Welcome to Gaia! ::

“What?” Hannah yelled from the top landing. Talk about a weird thing to ask. “Easier than you. Why?”

Mr. Carrington put his hands on his daughters shoulders “You two get out of here, I’m going to get Delilah.” Before she could so much as grab his hand, Hannah’s mother pulled her close and ushered her downstairs.

“Don’t worry she’ll be safe.” Words meant to assure but still there was doubt mixed with vast amounts of confusion.

Back in the bedroom the shade swung downward with the open stapler hoping Delilah would use that flimsy hard covered book as a shield so she could jab at her with the dagger esk weapon; at least that was the plan and she was sticking to it.

Without much forethought Mr. Carrington inserted himself into the fight. His main concern was to protect his second daughter, his daughters best friend, not this imposter. He grabbed ahold of the ashen skinned toned girls shirt and shoved her backwards. “Delilah! Get out! Now.” It was an authoritative voice of a parent defending his young that left no room for debate that demanded she leave at once.

Again, the shade lashed out with the stapler successfully hitting him in the bicep and was rewarded with a pained grunt. As his grip loosened she twisted around to make a jab at him too but he was quicker than she and with a surprising amount of force he shoved the clone backwards.

Up till now she had been able to recover quickly but as she stumbled backwards her ankle twisted painfully when her foot landed awkwardly on a discarded shoe in the middle of the room. One arm swung wide in a pinwheel motion in a feeble attempt to grab ahold of something to help her remain upright.

There was a sickening loud sound of her head connecting with one of the lower shelves of his daughters bookcase. The force at which her body collided with the piece of furniture caused the wood frame to hit the wall behind it denting the textured wall. He would have presumed her dead, or at the very least paralyzed, had it not of been for her trying to grab ahold of a shelf to lift herself back up. Her weight however was enough to bring the unit forward and before he could react his daughters collection of hard covered books began to fall like a hailstorm crushing the girl beneath it.

“Oh god…” he said aloud swallowing thickly. What have I done… Hannah. His stomach churned violently realizing what he had just done. He had taken a life, never mind she shared the same face as his daughter, the fact is he had committed a horrible sin; one he wasn’t sure how he’d ever be forgiven in the eyes of his Lord. “Delilah,” he said far more calmly than he thought himself capable “Go find Hannah and Lisa.”

Carefully he stepped around the wooden shelf so he could lift it up off the body however what he saw, or rather didn’t see, made him fall to his knees. “Where… she was… but I…” He was in shock for the clone was nothing more than a pile of shiny dust where the body had fallen.

Never would he be able to forget the look of terror on his ‘daughters’ face as the books came cascading off the shelf. Was this what those news reports were talking about? Clones? But why Hannah, why his little girl?

The arms around his shoulders startled him anew, snapping him back to reality like a whiplash across his conscious “We need to go downstairs and find Lisa. Check on Hannah, yes we need to make sure she’s okay.” He spoke almost drone like as he rose to his feet. A part of him was lost for the deed he had done; for how long only time would tell. Still he tried to offer Delilah a smile as he ushered her out of the bedroom only to pause in the doorway to look at the fallen shelf one last time.

Lord forgive me.