Clone Embryo
“Lily is just a child! If you want to kill someone, take me instead!”
Eight months pregnant, I had no idea what she was talking about. But my husband’s face darkened with a terrifying fury.
“Have I been too lenient with you? How could you orchestrate something so vile?”
Adrian, the man who had always cherished me, wrapped his hands around my neck. As my vision blurred and the world faded to black, I finally understood. They thought I had hired the kidnappers.
When the ransom wasn’t delivered on time, the kidnappers killed their hostage. Elara, clutching the small, broken body of her daughter, was driven to the brink of suicide.
My husband, his eyes bloodshot with grief, hired the world’s top geneticists. They worked around the clock for a month and finally succeeded in creating a viable clone of Lily’s cells. But Elara had suffered complications during childbirth; she could never carry a child again.
And so, his gaze fell upon my pregnant belly.
1
“No…” I shook my head in terror, backing away while clutching my stomach. “Adrian, I feel for what Elara is going through, I truly do. But I didn’t kidnap Lily. You can’t do this to me.”
“Talia,” he said, his voice cold as ice, “Elara’s husband died years ago. Lily was her only reason to live. Your jealousy has gone too far. You should have never touched her child.”
“You owe Lily this.”
He ignored my desperate pleas and forced an induction. Our son was full-term; he was big enough to cry when he was born, only to be smothered to death before my very eyes.
I never even got to see his face, this child conceived in love and anticipation. Before I could even process the loss, I was being strapped to an operating table. I had just lost my baby, and now they were going to force me to carry the flesh and blood of my enemy. I fought wildly, thrashing on the table, resisting the heavy dose of anesthesia, willing myself to stay awake.
Because I wouldn’t cooperate, the procedure couldn’t begin. The precious cloned cells were on the verge of losing viability. That’s when Adrian walked in, carrying the body of our son.
His eyes were closed, his tiny face so peaceful, as if he were only sleeping. A pain so sharp it felt like my heart was bleeding tore through me. Adrian’s hand tightened around our baby’s neck.
“If you don’t cooperate and this surgery fails,” he hissed, “don’t expect to bury your son in one piece.”
“Adrian! He’s your son, too!” I shrieked, my voice raw with agony, but my body was growing heavy, leaden.
“You’re a mother, Talia. How could you have been so cruel to Lily?” he asked, his voice thick with disappointment.
It wasn’t me.
But no one believed me.
My body finally lost its battle with the anesthetic. Consumed by a grief that swallowed the world, I let my eyes fall shut.
When I woke, my wrists and ankles were bound to the bed. I looked down at my now-flat stomach, and the reality crashed over me: my baby was gone. Truly gone. And the warm cradle where he had grown was now nurturing the bloodline of his murderer.
The will to live evaporated. I bit down hard, aiming for my own tongue.
The door flew open. Adrian saw me, saw the pristine white sheets stained with the blood pouring from my mouth. He rushed to my side, prying my jaw open. I clenched my teeth, a broken, gurgling laugh escaping my lips.
His eyes were blazing red. He called in a team of doctors. For a moment, I thought he was worried about me. But after they saved me, he slapped me so hard across the face that my head snapped to the side.
“I’m warning you, Talia. You won’t get to escape your guilt by killing yourself. Not until Lily is born safe and sound.” He loomed over me, a figure of pure judgment.
I stared at the canine tooth that had been knocked out, lying on the floor. My heart was a barren wasteland.
To prevent another suicide attempt, they fitted me with a bite guard. I’d lost part of my tongue and could no longer speak clearly, but it didn’t matter. No one listened to me anyway.
After my tongue healed, I could finally eat solid food again. Adrian himself brought me a bowl of nourishing soup. He sat beside me in silence, gently removing the bite guard. I was too weak to resist, a lifeless doll in his hands. He lifted a spoonful of broth, blowing on it carefully, his movements as tender as they had been when I was first pregnant with our son.
“Carrying Lily is your punishment, Talia,” he murmured. “Once she is born, Elara has agreed not to press charges.”
He continued speaking, but I offered no response.
“I had to take our son from you to teach you a lesson. Life is not a game. If you admit your mistake, we can have another child. We can start over.”
