COLD STEEL, BLEEDING HEARTS
From the dark woods, girls stepped out—dozens of them, all fourteen or fifteen, all with long dark hair, all with Maya’s face.
They wore thin white hospital gowns. Bare feet pressed into the cold earth. Their eyes weren’t blue, weren’t silver—just blank, empty white.
“Sister,” they said together, so loud the window glass cracked. “Come home. The throne is cold without you.”
“I’m not your Queen!” Maya shouted back, voice shaking with anger. “I’m a real person! My name is Maya!”
One clone stepped forward. She looked just like Aria from the lab, but her movements were stiff, unnatural. She put her hand on the shack wall.