Canada's room is lit by crimson light.

There are exactly ten carefully placed positions for footsteps on the floor. Ten steps can take her in a full circuit of this space. It had seemed cramped when she'd first moved in, and that was before the junk had started to accumulate. Spare tires and pumps, chains and pedals and aluminium skeletons - all the paraphernalia of pushbike repair filling every available inch of floorspace. A bed that doubled as a workbench (it was certainly hard enough), that had the work-in-progress bikes removed she needed to sleep. The acrid smell of chemicals clashed with the uncomfortable heat that came from too-close proximity to the building's central heating. The sink was full to the brim with black fluid, and the bathroom had multiple large tubs filled with unidentifiable substances. Jagged black rectangles hung from the shower curtain like salamander scales. Step, step, step - and she was in bed, slumping face down, not looking at the one fully developed photo shining at her from atop the toolbox.

Photograph chemistry and bike repair. They'd always paid her way, no matter where the journey had taken her. Digital photography was the work of the devil, her dad had always grumbled - true artistry boiled within these vats. What's a collection of volts compared to something you could hold in your hands? What's a facebook page compared to something you can hold to your chest? Some part of her had always wondered if he wasn't as proud of her transformation into Canada Taliv, the Light of Ra, as he was of the fact that she'd disassembled the hated mobile phone to do it. 

Her fingers brushed past the smiling faces in that photograph, tracing that same familiar line smudged into the glass. She'd turned to look at it again despite her attempt at resistance. The four of them together, close as family - shifting and unpredictable and wild, but oh, wasn't the danger so fascinating? A future that had the colours right even if the shadows had yet to congeal. And then the crashing, shattering, unwelcome white light that had washed it all away before it was strong enough to stand on its own.

It's in that state, mind yearning, heart aching, that the light bulb burns out. She plunges into the dark, fingers against the glass. The picture had been a reflection of her heart...

... but reflections had two sides.