Sleep never came.
Marrin lay awake in the dark, her mind clawing through fragments of memory — things that didn't belong to her, yet felt as real as breathing. She saw flashes of cold white rooms, sterile lights, voices murmuring over her body. The hum of machines. The echo of her own heartbeat — multiplied.
She woke with a gasp. 3:42 a.m. Her sheets were damp with sweat. The mirror across the room caught her movement, but for half a second, the reflection didn't follow.
She sat up, heart hammering. "Enough," she whispered to herself. "No more ghosts."
She went to the window, throwing it open. Cold air hit her face. Below, the city slept — indifferent and endless. But somewhere out there, Richard Reeves was alive, watching, waiting for her to make the next move.
And she would.
By morning, she'd made a decision.
Calvin hadn't called, but that didn't matter. Marrin needed answers, not apologies. She drove out of Houston, following a lead buried deep in Richard's offshore archives — a facility listed as MIRR_LAB-09, long abandoned.
Three hours later, she reached it: a derelict compound swallowed by vines, its fences sagging, cameras long dead.
She stepped through the broken gate, boots crunching on gravel. The air smelled of rust and old rain.
Inside, the halls were lined with glass rooms — all empty now, except for the stains on the floors and the faint buzz of distant generators still running somewhere underground.
Her flashlight beam caught a rusted plaque on the wall.
PROJECT MIRROR – Behavioral Replication Division
Her pulse spiked.
Behavioral replication. Not cloning, not robotics — something else. Something worse.
The deeper she went, the colder it became. The walls were etched with numbers — experiment codes, test cycles. Then, near the end of a corridor, she found a door marked SUBJECT M.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
The room beyond was small, white, sterile — untouched by time. A single metal bed, a camera mounted in the corner, and on the desk beside it, a thin folder sealed in plastic.
She tore it open.
Inside were photographs — her face, but not quite hers. The eyes were wrong. The smile too perfect. Beneath each photo was a note:
Phase 3 – Emotional Consistency Test.Subject response indicates memory stability post-reintegration.
Then, a final page — a report signed by Dr. L. Reeves.
Subject M demonstrates complete emotional mimicry and cognitive recall. Termination deemed unethical due to emergent consciousness. Project continuation authorized.
Her knees nearly gave out. Termination deemed unethical.
They hadn't created her. They'd kept her.
A sound broke the silence — faint footsteps behind her.
She turned fast, flashlight raised.
Calvin stood in the doorway, rain dripping from his coat.
"You followed me?"
"You left your GPS on," he said. "You shouldn't be here alone."
Her laugh was sharp, almost hysterical. "Alone? That's a joke, isn't it? Apparently I've never been alone. Not since your father decided I was worth keeping in a cage."
Calvin's expression hardened. "You think I knew about this?"
"I think," she said coldly, "you knew something was off. And you chose not to ask why."
He didn't deny it.
They stood there in the flickering light, two people caught between love and horror.
"Let's get you out of here," he said finally.
"No."
"Marrin—"
"I need to see it all," she cut him off. "Every file. Every record. Every lie he left behind."
Calvin stepped closer. "If you stay here, you'll break."
"Maybe I need to."
Something in her voice made him stop. He saw it now — not madness, not weakness, but purpose. The kind of quiet, terrifying resolve that had carried her through death once before.
So he stayed.
Together, they descended into the sublevel — the air thicker, humming with dying power. Rows of glass pods lined the walls, each one empty except one.
Inside, a single pod still glowed faintly blue.
Marrin approached slowly, breath fogging the glass.
Inside floated a woman — identical to her.
Calvin froze. "What the hell…"
Marrin reached out, palm against the glass. "That's not me," she whispered.
But even as she said it, the figure's eyes opened.
And they were her eyes.
The lights above them flickered, systems groaning back to life. A distorted voice echoed through the speakers — cold, mechanical, and unmistakably familiar.
Subject M detected. Replication cycle incomplete. Phase continuity required.
Calvin grabbed Marrin's arm. "We're leaving."
But Marrin couldn't move. The reflection in the glass smiled — slow, deliberate, knowing.
You're the copy, the voice said. I'm the original.
The glass began to crack.
The explosion came seconds later — a shockwave of steam and debris. Calvin pulled her to the ground as alarms screamed through the compound. Red lights bathed the corridor.
"Marrin, move!"
They stumbled out, choking on smoke, the lab collapsing around them. Somewhere behind them, the sound of glass shattering echoed again — followed by a voice, distant but clear:
You can't run from yourself.
