Smoke coiled around the burning ruins of the balcony, heat warping the air like liquid glass. The acrid stench of melted marble and scorched flesh filled Charles' nostrils as he stared at the figure before him—an almost identical copy of himself, but wrong in all the ways that made his skin crawl and his system scream warnings he couldn't quite interpret.
The clone's smirk deepened, revealing teeth that were just a shade too sharp, eyes that held depths of cruelty Charles had never seen in his own reflection. Every subtle detail was off—the way he held his shoulders, the tilt of his head, the predatory stillness that radiated from him like heat from a forge.
"You feel it, don't you?" the clone said, his voice echoing with layered distortion—like multiple versions of Charles speaking in perfect, horrible sync. "That hunger gnawing at your insides. The pull that's not quite yours, the urges that make you wonder if you're losing your mind."
