His eyes screwed shut against the lurching white flames on the horizon, and all he felt was the invasion of salt and lingering smoke in his nose.

As they rode the waves, he looked back at his youngest daughter, his beautiful, wailing daughter, her young eyes wrinkled beyond years from the passion of her fear for what she might see. She was huddled near the stern, her sister’s arms around her like a shackle, like shelter. He could tell from his eldest’s misty and withdrawn eyes that she was not there, not truly, but somehow her arms encircled and gripped on their own. Her body knew it was in danger. That they were all in desperate need of protection. He was going to, had to save them and bring them to sanctuary.

A deep crumbling sound emanated from the taller buildings behind them as concrete piled in on itself, dust and ashes billowing out from jagged crevasses carved out of the exterior. One could only hope everyone got out safely. He paused. Should he hope? Where would they go? They’re targeting airplanes. They’re bombing highways. Most harbours were destroyed completely. They owned the sky, the land, the sea. The city was falling. Where could they go?

He felt it was almost a mercy to breathe broken concrete and say your goodbyes to a blushing sunset blinking with red LEDs.

Hello, it is time for your evening dose. Do you wish for me to use your attached store? You have TWENTY-SIX doses left.

Please say YES or NO.

He numbly listened to the familiar peppy female voice from the speaker implanted in his ear, as one might recognise the ringing of the alarm clock whilst in a dream. Her voice was out of place. She should have been despairing, broken. But how would she know? He wiped a tear from his cheek he hadn’t realised had fallen and, eyes trained on the cracking cityscape, said “Yes.”

Okay, dispensing now.

The tube automatically connected with a click to the vial neatly attached to his shoulder and the medicine flowed through. As he turned around, away, away from home, he felt an anguished pressure in the hinge of his jaw. He pushed the pedal harder, as if that would make them travel faster, get them away instantaneously, safely, to… God knows where. Not here. Not home. Not the place he’s called home for his entire life. Home is where the heart is, his ill-starred, broken heart. But he had to pick up the pieces and escape the airborne devices that screeched their ill-intent.

He felt if he thought about the flying harbingers of ruination any longer, he wouldn’t stay whole, that he would fracture from the inside out and cracks would form on his skin. He tried to block it out, blur the background, and thought about the boat. Vintage. Must have been about 20 to 30 years old. He couldn’t remember exactly, but he knew this one was from the 2020s.

He should have taken a more modern model for their escape. But when small, intelligent explosives are darting through the trees, it dims the mind and makes you mad for survival.

You have now received your evening dose. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

He wouldn’t be alive without the current of his heart, the flowing river of oxygen, he knew that well. But a few years ago, he had discovered it wasn’t the infinite power he thought it was. A weighted tightness had overtaken him, its tendrils of discomfort growing from his chest and reaching for his shoulders, back, neck, jaw, stomach; the doctor informed him it was his heart, and he had lamented.

But they told him not to be scared. They told him there were things they could do to help him. They prescribed him medication, attached sensors to his body, connected a voice to the speaker in his ear, and they made him a twin. The twin was him, exactly him; made from uncountable scans, it was in a digital space floating somewhere with a pixel-perfect, lifelike heart. His twin was monitored, poked, prodded, experimented on and ultimately used to warn him against any medical risks or happenstances that could ruin his still beating heart.

He was unendingly grateful for that mysterious twin. Without it, he would be staggering through unknowable possibility. He would be blind.

An electric shriek cut through the air like a blade, leaving curling, crimson waves sparkling with reflected sunset. His daughter shrieked as if in response. Fear settled in his marrow. In the impending darkness, all he saw was a red flash, like an eye, like a demon, unhurried yet swift. It knew where to go. It knew what to do. But did it know the cost? Did it know the pain? He pushed the pedal harder.

Thoughts about his twin in that foreign digital void barged its way into his head. Did it live with twins that take on the shape of these machine-crafted monsters? Did it see the simulations, the twin drones soaring alongside reality, guiding them to their targets, raining fire? Did it see the people through the screens that made this happen, that decided the city, the route, the time, the desecration? Did it even matter?

Two twins. One lifesaving. The other life-ruining.

Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.

But this was inevitable. The forbidden fruit. We created a new world, where humanity could be God. We shaped a world in our image. But we forgot the devil could see the plain of creation we made all too clearly. He sees progress, joy, health, and makes corruption. Makes fire.

These twin worlds were the same and altogether different. One could see the possibilities. The sighted possibilities. They were gorgeous. Sometimes indefinitely, sometimes briefly. But paradise was paired with inferno. There can’t be one without the other, and the risk would always be too great. A twin world of endless, inconsequential possibilities, bleeding, tainting, staining the other. It was a parasite whispering sweet ideals.

He just wanted to stop thinking. Stop the swirling maelstrom of thoughts.

Another world-shuddering explosion, and he couldn’t bear to look anymore. His ill-starred, shattered heart. All he could do was leave and hope and pray and breathe and listen to the
silent beating of his twin heart. He screwed his eyes shut against the endless midnight sea and the now fluttering stars. When he opened his eyes, he stared in traumatic disbelief into red.

“No, please, not my daughters! Not my daughters,” he begged.

It saw. It did not listen