses to my hands and that worked too. However, the calluses appeared real, but they were too soft, like a boil.

Next, I tried to disguise my sunburn. I didn’t forget to take a measure of my skin shade so I wouldn’t leave my acquaintances confused with a much lighter or darker skin later when I restored my skin tone. I didn’t want to give Abhey another chance to put me under the microscope. He was the thunderstorm in my life, looking for a place to unleash its wrath.

Anyways, who knew there were so many shades of skin tones? In total 18, and divided into deep, tan, medium, light, and fair. All the shades had delicious-sounding names too. The brown had deep, olive, cafe, toasted, burnt, and golden. Almost like we weren’t talking about skin tones but the types of coffee. According to the chart, I was an olive bronze. I was not that bad after all. Considering there was a whole spectrum of darker shades behind me. I guess my problem stemmed from being the only tanned boy in my classes. I suffered from the woes of being in the minority.

I tasted all the skin tones from dark to fair and realized that I was quite a handsome budding man, putting the default setting aside. I also found my new favorite skin tone and it was honey beige. It gave me a charming face exuberating confidence and a sense of safety. I saved a picture of that face on my phone and renamed it the best version of myself. To remind myself of my potential.

I also tried to change my skin color into something unrealistic like green or purple, and found it impossible for now. There was no resistance, only indifference from my skin. As if, the command couldn’t be registered. Neither could I change my skin into another type of material. So no diamond hands for me. Perhaps, I could in time. For now, I could only be a regular human being… with a bunch of awesome superpowers.

Finally, it was time to pull out the big guns, to swap a completely different face.

I started with something regular, a face shape that was similar to mine with minor differences. Either a narrower nose and thinner lips or puffed checks. It took me a while to get started. Having a reference photo factually made it easier to disguise my face into someone else’s. The skill control was more intuitive than active. What worked for me was thinking about becoming my desired face. When I thought hard enough with the detailed picture of the face in mind, the superpower took over the rest. I didn’t know if it was for the best or not. I had no grievances with the feature.

Once I had succeeded with a disguise, there was no stopping me. I then went on to try taking over all kinds of faces. From all ages to ethnicities and colors. I even changed into a girl's face once just for fun. However, it was difficult to say if such a disguise was believable. I looked like a man trying to impersonate a girl. My demeanor gave me away.

Firstly, I could still change the shape of my facial bones though with difficulty. I found it very difficult to adjust my height and body size. Skin changes came easier, but changing my bones took a lot of strength and energy. I felt weak and lethargic after every small transformation. I couldn’t change my voice either. Though disguising my eye color was very possible and successful. I tried all the colors, from the lightest grey to the deepest blue before reluctantly turning my eyes back to their previous dark and brown.

After all the tests, these were my findings. While it was possible for me to impersonate any man of similar size, weight, and height, I couldn’t impersonate a kid, much less a real girl.

Besides these, I also tried to give myself six packs. It felt possible, but the more I tried to move the fat around the more tired I felt, and before I knew it my stomach was growling. I felt hunger of the kind you’d feel after a two-day fast.

Thankfully, I had changed back into my original self before trying with the body-shaping shenanigans. Things would have taken a very wrong turn if I had rushed out of the bathroom as a strange man and had my mother seen me. It made sense that it took energy to put on a disguise and the bigger the changes the more energy was expended. I had been wondering if I would get a headache like the protagonists in most comics for using too much mental energy. There was no such thing. The superpower only used biological energy to complete the changes. No wonder I felt increasingly exhausted after every transformation.

My mother watched me with questionable eyes when I rushed out of the bathroom and straight into the kitchen asking for something to eat. The deal was for me to wash the dishes and get lunch. But she brazenly broke our deal. The dishes were washed but the rice was still cooking.

“How long is it gonna take, ma?” I asked or yelled. I couldn’t control it. My head was buzzing with hunger.

“It will cook in time.”

“How long?” I snapped at her like an addict.

My mother responded by grabbing my face in a vice grip and asking me, “Where you doing drugs in there? Is that why you took so long to come out?”

“I’m hungry ma!” I snatched my face out of her hand and started complaining. “I haven’t eaten anything since morning. Besides, where do I get money for drugs? It’s not like you give me any.”

“So you would take drugs if you had the money to buy them. Is that what you are saying?”

“Ma,” I cried. “Please stop watching those crime shows and give me food. I’m gonna faint.”

Mom glared at me. “If you are so hungry what were you doing in the bathroom for so long?”

Another time I would have indulged her delusions. Right now, there was only one thing on my mind.

“Ma! FOOD!”

She wasn’t convinced. No wonder she always kept a vigil for me since that day.

No matter how I cried, the rice cooked in its due time. I filled a plate and pounced on it like a hungry barbarian who had not eaten in days. I burned my mouth countless times while eating the steaming hot rice. I should have waited for it to cool down. Not only did I get boils in my mouth, my mother also gave me another title. She called me an animal.

I finished one whole serving and went for seconds. The second plate full of rice filled my stomach, but couldn’t completely curb my hunger. At least I wasn’t fainting from it like before. This was to be a warning for me. Magic needs energy to work.

Soon I’d have even more superpowers. I worried about my health, wondering if the powers would drain me out. I understood that food alone wasn’t gonna cut it. I needed other sources of energy or at least a way to digest food faster. It takes 6-8 hours for food to digest naturally. The day lilies would be cold if I depended on my stomach alone to fulfill my soon-to-be-increasing energy needs.

I made a mental note of my worry and then forgot about it. Firstly, I had a few more basic desires to fulfill. Secondly, I was eighteen years old. Responsibility would never be the hallmark of kids that age.