Chapter 6 - The Hall of Mirrors
Julian stumbled backward, his back colliding with a cold steel shelf. The jars rattled, their pickled contents shifting in amber liquid, casting distorted shadows across the curved walls. He stared down at the crib, his mind refusing to process the impossible sight. The infant wasn't flesh and blood; it was an eerily lifelike porcelain doll, wearing the exact baptismal gown Julian had worn on his first birthday.
“What kind of sick game is this?” Julian rasped, looking up at Detective Miller, whose face had gone chalk white in the amber light.
Miller stepped further into the vault, his flashlight beam sweeping across the perimeter. The shelves weren't stocked with medical supplies—they were packed with leather-bound journals, reel-to-reel tape recorders, and dozens of identical blue blankets stacked neatly like folded laundry.
“Vance,” Miller said, his voice tight and unnatural. “Look at the labels on these jars.”
Julian forced himself to stand, his legs shaking as he approached the nearest shelf. The handwritten label on the glass jar was written in sharp, sloping ink that he recognized instantly from old tax documents in his father’s study.
Julian Vance. Subject 01. October 14th.
He moved to the next jar. Julian Vance. Subject 04. November 2nd.
“No,” Julian whispered, backing away as if he had touched a hot stove. “No, that’s impossible. I’m thirty-two years old. I’m a person. I’m flesh and blood.”
“Are you?” a voice asked from the darkness near the far corner of the vault.
Both men spun around. Emerging from the shadows behind a towering stack of filing cabinets was an old woman. She wore a pristine maid's uniform identical to Elena's, but her hair was completely silver, pulled back into the same severe bun. Her face was a map of ancient wrinkles, yet her eyes were sharp, bright, and utterly devoid of fear.
“Elena?” Julian choked out, his hand instinctively reaching for a weapon he didn't possess. “You... you fell from the balcony. I saw you go over.”
May you like
The old woman smiled, a thin, paper-dry movement of her lips. “That wasn't me, Julian. That was just the replacement. My name isn't Elena. And you’re not the first Julian Vance to stand in this room and scream at the walls.”
---
