CHAPTER 5: PROJECT MIRROR'S DARKEST SECRET
The ballroom looked like a battlefield.
Broken glass covered the marble floor.
Guests huddled together, terrified.
Police officers searched every corner of the building.
But the three people everyone was looking for...
Had disappeared without leaving a trace.
Claire knelt beside her engagement ring.
Fresh blood stained the diamond.
Tears blurred her vision.
"Ethan..." she whispered.
A detective carefully sealed the ring inside an evidence bag.
"This blood isn't enough to prove he's dead."
Claire looked up.
"So he's still alive?"
The detective hesitated.
"I didn't say that."
Before he could continue, a young forensic technician ran into the ballroom holding a tablet.
"Sir... you need to see this."
The detective frowned.
"What is it?"
"The blood."
"It belongs to..."
He stopped speaking.
His face turned completely white.
"It belongs to three different people."
Silence.
Claire slowly stood.
"Three?"
The technician nodded.
"One sample matches Ethan Bennett."
"The second belongs to Victoria Ashcroft."
"And the third..."
He swallowed hard.
"...belongs to Claire Bennett."
Claire stared at him in disbelief.
"That's impossible."
"I've never been injured."
The technician zoomed in on the DNA report.
"No."
"You weren't."
"This DNA was collected over twenty years ago."
Claire's heart stopped.
Twenty years ago?
She was only a child.
The detective suddenly grabbed the tablet.
"No..."
"No, this can't be right."
Claire stepped closer.
"What aren't you telling me?"
The detective looked directly into her eyes.
"I've worked homicide for thirty years."
"I've only seen Project Mirror mentioned once before."
"It wasn't an identity theft program."
"It wasn't a financial crime."
"It was a classified human replacement experiment."
Claire felt sick.
"What do you mean... replacement?"
Before the detective could answer, every phone in the ballroom vibrated at exactly the same moment.
One message.
No sender.
Just a single photograph.
Claire opened it.
Her hands began shaking uncontrollably.
The picture showed a little girl about six years old.
She was smiling beside a woman Claire recognized as her mother.
But there was something impossible about the photo.
There were two little girls.
Identical.
Same face.
Same birthday dress.
Same smile.
One was Claire.
The other...
Looked exactly like her.
Written across the bottom of the picture were six chilling words:
"Only one daughter came home."
Claire felt the room spinning around her.
"No..."
"No..."
"My mother only had one child."
Then another message arrived.
This time, it wasn't a photograph.
It was an address.
An abandoned medical research facility that had officially burned down twenty-one years earlier.
Underneath the address were the words:
"Come alone if you want the truth."
The detective grabbed Claire's arm.
"You can't go."
"It's a trap."
Before Claire could answer, a weak voice echoed from the ballroom entrance.
"He's right."
Everyone turned.
Standing in the doorway was Victoria Ashcroft.
Her black dress was torn.
Blood ran down one side of her face.
She was barely able to stand.
But for the first time...
She wasn't smiling.
She looked terrified.
She stared directly at Claire and whispered,
"You think they're hunting Ethan..."
"They're not."
She burst into tears.
"They've been hunting you since the day you were born."
Before anyone could ask another question...
A sniper's bullet shattered the window behind her.
Victoria collapsed instantly.
With her final breath, she whispered one last sentence into Claire's ear.
May you like
"You're not the original Claire."
END OF CHAPTER 5
