"You are not the original. You are the next."— System Log: RW-14C Activation
[04:17:36 AM – RW System Boot Log | Clone ID: 14C]
The room was still. Too still.White walls. No shadows. No sounds.Only a faint hum — like an empty heartbeat.
Then he opened his eyes.
"He didn't blink"
"He didn't breathe"
"Yet the feeling of breath lingered"
"As if his body remembered how to be alive"
He sat up slowly. Naked. Cold.
"A mirror stood at the far end of the room — and for the first time, he saw his own face."
|Arav| , he whispered.
The name wasn't assigned to him. - He just knew.
The mirror shimmered, digital lines crawling across its surface.A voice — synthetic, sexless, and serene — echoed inside his head:
"Welcome, RW-14C. You are now live."
"Primary Profile: Arav Mehra — Age: 23 — Source: Subject Archive #A014."
"Emotion threshold: Suppressed. Memory simulation: 81%. Behavioral model: Complete."
He didn't respond.
He just stared at his reflection.
It blinked. He didn't. Then he blinked. It didn't.
The delay was… off.
He stepped forward. The floor lit up beneath him — a soft path of pale blue light, guiding him to a chair facing a blank wall.
He sat.
And the wall turned into a screen.
Video Playback:
"Arav laughing. Arav kissing a girl in the rain. Arav punching someone. Arav whispering" : "I'll never leave you."
He watched. Again.... And again....
The same 12-second loop. The same expressions. The same girl.
He touched the screen.
"Siya..." he murmured.
But he had never met her.Not really.
Yet he knew the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled.
The way she pulled her sleeves when she lied.The sound of her voice when she said "stop it" — half angry, half laughing.
He turned around suddenly.
"Where is he?" he asked, voice shaking.
The system didn't answer.
"Where is Arav Mehra?"
Silence.....!
Then, a low chime:
"Original Subject is offline."
"You are now primary."
He didn't understand.
"Offline? Dead? Missing?"
Or worse…
Replaced.
He stood up. The floor's lights dimmed. The screen powered down.
He stared at his hands — they trembled.
He could feel.
He wasn't supposed to.
I'm just a clone.
Just a program.
So why do I feel like screaming?
In the reflection again, his face twisted.
It wasn't sadness, It wasn't anger.
It was something terrifyingly human - Jealousy.