Ashes of Him

Bloodlines

Ashvale’s outskirts bled into the hills like forgotten bruises-quiet, aching, and riddled with roots too deep to pull. The sky over the town had turned a strange bruised purple by the time Ella, Mason, Ivy, and the clone now simply Grace reached the abandoned farmhouse Ivy swore was secure.

Grace sat by the dusty window, her eyes following the movement of trees.The silence between her and Ella was like glass: too fragile to touch but too sharp to ignore.

“She hasn’t spoken since we left,” Ella said quietly to Ivy.

“She’s processing. Her reality just split in two,” Ivy replied, pouring stale coffee into a yellow mug.. “Same way yours did when you learned the truth.”

Mason stood by the doorway, scanning the tree line. “It won’t be long before Dana tracks us here. If The Mirror was active, it had protocols. She has people.”

Ella turned toward Grace. “Then we give her a reason to keep running.”

“No,” Ivy cut in. “We don’t run anymore. We fight.”

That night, Grace finally broke her silence and turned to Ella “Why did they choose you?”

Ella looked up from the map her eyes was scanning through.“Because I broke free.”

“They said I was designed to be better, Kinder, more stable and more obedient.”

“You’re not a machine, Grace,” Ella said, her voice gentler than she expected. “You’re a person. That means you get to choose who you are.”

Grace's eyes searched hers. “I don’t feel original.”

Ella moved forward. “Neither did I. Not at first. But the more I fought for myself,the more I became me.”

By morning, Ivy had mapped out a plan: break through Dana’s secondary facility,the brain behind The Mirror’s tech and memory storage with the codename: Pillar. “We destroy that,” Ivy said, “and there’s no backup. No reboot. No more Grace 2.0.”

The facility was structured in a canyon beneath an old hydroelectric plant,guarded by drones,surveillance-drenched and deadly.

“You realize this is suicide, right?” Mason said as they prepared to move

“It’s justice,” Ivy said. “And maybe a little payback”

They moved through the old trailhead under moonlight, scrambling across sharp rocks, and ducking under ancient bridges. When they reached the canyon rim, the facility was looping unnatural light and humming with secrets.

“We’ll divide ourselves,” Ivy said. “Mason and I break through the mainframe vault while Ella and Grace handle the uplink chamber.”

“I don’t want her close to it,” Ella said instinctively.

Grace stepped forward. “I want to see it. What they used to build me.”

Ella hesitated. “You don’t have to prove anything.”

“I do to myself.”

Inside Pillar, everything felt colder than it should’ve. The halls were lined with portraits not of people, but blueprints,body diagrams and brain scans. Ella saw her own eyes staring out from a schematic labeled: Subject EG-7: Unstable Variant with Core Emotional Resilience.

Grace froze at the next door. “This is me.” Inside, rows of pods lined the walls—some empty, some filled with silent bodies. Girls. Clones. Copies.

“No…” Ella whispered. Grace moved backwards. “They made more.” Ella pressed a hand to the glass. “But none like you. You got out.”

From the far wall, a screen came to life.

Dana’s face appeared.

“I wondered how long it would take you. I hoped you’d find them.”

Grace recoiled.

Dana’s voice chilled. “They aren’t you, Grace. They’re prototypes. You were the final mold. The one we planned to unleash.”

Ella stepped in front of Grace. “You’re not unleashing anything.”

Dana smiled. “Too late.”

Suddenly, alarms beeped.

Ella turned to find a timer on the wall: 10:00 – Facility Self-Purge Initiated.

Across the complex, Ivy and Mason fought their way into the core.

“Everything’s wired to purge on breach,” Mason said, checking a panel.

“Then we download what we can and blow the rest,” Ivy growled, inserting a data spike.As files streamed,memory banks, emotional imprints, behavioral triggers.Ivy’s face changed.“These… these aren’t just clones. They were making sleeper agents.”

“Programmed for loyalty and violence” Mason added grimly. Back with Ella and Grace, flames began curling down the east hallway.

“We have to go!” Ella shouted.

Grace refused. “Not until I stop them.”

“There’s nothing you can do!”Ella screamed .

Grace grabbed the control terminal. “Yes, there is.”

She keyed into the system, bypassing the purge code. “I can override the sequence,lock out Dana and delete all cloning protocols.”

“You’ll trap yourself!”

Grace looked at her. “You gave me a name. A choice. I’m choosing this.”

Ella reached for her. “No. There has to be another way.”

Grace smiled. “Tell people who I was. Not what I was.”

She hit enter.

The doors locked and the flames rushed in.

Ella screamed as Mason pulled her away, Ivy covering their escape. The data spike blinked green.

They ran.

Out into the cold night.

As Pillar burned.

Three days later, Ashvale was very calm.

Dana Kingsley had disappeared. The Mirror and Pillar destroyed.

Ella stood by Grace’s makeshift memorial beneath a weeping willow.

A single note carved into the wood: She chose to be real.

Mason came up behind her. “You okay?”

“No,” Ella said. “But I’m still breathing.”

And this time, she was going to fight to keep being alive.