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Gillian

H e tells me to put my clothes on. I don’t respond. There’s nothing left to say.

This time, though, it’s different.

The blouse clings to me like a cage. His breath still lingers in the space I just stepped out of. But I’m not caught in it anymore. I’m watching myself from the outside, and I already know how this plays out.

Ellis doesn’t speak while I dress. I can feel his eyes on me—measuring, weighing, waiting for the part of me that still flinches. When I’m done, he says it like we’re discussing the weather.

“There’s something I want you to see.”

I don’t ask what. I already know I won’t like the answer.

We drive in silence. The car is quiet, sealed off. The kind of quiet that feels padded. Contained. My mind isn’t on the road.

It’s on her.

I know where this is going and I also know I won’t just stand by and watch.

When we pull up to the facility, the air changes. That too-clean, sterile air. That whisper behind the walls like something pulsing just out of view.

“Wait here,” Ellis says.

I don’t. I ask the receptionist for a pen and paper. She hesitates but eventually hands it over. It’s small, but it’s something.

A helper comes for me. I’m led down a corridor into a waiting room, then locked inside. Alone. For a long time. The silence presses in. The floor feels too smooth under my shoes, like it’s waiting for me to slip.

The footsteps outside are soft, irregular. I can’t tell if they’re real or just another part of the game. But I know what comes next. I know what they’re about to do to her.

It always starts with a choice. A note. “ Do you have what it takes to be in my world?”

It feels like a dare. Like freedom.

But it isn’t. It’s the beginning of erasure.

The door opens. Cold air rushes in, clinical and sharp. Then comes the voice—low, calm, final.

“It’s time to meet your replacement.”

I freeze. Then turn. And there she is.

You.

Standing in the doorway like you still think this is reversible. Like you haven’t already answered the note. Like you still have time.

You don’t. You never did.

You move past me, escorted by attendants. Your eyes flicker across the walls, the floor, the mirrored glass—but not toward me. Not yet. You don’t see me, but you sense something’s off.

They lead you into the room.

White sheets. A gurney. Instruments lined up like promises of pain.

You hesitate at the threshold. Still thinking it’s a test. An evaluation. Still thinking there’s a version of this where you walk out the same.

There isn’t.

They touch you gently. Stethoscope to your chest. Blood-pressure cuff around your arm. A prick to your finger. All the usual things. Harmless, until they aren’t.

Then the door opens again.

He enters. You recognize him. Of course you do.

“Welcome,” he says. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Your breath catches. You don’t look at him directly. Instead, your gaze shifts toward the mirrored glass—and then to me.

“Try to relax,” he says. “You’ll feel a little pressure at first. Then nothing at all.”

It’s the same line he used on me. In a bedroom. In a boardroom. Here. Doesn’t matter where. The method changes. The outcome doesn’t.

The tablet appears in your lap. You sign. Most people do.

Then the hiss.

Then the click.

Then the needle in your vein.

Your pupils go wide. You ask for your mother.

And just before it takes you, you look in my direction. Despite the double mirror, our eyes meet. And that’s when I know you understand.

The monitor spikes.

The room shifts.

So does something else—in you, in me, in the air.

I was wrong.

We all were.