The trees ahead whispered like a warning.
Camille staggered through the clearing, her breath shallow, her limbs barely listening to her. The mimic's blood still clung to her hands, drying black against the skin, but she didn't stop to wipe it away. Her knees throbbed, her jaw ached from where it had struck a root mid-fight, and something inside her chest had cracked open.
Not physically.
But something deeper.
Something older.
She had killed it.
She had watched its eyes her eyes go dim. The mimic had fallen, rolled into the ravine, and shattered against the stones below. And yet, the scream still echoed in her head. Her scream. Not its.
You were supposed to be me, it had whispered.
And that was the problem.
Because some part of her… had felt it.
Camille bent over at the edge of the clearing, retching into the soil.
Not from exhaustion.
From the realization that she had just stared into a version of herself that was too close to deny.
