Morning came reluctantly.
Velridge looked cleaner in daylight, but it was a lie, the kind of lie that dressed in sunshine and smelled faintly of metal and regret.
I hadn't slept. Not because I didn't want to. I just didn't know how anymore. The city hummed in my veins like caffeine and electricity.
The cat followed me as I made my way through the narrow lanes to my old apartment, or at least the place that used to be mine before I "died." The building was the same: cracked walls, flickering lobby light, and an elevator that groaned like it hated its job.
When I reached my door, it was already unlocked.
"Either you left it that way," the cat murmured, "or someone's doing a terrible job pretending to be subtle."
I pushed it open.
The place was untouched, except for one thing.
On the center of my desk sat a single envelope. Cream-colored. Sealed in red wax. My name written neatly on the front: Elior Vane.
I didn't recognize the handwriting.
I broke the seal and slid out a single photograph.
My stomach dropped.
It was a picture of me, standing right here in this room, staring at the same desk, holding the same photograph. But in the background, the window showed the date blinking on the city's digital clocktower: October 16.
Today was October 15.
The cat hopped onto the desk, peering at the image. "Well. Either someone's bad at Photoshop, or we're in temporal nonsense territory."
"There's a timestamp," I said. "11:47 p.m. tomorrow."
"So the future sent you a photo of yourself… looking at a photo from the future?"
"Yeah. Feels like a trap."
The cat stretched. "Then we should definitely walk right into it."
Before I could answer, something in the photo caught my eye. A reflection, faint but there, in the window behind me.
A shadowy figure. Tall, motionless. Watching.
And on the wall next to the reflection was a faint smear of blue light.
I turned toward my real window. Nothing. Just grey daylight.
I opened the drawer to grab my old revolver, a sentimental habit, and found another envelope taped underneath. No seal this time. Just a message scrawled in the same handwriting:
"Don't trust the Auditor."
The cat's tail froze mid-flick. "Oh, that's comforting. Now both sides of the conspiracy have marketing campaigns."
I folded the note and slid it into my coat. My reflection in the window looked back at me, pale, blue-eyed, faintly transparent. For a second, it didn't move the way I did.
I stepped closer. It smiled.
Not me.
Not even human.
Just something using my face.
The lights flickered. My hand lit with blue. The glass trembled, but I didn't strike. Because for the first time, I realized the truth the Auditor had hinted at.
I wasn't just built from someone's experiment.
I was copied.
Somewhere out there, the original Elior Vane was still alive.
And tomorrow at 11:47 p.m., one of us wasn't going to be.