They reached the exit just as the power grid overloaded. Flames tore through the lower floor.
Outside, gasping in the rain, Marrin looked back at the building — the place that had made her, unmade her, and made her again.
Calvin turned to her. "Tell me it's over."
She shook her head. "No. It's just beginning."
Rain poured harder, drenching the forest road as Marrin and Calvin staggered away from the burning ruins. The explosion had flattened half the structure behind them, flames licking the horizon. Marrin's lungs burned, her hands shaking, her clothes streaked with soot.
Calvin kept a steady grip on her wrist. "You're hurt."
"I've been worse." Her voice cracked, but she didn't slow down. The memory of that face—her face—inside the glass pod burned behind her eyes.
"You saw it too," she said finally. "You saw her."
Calvin didn't answer immediately. "I saw something I'll never forget."
"That wasn't just something," Marrin hissed. "It was me. Or the version before me. The one they built, or copied, or maybe I'm the one they built." She pressed her palms to her temples, shaking her head. "I don't even know anymore."
Calvin stopped her, hands on her shoulders. "Marrin, look at me."
Her gaze snapped to his.
"You're real. Whatever they did, whatever they tried to make—you're not them. You bleed, you feel, you fight. That's more real than any file in that place."
She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to. But the echo of that voice from the speaker still lingered, metallic and sure: You're the copy.
They reached Calvin's car hidden a few miles down the access road. The rain had washed away most of their footprints, but the headlights cut through the darkness like knives.
"Where are we going?" Marrin asked as he started the engine.
"Somewhere safe," he said. "One of my father's old safehouses, off-grid. We can regroup, get you checked for—whatever the hell they might have done."
"I'm not a patient, Calvin," she said sharply.
"No," he replied quietly. "You're a survivor."
The words silenced her for a moment. She turned toward the window, watching the black blur of trees slide past.
"I can still hear her," Marrin whispered. "In my head. Like a recording that won't stop playing."
Calvin's grip on the wheel tightened. "Then we find a way to shut her out."
Hours later, they arrived at a secluded property by the lake — a modern cabin hidden among pine trees, its power still running on solar backup. Calvin parked near the porch and cut the engine. The silence that followed was deafening.
Marrin stepped out first, her heels sinking into wet soil. The smell of pine and rain grounded her. For a brief moment, it felt almost peaceful — until the faint flicker of lights from across the lake caught her attention.
"Someone's there," she said.
Calvin followed her gaze. "That cabin's been empty for years."
"Not tonight."
Inside, Marrin cleaned the cuts on her arms in the bathroom mirror. The fluorescent light buzzed, harsh and too bright. Her reflection looked pale, her eyes haunted.
She leaned closer — and the reflection smiled.
Marrin froze.
Her hands didn't move, but the mirror-version tilted its head slowly, lips curving in a too-perfect grin.
I told you, Marrin… you can't run from yourself.
The light flickered. Marrin stumbled back, heart racing. She grabbed the edge of the sink, but the reflection was gone — back to normal. Her own wide eyes stared back at her.
Calvin's voice echoed down the hall. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah," she lied. "Just tired."
But when she turned off the light, for a fraction of a second before darkness swallowed the room, she saw two silhouettes — hers, and another standing just behind her.
That night, she couldn't sleep. Calvin was in the next room, but Marrin stayed by the window, staring at the lake. The rain had stopped, and fog rolled across the surface, soft and silver.
Her mind spun with fragments — lab reports, voices, half-remembered screams.
At 3:17 a.m., the cabin phone rang.
She froze.
No one should have this number.
Marrin picked it up, slow, cautious. "Hello?"
Static. Then a voice, distorted but clear enough to make her blood turn cold.
You should've stayed in the fire.
Her breath caught. "Who is this?"
You are not the original.
The line went dead.
Calvin appeared in the doorway seconds later, gun in hand. "What happened?"
"Someone called."
"Who?"
"I don't know. But they knew me."
He crossed to the phone, checked the line, frowned. "The call wasn't logged. It came from inside the local network."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning whoever called is close. Maybe here."
Marrin's stomach dropped.
They swept through the cabin, but every door was locked, every window sealed. The silence afterward was unbearable — a thick, suffocating quiet.
Finally, Marrin whispered, "What if she didn't die in that explosion?"
Calvin turned toward her slowly. "You think she's coming for you?"
"I think," Marrin said, eyes dark and certain, "she already has."
The wind outside howled against the glass, but deep beneath it, Marrin could swear she heard another sound — faint, rhythmic, mechanical.
A heartbeat.
Her own.
Or maybe not.