An explosion envelops her legs, tossing her into the air as blood blankets her vision. Then the screen fades, a death timer ticking down. Alyssa sets the controller on her bedsheets, waiting.

“You’re supposed to go around the mines, noob.”

The voice crackles with the unique noise of a garbage mic, managing to receive distant traffic and her teammate’s self-important tone at the same level of detail.

“Fuck off,” she mutters into her mic.

“I was going to get you up… but if you’re going to be a bitch…”

His character stands in cover, watching hers. The timer runs down and her character’s prone posture ragdolls onto the terrain, the camera swapping to another teammate’s view.

Some modes allow respawns; this one doesn’t.

“Pay attention, or pick a flier if you’re this bad at the ground game.”

Alyssa throws her headset at the chair in the corner. She didn’t jump into a match just for some dickwad to say her game was off. Especially in freeplay.

‘Course he isn’t wrong, which just makes her more frustrated. Her blood sugar is getting low, urea building up. Any normal person would notice these issues, but they’re just the start. Her body lacks in the endocrine department: she has her thyroid and parathyroids, pituitary and pineal glands, and that’s it. The girl provides what she can’t.

Which is fine, most of the time. They’ve been separate for nearly three hours now, and her body is starting to notice. All the little bits in the background, each metabolic process, all of it’s starting to go off-kilter. Hard to focus when your bones are being slowly eaten from the inside.

Not that she needs to focus to enjoy what the game has to offer. When she picked it up she didn’t intend to do well, or even win. It reduces the beautifully complex yet unattainable action of walking to flicking a joystick with her thumb, and that is enough.

Put that way… it’s also fucking pathetic. She’d damn near had a breakdown, yelled at her best friend, and retreated into living vicariously through a damn super-shooter. Not the healthiest decision, but what else is she supposed to do? Sit here and stew in her regrets for an afternoon?

Alyssa glances at the screen. The match timer still has ten minutes to go. She could get up, change discs, and play a different game. But that could take five minutes to achieve, and if stubbing a toe hurts like a bitch, stubbing a vertebra is akin to getting mauled by the entire kennel. Ten minutes of self-reflection isn’t so tortuous in comparison.

Besides, she owes it to Cindy. More than that, she owes it to… to the girl she used to be. The girl who isn’t even that anymore, since they’d had their twenty-first birthday in this fucking hospital. Months ago, they’d both called each other by name, often to the confusion of everyone around them. She’d thought of her twin by her name, even, but at some point she stopped and had seen fit to strip that bit of her twin’s humanity away, at least mentally. She’d only settled on girl because clone wasn’t accurate, even if it would’ve been more satisfying.

Hard to remember when that had started, but she knew it had been around the same time as the dreams. The dreams fueled by envy, the dreams that made her realize the nightmare she lived in. But it hadn’t been the dreams alone; they’d had disagreements, too.

Alyssa looks at her hands, turning them over. She grabs the controller, watching her fingers curl around it, bones and muscle moving beneath skin. She’d had to fight for these hands.

Each of her arms weighs nearly six pounds, more if she includes the muscles on her chest and back. Her twin had argued that those twelve or so pounds would be better spent elsewhere. Argued that arms wouldn’t help early on; that their best benefit would be the marrow of the humerus, but the red marrow of new ribs would contribute more.

It was the worst thing they’d fought over, but it wasn’t the first, and hadn’t been the last. By now the bitterness she’d felt over those fights… it hasn’t faded, but it has been supplanted by something else: fear. Fear that her twin was right, that in her short-sightedness she had thrown out her chance to ever recover, dooming them both to this hell.

Despite all their fights, her twin had risked a lot for her. The least she can do now is treat her like a human being again.

Alyssa looks back at the television. Over the game’s sounds she can barely make out footsteps outside the room, muffled by the door and hushed by her various electronics. She quits her game, turns off the TV, and listens.

Quiet conversation accompanies the footsteps and continues in their place, just on the other side of the door. Familiar voices, two she knows very well. The conversation dies off, and the door handle turns.

Cindy enters first, leaving her crutches by the door and pulling a chair between the beds. Alyssa’s twin follows, closing the door and walking around to Alyssa’s bed.

The sight of her twin elicits a visceral reaction; for as much as she has viscera, at least. Negative thoughts start to bubble up into her head, and she has to actively ignore them.

“Mind if I cozy up with ya?” her twin asks.

Yes

No

Alyssa shrugs.

Her twin crawls onto the bed, kicking her flip-flops onto the floor in the process, and sits cross-legged at the end.

“So… Hi, Alyssa,” her twin says.

It’s still weird, to hear her own voice. Even weirder when that voice addresses her by name.

“Hi.”

“Playin’ games and having fun?”

Alyssa looks at the controller, then places it on the nightstand. She shakes her head.

“Just… walking.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. How was your ice cream?”

