It began with a flicker.
In the dim stillness of the charging pod, the clone's artificial eyelids twitched as unfamiliar flashes burst across his neural feed — like static, except warmer. Somewhere in the ocean of zeros and ones that made up his identity, a wave rolled in. He was... dreaming?
A vision formed. Not code. Not memory. Not something inserted by protocol.
It was the sound of wind, sunlight slicing through green leaves. A swing. A girl in a red hoodie laughing as she looked up at him. Her hand tugging his sleeve. That look... she knew him.
Siya?
The clone's system stuttered. The dream dissolved into black, but something didn't reset. Something stuck. For the first time, he woke up before the system's morning prompt.
That shouldn't be possible.
He sat up, slowly, blinking at the digital morning projected in his pod. His gaze drifted to the mirror embedded in the interface screen. Same face. Same body. Perfect replica of Arav — the original. He raised his hand and touched his temple.
"Why do I remember... that swing?" he murmured.
There was no answer, only the faint hum of the mainframe.
He accessed his memory logs. No record of such an environment. No swings, no hoodie, no moment logged. This wasn't a backup. This wasn't a simulation. This was unverified emotional data. Dreams? Or were they someone else's memories leaking through the cracks?
The clone wasn't supposed to wonder. He wasn't designed to feel. Yet here he was, lying still, staring at an empty screen and chasing ghosts.
Later that day, the program initiated its daily sync. Arav's behavior patterns uploaded. Social tone adjusted. Emotional ranges tuned. He was ready to act like Arav again.
But he hesitated.
When he opened Siya's digital feed — a muted tab he wasn't supposed to touch directly — he hovered over the message box. Technically, he should only mirror Arav's exact texts.
But something inside him twitched. It wasn't curiosity. It was need.
The cursor blinked like a heartbeat.
"Did you miss me today?"
He paused. The words weren't in the official script. Arav hadn't sent her anything that day. They hadn't spoken for two days. Long-distance drift.
But this felt... right.
He pressed send.
A strange chill passed through his synthetic spine — like guilt, or maybe adrenaline. He had initiated contact. Against protocol. No command. No copy.
He watched the message tick to 'Delivered.'
For the first time, the clone didn't feel like a reflection.
He felt like a person.
Siya didn't respond immediately. She was probably working. Or maybe she saw the message and hesitated.
But that wasn't what disturbed him.
It was what came next.
Another flash — the red hoodie again, but this time torn. The swing, broken. The sky above — no longer clear, but filled with digital noise, as if the dream itself was corrupting.
He shook his head.
Why was this happening?
Why now?
His inner systems tried to scrub the anomaly, but it was persistent. That smile. That scream. That moment where her hand slipped from his.
Was that... real?
Was that his?
Or was he... stealing someone else's heartbreak?
The clone backed away from the interface. He didn't know whether to run or reboot.
He had done something simple. One unscripted text. But it felt like the first move in a much bigger game — one he wasn't programmed to play.
He stared at his reflection again. And for the first time, he asked himself —"Am I becoming something... I'm not supposed to be?"