Page 144 of Everdoll

“How can I help you, master? Please tell me.”

“Go away.”

“I want to help you!”

I snorted. My fingers, which had been trying to pull out my hair roots, stopped.

“Help?”

As I stalked toward her, the clone stepped back. No, Mina. My Mina. My dearest, prettiest darling… she was here, right? She finally came back to me. She returns to me, doesn’t she? Her merciful heart softened for me. It always had, after all. The sun itself, my goddess…

“My Mina is going to help me? About what?”

“M-Master…”

I didn’t want to think anymore. I only craved to feel the warmth of the body in front of me. Johanna must be right; that was all that mattered. I closed the distance between us and took her in my arms. She didn’t resist. I wrapped my arms around her waist. I tried to feel more.

I tried to feel Mina.

But the more I tried, the more she disappeared.

It wasn’t the same. I didn’t understand how it wasn’t. She was a human being too, with the same DNA, the same weight and height. How could she not feel the same? What kind of devilry was this? I rested my nose on her shoulder and sniffed her, sensing a familiar scent, yet my brow furrowed even more.

Whenever I looked at my Mina, my heart used to race with nothing but excitement. Now, there was only fear. I drew back to glance at her, my eyes widening. I staggered back as if I’d been jolted by a live wire, my breath hitching in my throat.

“Stay away from me.”

“Why? Who is this Mina? Why do we all look like her?”

I glared at the clone in shock, but the girl looked hurt.

“Did you want a Mina who would love you? Is that the purpose of our existence? Are we that… simple?”

The anger growing in the clone’s eyes made my jaw clench.

“You shouldn’t have questioned these things.”

“But why? I may have grown up fast, but I want to be human too, master. I wonder why you created me.”

“I shouldn’t have.” I muttered to myself. “If I had known it’d be like this, I wouldn’t have done it. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why. I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Can’t we meet Mina?”

“Never.” I flinched at the very thought. “She must never see you.”

I need to get rid of you.

“But why? If you want me to be that person called Mina, then I will be! Please, master! If that’s my purpose, then let me fulfill it!”

“You want to be Mina? Take her place?”

“Wasn’t that your goal?” The clone’s face was filled with bewilderment. “Isn’t that my goal? Why don’t you know anything! What a terrible master you are!”

“I’m terrible…?” I took another step toward her, an overhead bulb shattered, spraying the room with white sparks. “You think I’m a terrible master? But what did I ever do to you? Did I punish you every time you failed to read my feelings? Did I beat you for smiling at others?”

The way Mina Olind’s face was in front of me dragged everything even further into a dead end for my mind.

The part of me that accepted everything from her was my heart; my brain had spent years planning revenge for this moment. My ego couldn’t accept it. Now, I was unable to hear my heart’s voice. There was no warmth left in my chest. I was as cold as that operating table now.