“It was great. Cindy and I had a lot of fun.”

Cindy mutters something and shakes her head. Something to ask about later.

“And don’t worry, I definitely got you some. First, um, Cindy and I talked. I know you’re having a hard time, and—”

“Stop. Please.”

“Look, this is important.”

“Hey,” Cindy interjects, “if she doesn’t want to talk right now, that’s her decision. How about I put some movies on, and you guys can talk when she’s ready?”

Alyssa nods.

“That… works,” her twin says, moving to leave the bed as Cindy stands and starts setting up the DVD player.

“Wait.” Alyssa reaches out to her twin. “You can stay.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk?”

“Can we just, I dunno, hang out? Cindy can have the other bed, to rest her leg.”

“Uh… sure.” Her twin shrugs. “Do you want your ice cream now?”

Lacking a stomach, she can’t get hungry. But there’s still a craving, a need.

“Duh.”

Lightning flashes across the glass, flickering phosphor briefly illuminating the room beyond it and the gruesome scene within. Alyssa can feel the jolt of adrenaline kick off a cascade of near-involuntary responses. Heart pounds, muscles tense, neurons spark.

Her twin sits at the perfect mix of fear and excitement, lying down at the foot of her bed. Her own reaction is muted—what hormones do reach her are dilute, impotent. Cindy left hours ago, and the two of them kept watching movies more from momentum than enjoyment. Still, she can have one last bit of fun.

On screen a woman stumbles through ice and snow, desperate to escape. Each strike of lightning pierces the darkness, revealing the bloodied body of a man behind her and a shadowy figure closing the distance. The killer’s blade glimmers during the approach, blood frozen to the edge. With every thunderclap, an ominous orchestra swells.

There’s a single nerve buried in the throat of Alyssa’s twin, tied to a whole network of unusual nerves. Every cell has been modified, capable of transmitting specific signals. Crude memory of taste, texture, and of course, temperature. It had been her ice cream, and now with a few quick modifications, it will be so much more.

She gives the movie her full attention now, taking note of the timing, the killer getting closer with each passing moment. The woman reaches the treeline, ducking behind a large oak. Heavy footsteps get loud, louder, and then quiet. The woman slumps against the tree, breathing hard, and the music fades.

Any moment, and… now.

Alyssa’s throat goes cold, a stabbing pain shooting through her neck just as the killer’s knife finds its mark.

Her twin screams and claws at her own neck, nearly falling off the bed, kicking and flailing as Alyssa laughs.

“Asshole,” her twin mutters, righting herself. She sits still for a few moments, massaging her neck and throat. “How… Oh, that’s how… Clever.”

Her twin grabs the remote and turns off the TV.

“Uh, you weren’t watching that, right?”

“Not really. Don’t have the right, um, equipment to enjoy it.”

“Aw, shit, sorry. I didn’t even think—”

“It’s fine. Really, it was a good night. Even if I had to make my own fun sometimes.”

“Speaking of night”—her twin stretches her arms out and yawns—“it’s gone from fucking late to fucking early. We better get to bed.”

Alyssa reaches through their link, coaxing certain glands to release specific hormones. Enough to keep the two of them awake a bit longer.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Uh, shoot.”

“Who do you think of, when you think of me?”

“Uh, you? Kind of a silly question.”

“What am I, to you? Am I Alyssa, or a sister, or…?”

“I dunno. I kinda think of you as ‘other me’ I guess.”

“For a while I thought of you as… as less than a person, just some girl living in my body.”

She pauses, to let her twin get a word in. There’s a reaction deep in her twin’s brain, but no response.

“I don’t want to think of you like that anymore. But if you keep treating me like… like a clone of you, then I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry. I know there’s things I was stubborn about. I know some of those things I refused would’ve been really, really helpful by now, but if you won’t let me have a voice, how can I agree? Just, listen to me, okay?”

“If it’s about having a voice, I think I know what we need.”

It’s not the answer she wants, but… it might get there.

“Go on.”

“Cindy and I talked about us. You and me, who we are. We’re… not good at being honest with ourselves. Maybe, if we’re going to listen to each other, we have to stop being us.”

“What does that mean? ‘Us?’ We’re already different.”

“I think we need new names.”

“No.” Alyssa shakes her head. “I’ve lost too much. I’m not losing my name.”

“Hold up. No changing, just, new names. Nicknames. I thought about it for other people’s sake, but I think it might help us, too.”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Just think about it. We’ll do it together.”

“Really?”

“I promise.”

That was what she wanted to hear.

“Was this what you wanted to talk about, earlier?”

“There was something else, but… I was kinda hoping Cindy would be here for that, so—”

“You said it was important.”

Her twin pauses, and takes a deep breath.

“It’s August. Classes start on the twenty-second, and you’re just—you’re not going to be able to live on your own then. Probably not by September, either. Regrowing everything, best case, would be two more months. But after all the issues we had getting here, I can’t do that.”

