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“What?” I shoved my chair back. “Watch your mouth!”

She stopped, then took out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She sighed before speaking.

“Look at yourself. You’re satisfied as long as you have a body similar to hers, right? So you only loved her looks, you don’t care about her soul.”

“Soul? What does ‘soul’ even mean?” My fury faded, I averted my eyes. “Is there such a thing? I… always wondered. When I was little… I believed it. She made me. I saw her soul… I…”

What had happened? When had the distance between us begun? When had we become no different from a servant and a master? From the very beginning? What had I said when Mina asked me what I loved about her? Her face? Am I idiot? How could I say that? I loved her because she was… the most real thing I knew.

Now you’re making fakes of her.

“You know, I can’t have her anymore. That’s why, I…”

“Then you’ll forget her, you bastard! You’ll learn to forget her. You can’t be so disrespectful to her; she’s a living person, a real person. She’s not a tool to fill your solitude. She’s not a thing you can use and discard; she has feelings and thoughts. Have you forgotten all that? How could you lose your mind like this? What makes you any different from your family now?

“No… I… I’d never…”

“You treat her the way they treated you. As long as she’s there, you don’t care what happens to her. You don’t care about her wishes.”

At her words, anger flooded my face again. “Nonsense! I don’t bother her because I care about her! It’s just… I can’t live without her. I need her.”

“You need her? You’re sure? Then why do you need a physical thing?”

I gulped, but Johanna only shook her head in disappointment. She left the room, and I collapsed back into the chair, drained of all strength. When I saw blood spurting from Mina’s mouth, my nerves snapped.

A doll. You were a doll to your parents. You were a doll to Mina.

Now you have your own precious doll too.

What a wonderful creature you are.

I placed her beside the others, my eyes dropping the all clones in the coffins.

What was the difference between me and them? Did I have a tower like Mina’s, or had I always been confined to the coffin? I was always ready to be buried by her. What else had I done besides sacrificing myself for her?

Just a servant… If I accepted her blindly, how could Mina ever trust what I felt? It was like calling a painting beautiful without looking at it with care.

Could I truly see her this way?

I only valued her anger and violence, the part of the picture I wanted to see. That violence, that horror was my safe space, the only thing I had known since birth. My refuge, my home. I couldn’t escape from there, from this mirror stage.

You’re just a puppet. It doesn’t matter who’s holding the strings.

It did. I wanted Mina to hold them, but was this surrender harming us? I wanted discuss it with her, to find peace with her. We would solve everything, right?

We couldn’t.

Mina didn’t confront me. She didn’t feel close to me and let it all out.

But what about me? If I had woken up from that dream earlier, maybe I would be breathing easier now. Perhaps Raymond in the other dimension would have found peace too.

What was real love? Who… No… what did I love? A reflection? Who’s Mina anyway?

“Master?”

The curly-haired clone was now staring at me. She really did look like Mina. From her facial expressions to the number of her lashes. As I wished, I created a perfect copy of her.

Then why wasn’t that enough? It was too heavy, not being able to breathe was too much. Every time my family put my body on that operating table, staring at the white lights, terrified—or hoped—I would die this time, was too much. Endure a bit longer. A bit longer.