Page 112 of Scorching the Alien Empire
What happened here?
Curiosity and impatience hasten me inside. With my weapon raised, I quickly scan the corners of the room—nothing. I kneel, inspecting the bodies. hulking male Klendathian forms, as large as I am. I flip one over. My molten blood turns to ice.
It’s me.
An identical face stares back. Lifeless eyes. Expression frozen—twisted in fury and pain. My guts clench. My hand snaps back as if stung.
No... this can’t be.
Princesa gasps, her hand flying to her mouth as realization dawns. “Dracoth...” she murmurs, caught between disbelief and concern.
I knew I might be a clone, but some part of me—some desperate, stubborn part—clung to the faint hope that it was a cruel lie. That I was more. That I was real.
Now, that fragile hope shatters, obliterated like the broken bodies of my brother’s. To face them. To face myself. To stare the bitter truth in its cold, dead eyes—it is almost too much to bear.
But I cannot look away.
Without thinking, I turn over the other versions of me with trembling hands. I shouldn’t. It’s a mistake. But I cannot stop myself. I must see them.I need to see them.What I was. What I could have been. What fate might have chosen instead.
“Come on Dracoth,” Princesa shifts in my grasp, failing to mask the fear and doubt warring in her voice. “Didn’t you say we needed to hurry?”
I barely hear her.
Two of my brothers are malformed—mutilated mockeries. Limbs bent and twisted at impossible angles, joints where none should exist. Ribcages concaved. Faces warped, asymmetrical. Slanted, vertical eyes and noses little more than slits.
It should disgust me. It should repulse me. But it doesn’t. Only the deepest sadness remains. They could have been me, and I them. Where is their glorious destiny? Did Istealit from them? Nothing but mere chance? A chaotic flip of a coin?
What makes me special? What gives me the right to wear this armor? To lead these warriors?
The answer is obvious—nothing.
My fingers brush over their deformed faces as my eyes drift to the fourth corpse. Much like the first. Or maybeIam the first.Or the last.
This one is whole, an exact replica of myself—yet his body is torn by brutal claw wounds. Did the two healthy ones murder each other, like the lunatic clones before? Did captivity drive them to madness? To rage?
As it would me, given the circumstances.
My brothers... myselves.
“Hah, would you look at the state of this,” Drexios scoffs, his voice laced with cruel amusement. His boots echo as he strides closer, the other berserkers flanking him.
“A War Chief for every warrior,” he sneers, scanning the bodies.
“This one mine. His name is War Chief Floppy!” he barks a short laugh, stomping his foot on the ground performing a smooth salute. “Drexios, Magaxus Second reporting for duty! What are your orders, War Chief Floppy?” He bends down, cupping an ear toward one of the deformed clones. “Uh-huh. Interesting.”
Drexios straightens, his vertical scarred eye glinting with wicked mirth. “Floppy concurs—I was right all this time—clones leading clones, a sight sosadto see.”
He exhales dramatically. “Well, at least, Ithinkthat’s what he said. Hard to tell, you know, on account of Floppy’ssideways mouth—”
“RAWR!”
A bestial bellow cuts through the air, drowning out Drexios’ endless prattling.
Instinctively, I tighten my grip on Princesa and whirl in a blur of motion. Athing—a monster—me—erupts from the shadowed corner behind.
A clone. But not a corpse. Asurvivor.The murder.
Eyes burning like crimson coals, naked, hulking, slabs of muscle bristling beneath his scarred flesh. His claws drip with fresh gore.
