Rain drummed relentlessly against the city's steel veins as Orvale's sleepless hum dulled under thunder. Dr. Elara Voss stood outside the fourth crime scene, her coat soaked, her pulse uneven. Police lights bled red and blue across puddles like fractured memories.
Calen met her at the barricade, face grave. "You shouldn't be here, Elara."
"I need to see her," she said flatly.
He didn't argue. Together, they entered the warehouse. The metallic tang of blood hit her first — then the sight that froze her completely.
The victim lay on the cold floor, her face eerily familiar. The same scar above the right eyebrow. The same black hair, same jawline. It wasn't just resemblance. It was her.
Elara's legs weakened. "That's not possible…"
Calen exhaled slowly. "Forensics ran a preliminary scan. Fingerprints match yours."
Her throat went dry. "Then what are you saying?"
"I'm saying," he replied quietly, "either someone cloned you… or we're both losing our minds."
Back at the precinct, Elara's ID was suspended. Protocol. The department needed to investigate her connection to the murders. Calen, against orders, slipped her into the archives room after hours.
"You've worked with enough cases to know the system keeps everything," he said, unlocking the cold, flickering database terminal. "We'll pull the forensic logs and crosscheck them against your case files. Maybe there's something — or someone — replicating data."
As the screen lit up, Elara noticed something odd. A hidden file directory. It wasn't visible in normal view, but her login as a consultant had privileges that could bypass it. The folder was titled "Project Doppel."
Inside were dozens of encrypted documents marked with her initials — EV-001, EV-002, EV-003.
Her hands shook as she clicked the first file.It opened with a scanned document — a government seal, blurred but recognizable. The Orvale Behavioral Institute.
The report was dated 1998 — the same year her mother disappeared.
Subject EV-001 exhibits elevated neuroplasticity under mirror-stimulus tests. Potential for cognitive replication confirmed. Recommend continued observation under "Mirror Code" program.
Elara blinked, her vision blurring. "This is… me," she whispered.
Calen stared at the screen. "Wait. Are you saying you were part of some experiment?"
"I don't remember anything before I was ten," she said softly. "My mother used to test my memory with puzzles, lights, mirrors. She said it was for her research, but…" Her voice faltered. "Maybe it wasn't just research."
The second file — EV-002 — opened to a series of psychological evaluations. Each with her handwriting, yet she had no memory of writing them.
The reflection resists containment. It imitates emotion but lacks empathy. Termination recommended.
Elara gasped. "This isn't me."
"Then who wrote it?" Calen asked.
The terminal glitched — the cursor blinking violently. Suddenly, new text appeared on the screen, typing itself.
You shouldn't have opened this, Elara.
Calen backed away. "What the hell—"
You're not supposed to remember.
The lights flickered, and the entire archive went dark.
Emergency lights bathed the room in a faint red glow. Somewhere beyond the shelves, a soft whisper echoed.
"Elara…"
She froze. That voice — low, calm, identical to hers.
Calen drew his gun, sweeping the beam of his flashlight across the rows of cabinets. "Show yourself!"
From the shadows, a figure stepped forward — same face, same coat, but eyes darker, colder.
The doppelgänger smiled faintly. "You're looking for the killer," she said softly. "But I was never hiding."
Calen aimed. "Don't move!"
Elara held out a hand. "Wait—"
Her double's gaze locked onto hers. "You don't understand. You're not the original."
The words hit like ice.
Elara's breath caught. "What did you just say?"
"I was made first. You're the echo — the one who forgot."
Calen's gun trembled slightly. "Elara, we need to get out of here."
But she couldn't move. Every nerve in her body screamed between truth and denial.
The doppelgänger stepped closer, whispering, "We're both pieces of her experiment. Only one of us was meant to survive."
And then the lights went out completely.
A single gunshot split the darkness.
When the lights flickered back, Calen was gone. The other Elara was gone. Only a faint spiral symbol glowed on the floor — drawn in blood.
Elara knelt beside it, trembling.Somewhere deep inside, a memory she'd buried long ago stirred.A laboratory. A woman's voice — her mother's — whispering:
"If one of you wakes up… the other must sleep forever."