She Is A Beauty

"Ad-Adam?" the twin sister of Adam's second wife stood in the silvery grace of the natural night lights, motionless except for her vocal organs. Her voice had lost its usual sparkle of maturity and womanly wisdom. "And... Who's that beside you?"

Eve Bouchie mirrored the same expression as her clone, too speechless to mutter any comments.

Only Adam was unaffected by the sudden encounter. As such, he boldly threw the tennis ball of conversation towards Catalina.

"Yes, Catalie. It's me," he took a step forward. "I'm Adam. Adam Jucas. I'm also Jack Jucas. I know this is a very troublesome situation right now, but please remain calm," he gestured using his hands to visually communicate with the afraid woman. "I'm sure you'll understand soon enough, once we've explained everything."

Catalina took a step backward.

Adam spread the palm of his left hand on Eve's shoulder, pushing her forward, gently.

"This here's Evelyn, your twin sister. You may or may not be acquainted with the conception behind Vicilia. But if you'd please listen..."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaah!" Catalie let out an agonized scream, loud enough for being audible across the entire building. She dived right into her apartment, shutting the door behind her as if she was being chased by inhumane monsters. Behind the door, sobbing noises and her hyperventilating gasps could be heard.

'What's wrong? What did I even do to scare her like that?'

He looked behind him to check. Eve quietly followed in the likeness of a young bird learning from her mentor.

Nothing visible with the naked eye.

'Hmm... Strange. I didn't predict this sort of reaction upon meeting Eve.'

His mind quickly relapsed to the main objective.

'Two doors remain. One leads to a certain Radiyana D., a woman bearing the same name as the wife I lost. Based on the cyclic nature of this experiment, Catalie was going to deliver this photograph,' he walked over to the spot where she had dropped it. 'Perhaps to another clone of mine behind unit 205.'

Steering himself around, he asked Eve to follow him as he quietly, carefully, attempted to break into 205.

The handlebar was locked from the other side.

"H-here ya go, Jack," Eve whispered, handing her lover a master key to every door in the building. "This'll work."

Adam didn't look behind him, but he could feel her lips curl into a wholesome smile of success as the shaft was thrust into door keyhole and twisted clockwise to initiate a tiny amplitude of a click.

'That solves the minor part of the problem. The major one is already resting on the bed inside.'

"Let's go inside, Eve."

He walked over to the bed, pacing towards his placeholder twin. For a subconscious reason, Adam was elated with the thought of getting to meet a mirror version of himself. A real twin brother.

"Mr Jucas," he flipped the blankets over. "Sorry to wake y-"

His eyes were blinded by what he saw. His mind lost its buffer. He was so confused by the sight of the person on the bed that he himself felt like Eve's dose of amnesia.

"W-where am I?" Eve's frightened voice wafted in. "J-Jack? Are you there?"

She saw what he saw. But she didn't know what he knew, at the moment.

"OH MY GOSH!!! JAAAAACK!!! NOOOOO!!!!!" she sprinted forward to hug the man on the bed, ignoring the real one standing right by. "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

She wailed.

Then she saw the man beside her. She wasn't comforted. It was the opposite effect entirely.

She screamed, pushing Adam away from her before exiting the room.

Her cries continued echoing around the corridor.

Adam was already preoccupied with his own questions.

The blankets were coated with blood. Bullet holes were scattered about on the sleeping clone's torso. Sleeping, but never bound to awaken again.

'Goddamn...'

***

The midnight sky was busy watering the flora and fauna below when Adam walked out from 205.

His makeshift autopsy was complete, based on the basics of forensic science he held his anchors of knowledge about. The conclusion - a big, tall and bearded man fond of guns was guilty for homicide. In his own property, nonetheless.

A sin upon sin.

'I wonder where did Eve go off to. A pity that I myself got distracted for losing her concentration of undivided attention. She must've seen that dead man's face before mine, completing forgetting about my identity.'

He took a moment to inspect the corridor, to the left and right hand sides. Clear as day, black as the night. The lack of moonlight had reduced the illumination of the environment.

'Hmm... Why would Michael do this? Or, better yet, how did Michael do this? How'd he locate my clone?'

He extracted the photograph from his pocket to take a look. Empirical evidence always beat theoretical assumptions. Nearly a week in this strange town and he had already learnt a lot of lessons.

'Ahh... There it is! The answer. The assistant.'

Instead of the photograph of himself at the café, the face of Eve was visible, proudly exhibiting her malicious achievement. Knife in hand, dripping with Adam's fresh innocent blood.

'So I was wrong. Yet, it explains more than enough. Michael must've contacted his niece to be wary of a particular man. Catalina was shocked to see me. Ofcourse, who wouldn't be afraid of a dead man alive?'

