The cryo-chamber hummed.
Rows of frozen bodies gleamed under sterile blue lights. The air reeked of something ancient—forgotten science and shattered humanity. Nathaniel stood motionless, staring at the glass pod that held a version of Alfreda that should not exist.
She was beautiful in a twisted way—this "Alpha-07." Unmoving, yet preserved with purpose. A clone? A failed version? A replacement?
"What. The. Hell. Is this?" Alfreda's voice cracked like thunder, but there was a tremor in it—fear she didn't want to show.
Nathaniel didn't answer right away. His jaw was locked. His eyes were glued to the plaque beside the pod: PROJECT RESURRECTION: PROPERTY OF BLACKWOOD INDUSTRIES.
She read it too.
And then she whispered, "This… this is your family's doing."
Nathaniel finally looked at her. "I didn't know. I swear."
She shoved him back, fury unraveling. "Your father created clones?! Of me? Of others? What is this—some twisted army of ghosts?"
"He hated the unpredictability of people. He wanted soldiers without emotion. Killers without conscience."
"Then why me?" she hissed.
Nathaniel didn't blink. "Because you were the perfect prototype. Cold. Beautiful. Dangerous. You were everything he wanted in a Widowmaker. You just didn't know it."
Alfreda backed away, bile rising in her throat.
"This can't be real," she whispered. "I'm not a damn clone."
"You're not. You're the original. The rest… were made after."
Alfreda stared at the pod again. "How many more?"
He pulled up a monitor. "Seven. You were Alpha-Zero. The original."
Her name was there. Her real birthdate.
Her stolen DNA.
And next to hers, another name blinked red: Celeste Aura.
Alfreda's breath caught. "Celeste… was part of this?"
Nathaniel didn't answer.
Because a voice spoke through the Vault's hidden speakers—dripping in venom.
"Surprised?"
Celeste.
Watching. Listening. Mocking.
"Did you think I wouldn't know you'd find the lab?" she purred. "My mother was the head scientist. Every serum, every injection, every memory you ever questioned—I watched it all."
"You're lying," Alfreda growled.
"Check the logs, sweetheart," Celeste said. "My mother didn't disappear. She went underground. With the clones. With the experiments. And when you failed their expectations, they sent me."
Alfreda froze.
Nathaniel narrowed his eyes. "You?"
Celeste's voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "I'm not just the daughter of a madwoman. I'm what happens when perfection fails. I'm the next evolution."
The line cut.
Alfreda sank against the wall. "This… this isn't just a war, is it?"
Nathaniel knelt beside her. "No. This is genocide—crafted in a lab and executed through bloodlines."
She looked at him. "And we're the last originals?"
His silence was the answer.
And somewhere deep inside the Vault… a silent alarm blinked to life.
Project Resurrection wasn't dormant anymore.
Back at the villa…
Celeste stood before a room of masked operatives—trained, branded, and raised beneath her mother's cruel tutelage. They weren't clones. They were believers. Loyal. Unhinged. Armed with the truth and ready to rewrite it.
She pointed to the screen.
"Blackwood and Alfreda must not leave the Vault alive."
A man raised his hand. "What about Alpha-07?"
"She's useless," Celeste spat. "Frozen. Failed. Burn her with the rest."
Elsewhere…
In a dark cathedral, lit only by candles and regret, Celeste's mother knelt at the altar. Her hands trembled over a silver locket—the only thing she ever kept from the real Alfreda's childhood.
She wasn't proud of what she'd done.
But pride never saved a daughter from a world built on betrayal.
"Forgive me," she whispered.
Because deep down, she knew something no one else did:
Celeste had already triggered the second Vault.
And what was inside… made the first one look like a fairytale.