I couldn't take it anymore. I turned my head to face him, ready to scream, but my eyes froze on the contents of the bowl.
It was my own placenta.
2
A violent wave of nausea hit me, and I retched. Adrian calmly wiped my mouth with a napkin. The next second, he clamped his hand over my jaw, forcing the horrid concoction down my throat.
“It’s good for you, Talia. Full of nutrients. For you, and for Lily.”
I tried to struggle, but my head and limbs were restrained. I could only lie there as the boiled remains of my own body slid down my esophagus. When the bowl was empty, he let me go.
“Elara is still not well. I’m taking her abroad to recover. You will stay here and take care of yourself. No more trouble.” He stood to leave, his voice dropping to a threatening whisper. “Behave, and I’ll find a proper burial place for our son. But if anything happens to Lily, you will never see even a speck of his ashes.”
“Wasn’t he your son, too?” The question escaped my lips, a broken whisper. Salty tears traced a path to my mouth, a bitterness that paled in comparison to the one in my heart.
He paused at the door but didn't turn back. “With a mother like you, he would have grown up to be a curse on this world.”
The door clicked shut, and the last flicker of love I held for Adrian Vance was extinguished forever.
He was gone. For nine whole months.
In that time, Lily grew inside me, and I slowly ceased to be a person. She seemed to sense my hatred for her; my morning sickness was relentless, a constant torment that lasted the entire pregnancy. My body withered away, but my belly swelled to a grotesque size.
Adrian called every day. Not to see me, but to gaze at my stomach, to coo at the daughter growing within. Elara would even conduct prenatal classes for Lily over the video call.
To ensure I couldn't harm the baby, my hands and feet remained shackled for all nine months. The raw wounds from my struggling had long since fused with the metal cuffs. Bedsores festered, rotting the skin on my back. But no one cared. As long as Lily was healthy, my suffering was irrelevant.
In the final month, Adrian and Elara returned, their vacation over.
“You’re so thin.”
That was the first thing he said to me after nine months. His brow furrowed with concern. “Will Lily be malnourished?”
He seemed satisfied when the doctors assured him she was perfectly healthy. “After Lily is born, I’ll get you the best care. We’ll get you healthy again.”
Elara’s eyes were soft and loving as she gazed at my stomach. “Lily, my sweet girl. Mommy is finally here to see you again. I’ll never let you out of my sight. I’ll never let anyone hurt you ever again.”
She turned to Adrian. “Darling, could you give me a moment alone with Lily?”
Adrian’s eyes immediately shot to me, full of suspicion. After a moment, he determined that in my emaciated, near-death state, I posed no threat. He left the room, glancing back nervously every few steps.
The instant he was gone, the warmth in Elara’s eyes vanished, replaced by a chilling cold.
“I was the one who arranged Lily’s kidnapping.”
3
A smile played on her lips, but it never reached her eyes. “Do you want to know why?”
Elara leaned in close, her face inches from mine. She smelled of the unique, woody cologne Adrian wore—the same one I had picked out for him before I was pregnant with our son.
My eyes were empty. I gave her nothing.
“Five years ago,” she began, her voice turning sharp, “Adrian’s mother tried to break us up. She hired a man to pose as my husband, to trap me, and had me sent abroad. Adrian promised me he would never marry anyone else. But when I finally escaped his mother’s influence and rushed back to find him, I learned he had been married to you for over a year.”
Her expression twisted into a snarl. “I suffered so much overseas, and he never once tried to contact me. I thought his mother was controlling him, but no! He had completely forgotten about me!”
“He was mine first! What right did you have to steal him from me? I thought you must have been some heiress from a powerful family, someone who could match his status. But you’re just an orphan, with a background even worse than mine!”
Her fury escalated, and she slapped me hard across the face. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I spat it directly in her face.
She recoiled, shocked that I would dare. She wiped her cheek, the smear of blood making her face look even more demonic.
“You’d sacrifice your own flesh and blood just to win back a man who doesn’t want you?” I rasped.
