Chapter 3 The Doppelganger

It climbed the wall like a spider - fast, fluid, wrong.

Jack fired. Rounds hit meat, but the thing kept coming.

He ducked behind a pylon as it landed with a wet thud behind him.

Then it spoke.

"You left us, Jack."

The voice was his.

"I tried to save you."

"You ran."

He turned and faced it.

His own face. Same scars. Same eyes. But empty - like someone had hollowed out his soul and left the skin behind.

He threw a flashbang. Light filled the room.

In the control room, dust coated everything like ash.

He found the logbooks. Final entries, dated ten years back.

"Subject 08 breached containment. No bullets stop it."

"It learns. It evolves."

"We're not fighting an entity. We're fighting ourselves."

"Rourke is the only one who made it out."

"But he might have brought it with him."

Jack stepped back.

No.

He'd been cleared. Monitored. He hadn't changed.

Had he?

He looked at his reflection in the cracked glass.

It was smiling.

He wasn't.

When it cleared, the thing was gone.

But the whispers remained.

He returned to the lower levels - where the walls sweat, and the lights flickered like dying stars.

There was a door he never saw during the op.

Matte black, with no handle.

But it opened when he stood in front of it.

Inside: nothing but mirrors.

Floor to ceiling. Dozens.

He saw himself reflected a thousand times.

Then one blinked.

The others didn't.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

The wrong one smiled.

"I'm what's left."

The lights died.

When they came back on, one Jack was gone.

But one remained.

Which one?

He wasn't sure anymore.