Rebuilt Anew

By Asynca

I always found it impossible to sleep after a mission.

It was worse this time, though. For all I'd teased Alister about his simply atrocious taste in classical music, I'd gotten used to hear it playing faintly in the library until all hours of the morning. Without it, I could hear all the groaning sounds the new carpentry made as it supported what was left of the original manor. It reminded me of what had happened to my house, and inside it.

Poor Alister, I thought. There weren't many books left in the library anymore – I consoled myself that it was probably for the best that he wasn't alive to mourn the loss of his favourite collection.

It was too hot, I decided, and threw the covers off with a sharp movement. Without them, though, a breeze from the far window chilled my legs. I contemplated either changing into thicker pyjamas or getting up and closing the window.

With a familiar bleakness I remembered that I no longer had any winter pyjamas, they'd been burnt along with the library, most of the artwork and almost everything I'd collected over the years.

The window had to close, then.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and eased myself upright. My toes sunk into the plush new rug under my bed. Despite being a pleasant feeling, it was hauntingly different to my old rug.

I stepped off the rug onto the cool marble floor beside the window. Outside, the gardens were still dark. Winston and I hadn't yet managed to contract any landscapers, and the yards were still littered with ash and debris. I had been putting off picking through it for anything that survived the explosion for days, now.

As I reached towards the handle on the window, I wondered why combing the yards was such a difficult task for me.

"If you close it, how am I going to get out?"

Hot adrenaline surged into my chest and wrenched me out of depressing vigil. There was no point in turning: that voice had come from directly behind me. My voice had come directly from behind me. I wondered if I really sounded like that.

"Well, there is this contraption called a door," I replied, just as dryly. It took conscious effort to not let my recent panic seep into my voice. "People often use it for entering and exiting rooms, when they're not able to smash through walls and leap through holes in the ceiling."

She chuckled shortly.

Slowly, I turned to face her, leaving the window open. If she turned out to still be hostile, I could probably jump through it without hurting myself too badly. Except for landing on bare feet in rubble; I winced at the thought.

Her expression was predictably neutral, with the same vacant, unnerving pupils. She did look more relaxed than I'd seen her, though, despite wearing that horrible bodysuit that looked extremely uncomfortable. Given her dark makeup, I supposed I had Amanda to blame for dressing her. If I were her, I'd have smacked Amanda in the mouth for that bodysuit.

"Come to play Chernobyl with my house again?" I asked, even though I knew she'd been compelled by Natla to make that particular visit.

"I came to consider my antecedent."

"The original you, you mean," I clarified. "And by consider, you mean watching me while I sleep?"

"Infinitely less trouble than approaching you while you're awake." Her eyes twinkled, despite the deadpan. "Your logic is flawed, though. You weren't asleep."

I leant against the windowsill, fairly certain she didn't mean to attack me. "Your logic is flawed, you mean."

She watched me intently, but didn't respond. I wondered if this was what she meant by considering me.

Despite her status as free, she still looked much like a thrall to me: the same ethereal glow about her eyes, and her veins were still easily visible through her pale and translucent skin. "Are you even human?" I wondered aloud.

Her response was to take my hand and place it gently against her throat. Under my fingertips, I could feel warm skin and a steady pulse. "Does that answer your question?" she asked. Unlike the wraithlike wail of other thrall, I could feel her voice was made by the vibration of vocal chords.

"Hardly at all," I confessed, letting my hand drop. This close to her, I could feel the air move when she exhaled. "You're not me, so how can you be me? Are you just a husk with my face?"

She didn't look as insulted as I would have been to be asked that question. "Organically, I am you. I am, in fact, a cloned, genetically altered version of you with the unfortunate ability to ponder my own existence."

"Hence the breaking into my house to 'consider' me."

"Yes." She lifted her own hand and touched her cheek, mapping the constellation of veins spreading from her neck. Then, she reached across the small space between us and touched her fingertips to my cheek, feeling for the same textures. When she didn't find them, her hand dipped to where she'd put mine on her own neck. My cheeks flushed; she'd know how much she'd startled me a couple of minutes ago when she felt the speed of my pulse. To her credit, if she noticed, she didn't comment.

Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine. It was reassuring that she didn't seem perfectly comfortable with the fact she was made from me, because I certainly wasn't comfortable about it.

"I suppose I thought that destroying Natla would somehow make you cease to exist," I confessed. "Is she dead?"

She nodded once, and slowly, as her fingers traced along my collarbone to the slope of my shoulder. From there, she paused.

"Any breakthroughs?" I asked of her exploration, since she clearly wasn't the type to volunteer information of her own accord.

"I could snap this like dry wood," she said calmly, moving her hand to my neck. I inhaled sharply, but it was clearly she was only speaking figuratively. "And this," she lay her hand on my sternum, just above my breasts, "I could thrust my fist clean through it." Her hand fell. "You seem so weak and fragile." I wanted to say that I wasn't, except that I'd seen firsthand her strength and speed, and I knew that I couldn't match either. "I don't intend to hurt you," she continued. "You're too much of an enigma to me."

I raised my eyebrows. "Is that the only reason?"

"The only reason you would comfortably accept."

Since she seemed perfectly content to stand and stare impassively at me, I took the initiative to move away from the window to the foot of my bed, where I'd hung my dressing gown. Her eyes followed me as I put it on. "There's nothing comfortable about this whole situation," I told her. "What do I call you, anyway?"

"Natla called me 'Thrall'." At my grimace, she continued, "Amanda called me 'Lara', when she wasn't addressing me using strings of profanity."

"I don't like either of those possibilities. Is there a third option?"

She shrugged. "It hardly changes anything. Call me whatever you wish, it's for your benefit anyway." She sounded like she was quoting B-grade porn, which went perfectly with that horrid bodysuit and dark makeup.

When I strained to think of an alternative, I realised I wasn't particularly given to creativity in the early hours of the morning when I'd not slept for days. "'Lara', I suppose, although it's odd to be using my name." What I was sure of, however, was that I wasn't going to watch 'myself' walking around in those clothes any longer. I gestured to my walk in robe. "Would you like something more comfortable?"

"If it would make you more comfortable."

She followed me inside. I selected a clean pair of full-length slacks and a fawn shirt, and gave them to her. "There's underwear in the drawers if you need it," I told her dismissively as I exited the robe. She seemed most amused that I didn't select it for her, but once again said nothing.

As the adrenaline drained from my system, several days' worth of exhaustion and fatigue returned. My bed loomed invitingly in the centre of my bedroom, and I decided I was too tired to care about being rationalised while I slept. I climbed onto my bed, still in my dressing gown, and collapsed on top of my duvet. Soon afterward, I heard bare feet pad across the floor and onto the rug. The mattress gave, and I opened my eyes for a moment to spy Lara sitting on the edge of my bed, wearing my clothes.

"If you change your mind about blowing up my house, at least have the courtesy to wake me up," I told her, and saw the hint of a smile on her dark lips. "And if you leave, use the door."

This time, she spoke of her own volition. "Given the choice, I'd rather not return to the catacombs." She ran a hand over my sheets. "And you might find it suits you to have a guard dog of sorts."

It was something I hadn't considered, but it made sleep more appealing. As I let myself slip into unconsciousness, I resolved to think about it more in the morning.