Daily Story 59: The Real McCoy

Meghan's Journal
December 9th
5:30pm

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't stand the sight of myself. Every time I see a clone of the same model on the street I want to grab her by the hair and slam her head into something. That's not like me. It's not like any of us. Could I be developing a mental illness? I can't think of a way that it could be just me. I have the same genes as all my clone sisters, I eat the same food, drink water from the same source. I checked my hormone levels and they're within the normal range, but any further tests would have to be conducted by a doctor and I don't want to be tagged as mentally unsound. Not if I can figure this out myself.


Meghan's Journal
December 10th
5:30pm

It's getting worse. I've called out from work for tomorrow, there are too many of my clones that sit near me. I typed that without thinking... my clones. That's what it feels like, like they're all impostors - copying me - and I'm the only one that's real. It's absurd, we were all gestated in the same facility at the same time, but that doesn't change the way I feel. Janice asked me for my stapler today and I almost threw it at her. How long before I snap? I'm just glad the maintenance worker that came to fix the climate control wasn't one of them, I don't know that I could trust myself alone in the house with one. I should go to a doctor. It could be a virus or something, maybe just needs some pills.


Meghan's Journal
December 11th
2:00pm

I got to the doctor's office, and there were three of those things in the waiting room, wearing my face. How did I grow up around them my whole life and never see how repulsive they are? I couldn't stay in the room with them, I had to go somewhere. I stared at my feet as I walked so I wouldn't have to look at that face, but I could feel it every time one of them passed. Finally I went into a theater, watched that documentary about the Gene War. It wasn't any warmer than outside, but it was wonderful to see all those people in the old films - all of them different. None wearing my face. At the end they talked about the repopulation program, of course, so they showed the ones selected to base the clones off of. I recognized all thirty of them obviously, but I couldn't stop staring at Lindsey. She looked perfect. That's what's wrong - it's not me, I don't need to see a doctor. I'm the one they got right. I look just like her. The others, everyone says we look the same because they can't see it, but I can. I can see it now in all of them, all of them making a mockery of Lindsey, of me.


Meghan's Journal
December 12th
1:15am

Just had a dream. I was in the theater, watching the documentary again, and when Lindsey came on screen she stared at me with so much hate. One second she was sneering at me and the next I was the one in the screen. I couldn't get out of the movie, and she left me there. I woke up and I was in the hallway on the fifth floor, at the apartment above mine. My hand was wrapped around the doorknob so tight it hurt, and I could see my breath - I guess the climate control is broken for the whole building or something, that might be what gave me the nightmare in the first place.

Going back to bed. I'll write more later.


6:00pm

Janice came by today to check on me, see why I haven't been at work. Can you believe the nerve? It's not bad enough that they watch me all the time, but to come to my home with that face and smile her fake smile and act like nothing is wrong? Like it belongs to her? I took it back. I half expected to find her real face underneath, but I should have known she doesn't have one. There was nothing real about her, nothing under the mask. Just a soulless clone trying to steal my face. The police won't understand, they let those things on the force all the time. I have to handle this myself. It's the only way.


Lilly's Journal
December 13th
5:00pm

Well, today is exciting for all the wrong reasons. I saw on the news earlier that a clone of the same model as me went crazy and killed some people. Why would that even happen to just one of us? The whole thing creeps me out. To make things worse, she lived right here in the building, on the fourth floor. Then - as if things weren't morbid enough - one of the reporters caught a whiff of something and had the landlord bust into the apartment below mine on the fifth floor and they found that old shut-in had died almost a week ago. Disgusting. They say she was one of the original thirty that the clone lines came from, not sure which though. Anyway, hopefully my boyfriend is wrong and these things don't come in threes - I don't want anyone else in the building to die (though I might kill the maintenance guy if he can't fix my climate control - this apartment has been freezing all afternoon).