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When one of the clones asked calmly, I didn’t flinch.

Oh. Clearly, no light was coming in.

“Do you want us to get rid of the body, or…?”

“I should put you guys to sleep.”

I murmured. The crying session ended there. I needed to think now. I wanted to burn them all and end this madness, but even one copy of Mina dying by my own hand had already carved enough wounds.

“Sleep. All of you. Take your pills and sleep.”

The clones didn’t argue. So the most curious one was indeed the one I ended. The one who resembled Mina the most…

I couldn’t find the courage to touch the clone again for a while. I collapsed to the floor once more, my legs couldn’t hold me up. While the dead clone stared at the ceiling on its back, I curled up into a fetal position, shrinking as small as I could.

Having found meaning in nothing, having possessed nothing I desired, I stared into the void. I pulled my knees to my chest, hugging myself. My expressionless gaze refused to leave the clone’s body. I should’ve ventilated the room, get rid of the corpse, but I couldn’t tolerate anything anymore. If it wouldn’t bring Mina back, I didn’t even want to touch the window.

I was tired, so tired and sick of this miserable state.

I tried to convince myself that nothing had happened. Nothing had changed. I wanted to act my days weren’t filled with her ghosts—both digital and real—but the real version of herself.

The next day, I had reactivated my necro-bracelet, and the cameras I had placed in Mina’s house were working again. At first, my only purpose was to intervene if something happened, but… Every time I went to my room, I found myself watching her.

I watched her sleep peacefully, laugh with friends, cry when she came home from work, write at her desk for hours. I watched her yawn. I watched her comb her straightened red hair. Frozen in front of the massive screen, not even blinking. Sometimes, when Mina fell asleep, I’d sleep too. The idea that we fell asleep at the same time made me happy.

But most of the time, I was in pain.

When I was first born, I had curiosity, a desire to seek the truth, even a human anger. But now I was nothing but pain. Pure pain.

You killed Mina. Yet you shamelessly keep watching her, but she will never come back to you.

Wake up. Wake up.

She hadn’t dated anyone since then, but one day she would find someone else. She would watch the endless sky with another person by her side, dreaming of the future, opening the gates of paradise to that worthless person. No. The person Mina chose had to be someone… remarkable. Someone different from me, better than me. A dazzling human equal to her…

No… No… I couldn’t imagine. I would rather kill myself than live in a reality where she belonged to someone else.

But I wouldn’t even do that. Death was beyond my reach. I had to watch it happen, to endure seeing Mina make everyone else’s life complete—except mine. I couldn’t take my own life, nor could I have her for myself again. There I was, back in that damned hell-like labyrinth; without her, finding the key was impossible.

I wanted to hate her for this.

Behave yourself. How dare you hate her?

Yet I kept hating. Her or myself. I just felt this dark emotion in my veins. Like every other sincere humane thing, this first one was also brought to me by my precious Mina.

It was unfair. While she spent her years in peace, I was slowly rotting away here. Didn’t she love me? How could she be so indifferent? How could she forget me like that?

As I watched her sleep carefree, I realized I was no longer the foolish servant I used to be. My master’s years of absence broke my stagnation. I was angry at her, angry she hadn’t come back, angry at the world kept moving on even though we were no longer together.

I want to belong to you again, I want you to belong to me again.

It hurts. It hurts. Hear me, see me, love me again! Why are you not here? Where else could you possibly be, other than by my side? Why do you keep breathing in a place where I’m not?

Why? Why?

Why? Why?

That day, I wasn’t in good spirits at Yunna’s place. I hadn’t gone to the committee in months, left every project I was working on unfinished, staying away from capital to avoid giving news to the magazine. I was drifting further and further away from being Loxton, or from being the son of the planet’s most famous scientists. My stupid brain seemed to be losing its function. I was smoking my pipe for hours. When Johanna told me to clean up her mess, I went outside, glad to get some fresh air. But I stopped when I heard a small sob.