I stared at the photograph for so long, my fingers went numb. My face—so young, so alive—grinned back at me from a past I didn’t remember. But the girl beside me…
She wasn’t just similar.
She was identical.
A mirror of me, down to the freckle on our left cheek.
But I don’t have a sister.
I never had a sister.
At least, that’s what I’d always believed.
I tucked the photo into my jacket pocket and stood. My muscles ached. My head felt too full. And that lullaby—it was still there, like a ghost pressed behind my ears.
Soft.
Persistent.
Calling.
---
Downstairs, the house was colder.
The warmth from before—the strange, sticky feeling of breathing walls—was gone. Replaced with stillness. Like everything was holding its breath.
I went to the library.
I needed something. Anything. P
