Chapter 4: Another Me

(Mani’s POV)

The train ride felt like being trapped inside a dream I couldn't wake from. I stayed pressed against the window, watching the darkness outside smear into endless streaks of light. Every now and then, another town flashed past before disappearing behind us.

I should have been relieved.

I'd gotten away.

But my body still ached from the night's events, and my hands stung whenever I moved them. I rested my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes.

My chest hurt too.

Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was everything catching up with me at once.

I didn't bother figuring it out.

When the train finally rolled into Ridgewood, dawn was beginning to break.

The sky was pale when I stepped onto the platform.

Sunlight spilled between the buildings, turning the unfamiliar streets gold.

It should have been beautiful.

It wasn't.

The light didn't feel warm. It might as well have been moonlight.

I stood there with my small envelope clutched in one hand, watching the station come alive around me.

People hugged, families called out to one another, someone laughed as they dragged a suitcase across the platform.

A man kissed his wife before taking her bag.

Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were going. Everyone seemed to have someone waiting.

I had neither.

No phone, no address, no room, no plan.

Just a little money, sore feet and nowhere to be.

I looked around at the unfamiliar city.

So this was Ridgewood.

Far enough from home, busy enough to disappear, exactly what I'd wanted. I just hadn't thought about what came after disappearing.

I exhaled slowly.

Was this what I was now? A runaway? A ghost? An Omega boy without a home or even a proper name to call his own?

The thought didn't scare me as much as it probably should have. I'd gotten used to things not lasting; people left, places changed, my name changed a ton of times… nothing matters enough to hold on to.

You learned to adjust. And I had always been good at adjusting.

I turned away from the station and walked.

_____

The next few days blurred together. I wandered through Ridgewood without really knowing where I was going.

I learned which shops didn't chase people away for standing too long outside them. Which convenience stores had the cheapest snacks. Which corners stayed busy late enough that sleeping there didn't feel quite as dangerous.

I ate when I could, slept wherever I could, and kept my head down.

After a while, hunger stopped feeling like an emergency and started feeling like background noise.

Maybe that was the strange thing about me.

I adapted.

Give me a bad situation long enough, and eventually it becomes normal.

On the fourth day, I was sitting outside a cosmetic shop near the airport when I noticed an older woman struggling with a stack of boxes.

Her scarf kept slipping from her head. She'd adjust it, pick up another box, and it would slip again.

Eventually, I got up.

“Here.”

She looked at me.

I took the box from her before she could protest.

“You don't have to—”

“I know, I just want to help.” I carried it inside.

She stared after me before following.

That was how I ended up helping her.

It wasn't much; just moving boxes, cleaning up, running small errands. But when she handed me a plate of actual food afterward, I nearly forgot how to be suspicious.

“Eat,” she said.

I stared at the food, then at her. “You're sure?”

She rolled her eyes. “If I wasn't, I wouldn't have given it to you.”

I ate.

Slowly at first, then much faster.

She didn't ask where I came from, I didn't tell her, she simply let me keep helping.

Small good things counted.

I'd learned that too.

______

By the seventh day, Ridgewood had started feeling slightly less unfamiliar.

I was outside the shop, stacking empty boxes, when something caught my attention through the glass.

I stopped.

There was a boy inside.

I stared at him, and he stared back.

My hand went still on the box.

Something about his face felt wrong. Not because there was anything strange about it, but because there wasn't.

His eyes were mine, his nose was mine, his chin, his mouth, even the shape of his face.

It was like looking into a mirror reflection that had somehow magically dressed itself in expensive clothes.

I slowly touched my own cheek, and he did the same. My fingers moved to my jaw. His did too.

“What the hell?”

His mouth fell open.

Mine probably did too.

For several seconds, neither of us moved. Then the boy suddenly headed toward the door.

I stepped backward.

No. Absolutely not.

I had enough problems without some rich stranger deciding I was his newest curiosity.

I turned and walked toward the parking lot.

“Hey!”

I heard footsteps behind me.

“Wait up!” He shouted.

I kept walking.

“Hey!”

I looked over my shoulder.

The boy was actually following me.

“Go back!” I yelled.

He slowed. “Wait, I just—”

“Don't follow me!”

I turned away again.

Maybe he was harmless. Maybe he only wanted to talk. Maybe he wanted to know why we looked alike.

I didn't care.

I'd spent the last week trying to disappear. I wasn't about to stand around answering questions just because some stranger had my face.

Then I turned and saw I was being followed by more than just him.

There's three men in dark suits. They're standing behind him, watching.

My steps faltered.

Not again.

I didn't know who they were, I didn't know what they wanted, I only knew that men dressed like that had no business making me feel safe.

I changed direction.

The boy followed. “Wait!”

“Stop following me!”

I ducked between two parked cars and crouched behind one, pressing myself against the side.

My breathing turned shallow.

I peeked around the vehicle.

One of the men was moving through the parking lot, searching.

My blood ran cold.

They'd seen me.

I looked toward the boy. He was still standing there, confused.

I needed to warn him.

I wanted to shout at him to run.

I opened my mouth—

Bang!

The sound tore through the parking lot.

Everything stopped.

For one impossible second, I couldn't understand what had happened.

Then pain exploded through my chest. Hot, sharp, deep, and my lungs forgot how to work.

I staggered.

My hand flew to my chest, but there was no wound beneath my fingers. Nothing. Yet the pain was real.

I looked at the boy.

He was falling, and his eyes met mine. He was shot.

Somehow, I felt his pain as though the bullet had torn through me instead.

My knees buckled.

A strange warmth slipped down my cheek.

A tear.

I didn't understand why I was crying, I didn't understand why my chest was burning, I didn't understand why the boy with my face was lying on the ground.

The world tilted.

The last thing I saw was his face.

My face.

Then darkness swallowed everything.