Chapter 1: THE BODY THAT SMILED
1147 Words
Sera Vance woke up already running.
Her lungs burned like she’d been screaming for hours. Her legs moved before her mind caught up—bare feet slapping against cold stone, breath tearing out of her chest in sharp, uneven bursts.
She didn’t know where she was.
She didn’t know why she was running.
She only knew one thing—
Don’t stop.
A flicker of light overhead. Old. Yellow. Dying. It swung slightly, casting shadows that moved when nothing else did.
Her heart slammed harder.
Something was wrong.
No—
Everything was wrong.
The air smelled metallic. Thick. Wet.
Sera slowed.
Just a little.
Just enough to notice the sound.
Drip.
…Drip.
…Drip.
Her steps faltered.
The sound wasn’t coming from the ceiling.
It was coming from her.
She looked down.
Her hands were covered in blood.
Not smeared.
Not splashed.
Covered.
Like she’d dipped them into something warm and alive and held them there until it stopped moving.
Her stomach twisted violently.
“No…”
The word came out cracked. Small. Not like her voice.
Sera stumbled to a stop.
The corridor stretched endlessly in both directions—ancient stone walls, carved with symbols she couldn’t read but somehow… recognized. Pillars lined the sides, their surfaces worn smooth by time or touch or something worse.
She turned slowly.
Something pulled at her chest. Not fear. Not instinct.
Recognition.
And then she saw it.
At the end of the corridor.
A body.
Lying on the floor like it had been dropped there.
Wrong.
Too still. Too deliberate.
Sera’s throat tightened.
“No,” she whispered again, softer this time, like saying it louder would make it real.
Her feet moved anyway.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Each one heavier than the last.
The smell got worse the closer she got. Copper and something faintly sweet underneath it—like decay hadn’t had time to fully bloom yet.
Fresh.
Too fresh.
The body was facedown.
Dark hair, matted with blood. One arm twisted beneath it at an unnatural angle. The other stretched out, fingers curled like it had tried to grab something just out of reach.
Sera stopped a few feet away.
Her heart was no longer racing.
It was… sinking.
Like it already knew.
Like some part of her had seen this before.
Don’t.
Her breath hitched.
Don’t turn it over.
She swallowed hard.
“I just need to confirm,” she muttered, voice shaking, clinging to the only thing that made sense—procedure. Logic. Science.
This was a body.
Bodies had answers.
Bodies followed rules.
She stepped closer.
Crouched slowly.
Her hands hovered over the corpse.
They trembled.
Why am I scared?
It’s just a body.
Just a body.
Just—
Her fingers brushed the shoulder.
Cold.
But not cold enough.
Not dead long enough.
Her breath caught.
And then she turned it over.
Everything inside her stopped.
Not slowed.
Not paused.
Stopped.
The world didn’t spin.
It collapsed inward, silent and absolute.
Because the face staring back at her—
was hers.
Same eyes.
Same mouth.
Same faint scar just beneath the left eyebrow.
Even the same small crease between her brows like she’d died mid-thought.
Sera jerked back so hard she nearly fell.
“No—no—no—no—”
Her voice broke apart, dissolving into something raw and unrecognizable.
“That’s not—this isn’t—”
She scrambled backward, palms scraping against stone slick with blood—her blood—until her back hit the wall.
Her chest heaved violently.
Her mind rejected it instantly.
Impossible.
Identical twins? No.
Clones? No.
Some kind of—
Her thoughts shattered.
Because the body…
was smiling.
Not a peaceful smile.
Not relief.
Not death.
This was something else.
Something wrong.
The lips were stretched just slightly too far, like the muscles had locked in place around a secret.
Like it knew something she didn’t.
Sera’s stomach lurched.
“No… no, stop…”
She didn’t realize she was talking to herself.
Or to the body.
Or to whatever had left that expression behind.
Her eyes dropped.
And that’s when she saw it.
Carved into the arm.
Not written.
Not marked.
Carved.
Deep enough that the edges of the wound were still slightly open.
Fresh.
The blood hadn’t even dried properly yet.
Four words.
Jagged. Uneven.
Like whoever did it didn’t care about pain.
Or maybe couldn’t feel it anymore.
Sera’s vision blurred as she leaned forward, drawn in despite every instinct screaming at her to look away.
Her lips moved silently as she read it.
YOU CHOSE THIS AGAIN.
Her breath left her in a hollow, broken sound.
Again?
Again?
Her mind latched onto the word like it was the only thing holding her together.
“No… I didn’t—”
Her voice shook violently.
“I don’t even know what this is—”
A memory flickered.
Gone before it fully formed.
But it left something behind.
A feeling.
Exhaustion.
Deep. Bone-deep.
The kind that didn’t come from one bad night or one bad day.
The kind that came from… repetition.
Sera squeezed her eyes shut.
“This is a setup,” she whispered, forcing control into her tone. “Some kind of psychological manipulation—drug-induced hallucination, maybe—”
Her voice steadied slightly.
Yes.
That made sense.
It had to make sense.
“There are explanations,” she continued, almost pleading now. “There are always explanations.”
Her hands tightened into fists.
She could feel the blood drying against her skin.
Real.
Too real.
“I just need data,” she said, more firmly this time. “Context. Evidence.”
She forced herself to look at the body again.
To detach.
To observe.
Like she always did.
Cause of death—
Her gaze moved to the chest.
There was a wound.
No.
Not a wound.
An absence.
Like something had been removed.
Not cut out.
Taken.
Clean.
Precise.
Impossible.
Her breath stuttered.
“What the hell…”
She leaned closer.
Too close.
And that’s when she heard it.
A whisper.
So faint she almost thought it was her imagination.
“…late…”
Sera froze.
Her blood turned to ice.
Slowly—too slowly—her eyes lifted to the face.
The smile hadn’t changed.
But the lips…
They moved.
“…earlier… this time…”
Her heart slammed violently against her ribs.
“No—”
The eyes snapped open.
Same eyes.
Her eyes.
But empty.
No.
Not empty.
Wrong.
Too deep. Too aware. Like something was looking out through them.
Sera screamed.
The corpse’s lips twitched wider.
And in a voice that sounded exactly like hers—but older, tired, and filled with something close to pity—it whispered:
“Run.”
The lights above flickered violently.
The shadows shifted.
And somewhere deeper in the corridor—
something else started moving.
Sera didn’t think.
Didn’t question.
Didn’t breathe.
She ran.
- Writer
