Chapter 8 - The Mirror’s Edge
Clara froze, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at the girl standing just feet away in the dim basement light. Up close, the resemblance was absolute, yet everything about her sister felt wrong—her skin was almost translucent, her eyes too wide and unblinking, and her fingers ended in blackened, broken nails.
"Who... who lives down here with you?" Clara whispered, her voice trembling in the freezing air.
The twin tilted her head at an unnatural angle, her long, tangled brown hair falling across her face. "The ones who watch us sleep through the vents. The ones who whispered to Mama and Papa long before the fire ever started."
Before Clara could process the horrifying implication, heavy footsteps echoed rapidly down the basement stairs.
"Clara! What are you doing down here?!"
Arthur burst into the cellar, his navy blue suit jacket missing, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. He stopped dead in his tracks as the bare bulb illuminated the two identical girls standing side by side in the dust.
"Arthur..." Elena’s voice called out from the top of the stairs as she hurried down behind him, clutching her maroon dress. "Did she— Oh God."
"She opened the cellar hatch, Elena," Arthur said, his voice dead and hollow. He didn't look at his wife; his eyes were fixed entirely on the starving twin standing near the brick wall.
The twin looked at Arthur with a mixture of hatred and profound sorrow. "You thought you locked me away in the floor, Daddy. But the crawlspace goes all the way down into the foundation. I’ve been walking these tunnels for years, listening to you pretend to be a happy family while I ate whatever crumbs Clara dropped through the cracks."
"We didn't know you survived the cellar collapse, Maya," Elena choked out, tears spilling down her cheeks as she took a tentative step forward. "The fire chief said the whole lower level was incinerated."
"You didn't look," Maya hissed, her voice suddenly sharp and venomous. "You just wanted to save yourselves and the 'good' twin."
Maya suddenly spun around and dove headfirst back into the rusted iron hatchway in the foundation wall, disappearing into the pitch-black earth before anyone could grab her.
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Arthur lunged forward, grabbing the edge of the iron hatch, but as he pulled it shut, a cold, skeletal hand shot out from the darkness, grabbing his wrist with terrifying, inhuman strength.
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