Chapter 1
1 — The Beginnings
It was dreadful recalling her face—it kept flashing into my mind like a haunting. Who was she?
My friend Jack was desperate to understand what happened that night. His mother practically raised me, and he treated me like a younger sister. His questions were endless, just like the local watchmen’s. Not that I didn’t have questions of my own. Who was she? Why did she look like me? Who killed her—and why?
I knew this mystery ran deeper than I could explain.
Jack nudged me. “Come on, Claira, tell me… please, come on,” he said, nagging as usual. Then, more slyly, “Don’t you love me?”
I looked at him—pale as a ghost, blank-eyed—my mind racing faster than I could keep up. Anxiety welled in my chest, and my brow twitched. The room seemed to close in, growing colder by the second.
We were sitting in Ole Smokey Pete’s. I was waiting to be questioned again by the watchman on duty. Everyone wanted answers—Jack, the watchmen, even the townspeople. What was my alibi? Who was the girl? Why didn’t I know her? And the most haunting question of all: why was she murdered in my living room?
That night replayed in my mind as if I were there again.
It had been dark and bitterly cold—so cold you could see your breath hang in the air like a ghost. I had just finished my shift at Ole Smokey’s and was heading home. My apartment was just across the street, tucked down an alleyway. Each evening I rushed home to avoid being seen. Night was never safe for a girl like me.
That night, the alley was darker than usual, and a damp chill clung to everything. The moon was hidden behind clouds, and the pavement glistened with fresh rain. My footsteps splashed against shallow puddles. Candlelight flickered from apartment windows as I passed. Then I saw it—my front door. Open. Slightly ajar. It creaked eerily in the wind.
For a moment, I didn’t recognize it. Then came the dread. It was my apartment door.
A flickering candle inside cast a strange light, and crimson seeped out onto the front stoop.
I crept forward, every nerve on edge. Inside, my apartment was in shambles—as if a nightmare had torn through it. Blood painted the floor. And then I saw her.
A shadow loomed in the corner, morphing that nightmare into a living hell.
I screamed.
My screams echoed through the alley, through quiet apartments, and into the surrounding streets. By the time neighbors reached me, the village watchmen were already on their way.
I had collapsed to my knees in the blood, hands trembling, heart pounding with fear—not just of what I saw, but of what it meant.
The watchmen arrived and helped me to my feet. They guided my limp, shaking body out into the cold night. I couldn’t stop trembling.
Because I’d seen her face in the candlelight.
And it was mine.
She looked exactly like me. Pale, but with an olive tone to her skin. Her eyes—hazel, just like mine—stared blankly at the ceiling. Her dark auburn hair was streaked with strawberry blonde highlights. She was slender, long-limbed… and on her left cheek, a single freckle.
All my life, I had never met anyone who looked like me. My features had always been different from the rest of our community—my skin darker, my eye color uncommon.
But there she was.
Lying dead in my living room.
