The plush then lifted its arms dangerously high and slammed down at the ground.
Bang!
The world cracked beneath Akira's feet. The ground shattered like glass, and both he and his double plunged into the abyss.
As the last remnants of the ground broke off, Akira caught a final glimpse of the plush towering above its frown deepening, eyes glowing like dying embers before it too vanished into the black.
The area was pitch black no light except a speck that reflected in the doppelganger's eyes.
Akira was falling head first. Wind rushing past him. Except there was no wind, just pressure as was falling through the endless void.
He opened his mouth to scream but no noise came out. Only a weak gust of air exited his mouth.
He looked to his right. His neck snapping and his eyes fixed on his double who was skydiving calmly.
Then it hit.
Memories played.
A young Akira eating cereal before school, his innocent face lit up like a star in the night sky. His bowl filled with milk.
The memory flickered, into the scene of the milk he got from the store mixing with the blood of the living room. Bright red swirling with white. Then flickered back to the pleasant memory of the past.
The Akira before him drove the spoon to his mouth. "Delicious." He exclaimed proudly giving a thumbs up with a big smile plastered on his face.
It distorted again, the smile turning into the fake laughter he had at the moment he discovered the bodies, hoping it was a prank.
It was a frame of innocence then carnage. Then back again. The past and the present bleeding into each other. The lines blurring.
"What the fuck is this?" Akira yelled out.
His double didn't respond.
The memory continued with Akira off to school. Opening the front door to leave the house.
It changed again. This time it was Akira opening the front door to enter the house, oblivious to the horrors that await him inside.
That memory stopped and in it's place another started.
He saw his sister, shorter than before. Struggling to reach for the crisps at the top of the fridge.
Flicker
Now she was dead.
Lying on the floor. Reaching for something unseen. Her fingers outstretched the same way but stiff. Lifeless.
Flicker
She gave up trying to reach for the crisps and instead resorted to search the fridge. She opened the fridge greeted by the light turning on.
Flicker
Now it was Akira opening that fridge. The night his whole world changed. The light in the fridge was absent.
That memory ended and just like before another one took it's place.
This time it was Akira crying. Tears streaming down his face.
It shifted again. But this time it was a double scene. One was Akira crying tears at the living room. The other was him crying blood in the bathroom.
The two scenes then began to move closer to each other in the centre of his vision. It transitioned to Akira's mother sleeping on the couch peacefully after a hard day's work.
Akira blinked. The memory changed now it was his mother. Slumped across the same couch. Lifeless.
He tried to blink it all away. But with every flicker, he wasn't watching memories anymore. He was watching truths he thought were buried. And now they were digging themselves out.
The memories stopped and now his vision darkened. Only to be illuminated again. This time not memories but times.
1:43am
1:59am
2:04am
2:37am
2:43am
Those times repeated. Again and again.
It took Akira a second to remember what those times mean or symbolised. It was from the night his life changed again. The memories and times all linked to this night like it was a personal middle finger to Akira.
Those times were etched into him, burning endlessly in his mind after being replayed dozens of times.
The times stopped showing. The abyss ended as Akira landed with a crash the soft ground ensured he had no injury.
The double, however, landed gracefully, with a smooth and controlled descent.
Akira got up. The environment was different to the one before. The red from earlier was now a neon blue. The bone-white structures from earlier were not present. Instead there were engravings of something on the wall. A couch. A milk carton, the times and a skull, reminders of home, innocence lost, and mortality.
Akira chuckled. "I get it now. This is room two huh." He took a step backwards. "If room one was the heart. Room two should be..."
He looked at the structure in the dead centre of the electric blue-lit room. A giant walnut-shape made of pinkish-grey matter. It had many folds and ridges and was divided into two parts. At the bottom was a stem that planted it firmly to the ground. Akira touched the shape. It was soft and spongy, sort of like firm jelly.
Akira looked at the giant complex structure before him. "The brain."
He then turned around to face his doppelganger. Tilted his head and asked the question he's been wanting to ask ever since he saw the clone.
"Who are you?"
The doppelganger took a second or more to respond. It's eyes scanned around the room like a robot looking for imperfections .He then spoke. His voice was void of emotion, lacking anything to make it sound human.
"I'm you."