He walked past 206, unholstering his handgun.

'I've killed Sophia once. Why can't I kill her a second time?'

A devious smile materialized on the detective's face.

He still had the special key in his gloved hands.

***

"Aaaa! AAAAA!" the water of pain welled out from Catalie's tear ducts as she crawled backwards on the floor. Her ankles and kneecaps were no longer functional due to the bullet particles lodged in the soft flesh and bone. "GET AWAY FROM ME!! UNCLE!! UNCLE MICHAEL PLEASE SAVE ME!!!!"

Her lungs and vocal cords ached from the excessive pressure of screaming too much.

Her attacker walked slowly towards her. Taking his time, like a lion playing with his food.

From the shadows, the silhouette took shape of the man she had been assigned to assassinate. She had been successful, but fate had been bent to the will of a greater good.

Adam struggled to hurt women who looked just like Evelyn, ever since he regretted the last time such a thing had occurred.

But it had to be done. For his safety. For revenge.

"Scream all you want, wretched wench!" he bitterly mocked with a poker face. "You stepped in the wrong sea when you followed the menacing storm. Your uncle and I are not on good terms. Neither are you, to me."

The off-duty waitress panted and gasped for air, partly whimpering for mercy, partly struggling to find a way out. Her cutlery was out of reach and so were her windows. Even if she did manage to climb out through one of them, her fragile bones would shatter like glass onto the pavement below.

"HELP!!! UNCLE!!! RADIYANA!!!"

"Shut up, you she-devil," he aimed the gun again, to her forehead. "May God grant you the fair judgement you deserve."

He pulled the trigger.

Gunshots send out astonishingly high decibels of sound radially. Adam's ears rung once more.

He missed. Instead of the head, the bullet pierced through Catalina's aorta. Fate itself had denied the swift, clean death Adam wanted to gift her.

Blood squirted out from the woman's shoulder, now crying with a pain too unbearable, reinforced by an impending doom. The red bodily fluid splashed around her like a fountain. All the force from her heart ejected the blood out from her own body.

Adam shot again, now that she slowed down her movement.

By the time the used bullet shell clattered to the crimson-clad flooring, a line of her blood slithered down the middle of her face.

It was over.

Eve's twin's body lay lifelessly on the floor, the same doe eyes glittered with tear crystals corresponding to suffering emotions, the pupils no longer responsive to changes in the brightness of light. Her head was slightly angled up, resting on the wall of her bedroom.

The expanding pool of her blood spread underneath, slipping out from between her injured legs.

Adam Jucas fell to his knees, the smoking gun slipping away from an ashamed hand.

'Another addition!' his evil side cracked a dark joke to suppress the uncontrollable feelings storming inside him. 'Adam Jucas sets a new record... In a town without crime.'

The world grew silent again. The thunder from his pistol seemed to have convinced the rain clouds to scram off.

His guilty eyes pointed to the corpse he had just produced. He couldn't believe it. Nor could he lift the blame off.

He wondered if he could bring her back to life. Her body cells were still alive, he knew. Still buzzing with respiration. The individual units of life. The entire motherland, however, was clinically dead.

The loss of life had returned the innocence of her pretty face.

In honor of his wife, Adam reached over and kissed her silent lips.

In honor of Michael, he inserted the tip of his gun inside her wet mouth.

In honor of his twin in the 205, he shot again, averting his eyes before the trigger activation.

He didn't look back in her direction till he left the room.

It hurt him on the same calibre of satisfying him. His bloodlust for securing a world of fairness. A true world. He knew the consequences. He knew the rules.

In a world not defined by the irregularities, Adam Jucas was determined to escape with Eve Bouchie.

Somewhere near the door of Catalina's apartment unit, he heard footsteps.

'Ofcourse. It'd be a miracle if all that ruckus doesn't attract any attention at all,' he switched a fully loaded magazine to his semi-automatic ranged weapon. 'Michael, oh Michael. I hope it's you out there. Let all my worries perform their funeral rites tonight.'

The footsteps grew louder and nearer.

"We'll take it from here, love," a woman appeared at the doorframe, blockading the only exit out. Her curvy silhouette stood distinct from any of the female clones.

'Who? What? Wait... I recognise that voice! But how is it possible?'

"Radiyana!" Adam called out.

"Sorry, m'love," the woman's honeyed words protested his welcoming one. "Too late for formalities. We'll have a reunion when it's time."

A flash. A loud gunshot.

"Nooo! AAAAAAaaaah," the detective fell backwards, losing his balance and foothold. Clutching the area of the bullet wound inflicted upon him, he relentlessly crawled forward. "Radiyana! If that's you... Please wait!"