She froze. Then, a slow, cruel smile spread across her face. “An illegitimate life isn’t worth much, is it? Since she was useless, I thought I’d gamble with her. My original plan was just to use her to get rid of you and the bastard in your belly. I had no idea Adrian cared so much. Cloning her? Bringing her back to life? Even I couldn’t have predicted he would go to such lengths for us.”
Her voice dropped to a triumphant whisper. “The ‘man who doesn’t want me’ has the power to resurrect the dead. Do you still think I made a bad bet?”
Her fingertips brushed against my swollen belly. “You know, if you had just been a little more cooperative, Adrian might have kept a lock of your son’s hair, or his fingernails. But he was in such a hurry… he had the entire body incinerated immediately.”
At the mention of my baby boy, the fragile control I had shattered. I lunged, snarling, trying to bite her. She jumped back with a laugh, but then a theatrical, terrified scream tore from her throat.
“Elara!”
From outside, I heard Adrian’s frantic footsteps approaching. Without a moment’s hesitation, Elara bit down hard on her own hand.
My breath hitched. My abdomen tightened in a sharp, painful contraction. Elara’s taunts had sent me into premature labor.
BAM! Adrian kicked the door open and rushed in. Elara, her hand now bleeding profusely, put on a flawless performance of a terrified, tear-stricken victim. But Adrian’s worried gaze only lingered on her hand for a second before it snapped to me.
4
I didn’t need to look down to know my water had broken. Adrian wasn’t worried about me. He was worried about Lily.
Even so, a look of pure venom flashed across Elara’s face. This woman was so monstrous she was jealous of her own daughter.
Adrian summoned the best obstetrician in record time, but as he glanced at the wound on Elara’s hand, his voice turned to steel. “A C-section. No anesthesia. I want her wide awake to see her child born safely.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Vance,” the doctor whispered to me with pity in his eyes after Adrian had led a sobbing Elara from the room. He pulled on his gloves. “Don’t blame me. I’ll be as quick as I can. To make it easier on you.”
The moment the cold scalpel sliced into my belly, a pain so absolute, so profound, shot through me that my very soul felt like it was being torn apart. I never knew a human could be butchered like a piece of meat, stripped of all dignity. I screamed until my throat bled, fainting several times. They gave me shots of adrenaline to keep me conscious.
By the end, I had lost all sense of self. I forgot I was even human.
Lily’s first cry was like a pardon. The moment she was lifted from my body, a female doctor on the team quickly gave me an injection. “It’s all over, Mrs. Vance. Get some sleep now.”
As my eyes closed, the all-consuming pain vanished. I thought it was the painkiller taking effect. My body felt light, and I relaxed, a sense of peace washing over me. But then I realized I was floating, rising up uncontrollably.
When I opened my eyes again, I was looking down at my own mutilated body on the operating table.
I was dead.
If I hadn’t been alone in the room, I wouldn’t have even recognized the corpse as myself. I hadn’t looked in a mirror since I lost my son. The chubby cheeks of my pregnancy were now gaunt, hollowed-out pits. The stomach I had so carefully moisturized, once smooth and perfect, was now a shriveled, blackened peel of a fruit, crisscrossed with deep, jagged ravines. My limbs were skeletal, my wrists and ankles bearing the permanent, grotesque scars where the shackles had fused with my flesh.
I stared at my own broken form for a long time.
The door opened.
It was Adrian.
Even as a ghost, my soul trembled. What was he doing here? Wasn’t my punishment complete? If he found me dead, would he feel sorrow? Or would he be angry that I had died too soon, that my penance for Lily was incomplete?
He brought in a basin and a kettle of hot water. Was he going to scald me awake for daring to sleep instead of nursing Lily?
He poured the steaming water into the basin, then began adding cold, testing the temperature with his hand again and again. I didn’t understand.
When the water was just right, he submerged a soft towel, wrung it out, and then lifted one of my arms. Gently, meticulously, he began to wipe my skin.
He was washing my body.
A laugh, empty and disbelieving, escaped my spectral form. He had tortured me to death for a crime I didn’t commit, and now he was playing the part of a caring husband? I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he realized I was gone for good.
But to my utter shock, the next second, my corpse’s eyes fluttered open.
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