The rain poured hard that night, turning the city into a blur of lights and shadows.
Lena sat in Jay's apartment, staring at the fireplace. It was silent between them, like both were afraid of breaking the fragile thread still holding them together.
"He's me," Jay said finally. "But he's not me anymore."
She looked up. "What do you mean?"
Jay ran a hand through his hair. "I remember the accident… and then waking up here. Different. But still me.Then I started feeling things I couldn't explain - memories that weren't mine. Fear that didn't belong to me."
Lena whispered, "Like a ghost inside you?"
He nodded. "Like I'm being rewritten."
Later that night, Lena stood in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror.
She didn't know who she feared more—the man beside her, or the one she'd seen in the vault.
Suddenly, the light flickered.
And behind her in the mirror - another face.
Jay's face. But colder.
She turned with a gasp.
No one.
The mirror had lied.
Or was it a warning?
The next day, Lena returned to Dr. Voss.
"I saw him," she said. "The original. He's not hiding anymore."
Dr. Voss didn't flinch. "Then the countdown begins."
"What countdown?"
She pulled out a file. "You were never supposed to see both of them. The moment you did, their timelines began to collapse."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you'll have to choose."
Lena shook her head. "I can't. They're both—him."
"No," Voss said coldly. "One is a survivor. The other is a weapon."
Jay was waiting outside.
Lena sat beside him. "If I asked you to disappear again… would you?"
He didn't answer right away.
Finally, he said, "Not unless you asked with love."
Tears filled her eyes.
"I don't know what love means anymore," she whispered.
And Jay, with a broken smile, replied, "Then let me remind you."
That night, a note slipped under the door:
"Meet me at the place where it all began. Alone. Or he dies."
It was signed: *J*
Lena knew exactly where.
The cliff.