“Well, um…” Alyssa trails off.

I can’t believe I’m saying this.

“What if I don’t need everything? Just enough to be self-sufficient. Bare minimum.”

“That… Hrm.”

Her twin closes her eyes and starts counting on her fingers. Alyssa feels a brief flurry of neural activity across her twin’s brain, one of the few physical cues of their shared power.

“If we did that, it’d be a month. Which is better, but… do you really want to do that? We’d have to skip a lot, like—”

“Alyssa. I want to go home. I don’t care if I can’t walk, or eat solid food, or if I need dialysis. I just want to go home.”

“I know, believe me, I know. With how little time we have, how little resources, I just… I don’t know what to do. Everything we tried to speed things up failed. I’ve got nothing more to give you.”

Alyssa reaches through their tether, consciously analyzing the body linked to hers. Her twin is almost underweight; the reservoir network that once held a slurry of fat and stem cells has been reduced to mere vestiges, ribbons of flesh scaffolding and a handful of pockets where young cell lines slowly incubate. But her body is healthy, despite enduring Alyssa’s metabolic demands.

“Maybe we’re doing this wrong. Maybe we shouldn’t start from scratch.”

“What d’ya mean?”

“When mom gave me pneumonia, and I needed a lung, you gave me one. Maybe we can do that again. With essentials.”

Alyssa can feel her twin’s spine quiver, and it gives her some pause.

“Look, that’s kinda asking a lot.”

“I don’t need much. A few feet of intestine, an extra lobe of liver, and a kidney. One ovary; you can even keep the tube.”

“I’d have to regrow everything you take.”

“Growing is hard. Regrowing is easy. You had your lung back in two days while keeping my necrotic ass alive. I don’t feel good about this, but it’s our only option.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“What if Cindy hadn’t come? Were you just going to keep stringing me along? When school started… were you just going to abandon me?”

“No, I—”

“Then listen! You promised you’d listen! Don’t—”

Alyssa chokes on a sob, and her eyes start to water.

“—Don’t break that promise just because what I said is inconvenient for you.”

She tries to say more, so, so much more, but only finds tears.

“Okay. I’ll, um, I’ll have our surgeon come and talk to us about it in the morning, okay?”

Alyssa manages a nod.

“…Do you want a hug?”

“Please.”

Her twin gets off the bed and lifts her up. There is a gentleness to it, a caution that their usual contact lacks. She does her best to focus on her senses, seeking the warmth and comfort she’d feel with a friend, or a loved one. It’s hard, with their shared power; each point of skin contact excites it, blurring the separation between them. Cloth and fabric make it easier to bear at first, but the awareness is total, alienating.

It’s not how a hug is supposed to feel.

It doesn’t feel right at all.

But maybe it doesn’t have to.

“I don’t have to look, right?”

“You watched my lung transplant just fine.”

Even with a surgical mask on, Cindy’s frown is obvious.

“That was different. I honestly think I shouldn’t even be here for this one, or at least not this close.”

“It’s not emotional support if I can’t squeeze your hand, Cindy.”

“Alright, I’ll stay. I’m just nervous about this. It seems… extreme, even for you two. And there’s—”

“Excuse me,” a nurse interrupts, pushing a cart of surgical tools.

Cindy barely succeeds in flattening herself against Alyssa’s bed, giving the cart just enough room to pass them in the cramped hallway and progress into the operating theater.

“Like I was saying, there’s so many people here. It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“It’s a government hospital, Cindy. They know who we are.”

“That’s why. And they’ll be watching.”

“C’mon, it’s just some old doctors and eggheads taking notes while me, myself, and I engage in a little plug-and-play. They probably won’t even notice you’re here.”

Cindy crosses her arms and sighs.

“I know, I know. I just can’t help worrying about it.”

“Look, you’re all scrubbed up. Nobody’s going to recognize you who doesn’t already know. ‘Sides, why are you nervous? I’m the one going under the knife.”

“Sorry. There’s also… I don’t mean to question your judgement, but are you guys really sure about this? When your sister explained it to me earlier, she didn’t seem that confident.”

Alyssa takes a moment to realize Cindy meant her twin.

Really need to get that name thing sorted.

“We talked with our doctors. It’s fine.”

Across the hall the doors of the operating theater swing open. Alyssa cranes her neck, barely able to see the interior. Her twin is sitting at the edge of the surgical table in a hospital gown, legs swinging in the cool air, talking to their surgeon.

A nurse approaches from the room, waving. If Alyssa had a stomach, she could bet a few butterflies would be fluttering about. She gives Cindy’s hand a squeeze, just hard enough to get a reaction.

“Ya know what, can you keep worrying?”

Please say yes, so I don’t have to.

“Um, sure?”

“Thanks, Cindy.”