The chamber shuddered with a faint hum, as though the cavern itself was alive. Pale blue lights flickered along the walls, casting skeletal shadows that stretched and twisted like specters. Lin stood at the center, gun drawn, every sense sharpened to a razor's edge. Keller and Min-joon flanked him, both equally tense, their breathing shallow as their eyes locked on the figure before them.
The clone.
It was chained when they first saw it—iron cuffs bolted into the ground, thick cables running into its skin like veins of steel. But the restraints now hung slack, broken with ease.
The thing moved forward in jerks, its bare feet slapping against the cold stone floor. Its face… Lin's face, but wrong. Pale, hollow-eyed, scars stretched across the skin as though carved by knives. Its lips trembled before peeling into something resembling a grin.
"...Lin…" it rasped, the sound like shards of glass in a blender. "…kill… me…"
