Viviane’s eyelids quivered as she recovered from the effects of the knockout gas. At first, her vision was foggy and she had no memory of the last several hours. As her vision cleared from blurriness, she thought she saw Anaelle and Marielle looking down at her. This must be another one of those awful dreams, but I think I see Anaelle and Marielle this time.

Viviane struggled to force herself to wake up from this bad dream in which she had visions of Anaelle and Marielle, but when she sat up and shook the sleep from her head, Anaelle and Marielle burst out in tears and hugged her, one from each side.

“Viviane! We’re so glad you’re awake!” cried the twins simultaneously and in sync.

Viviane realized that she was not dreaming after all. She looked around the room and saw a nicely appointed guest room with a large, comfortable bed. A small sitting area had overstuffed chairs and a chaise lounge. A bathroom was off to one side and one very small portal window was at the end of the room where it looked out over the sea below. The only odd feature Viviane noticed was that all the furniture seemed to be made from an organic material known as “wood” which came from the dead plant cells of trees. The liberal use of dead trees gave the guest room an antique feel as if stepping back in time to a bygone era. Having lived in the UEN all their lives, the twins and Viviane were more accustomed to space-age, man-made materials which gave their rooms at home a sleek, modern, minimalist look.

“Oh my god, it’s really you two, Anaelle and Marielle, isn’t it?” Viviane said in disbelief.

“Yes!” said Anaelle.

“It really is us!” finished Marielle.

And together, “We’ve been here all by ourselves and we’re scared!”

“Where are we?” asked Viviane.

Anaelle and Marielle wailed simultaneously, “We’re prisoners of the Order of One Justice!”

Viviane, now wide awake, noticed the front door of the room had a window in it and she was creeped out to see a guard looking through the window at them. The commotion from the girls must have attracted the guard’s attention causing him to check in on the prisoners.

Viviane also noticed a bandage on her inside elbow of her left arm. The area around her elbow hurt a bit. On the back of her left arm, there was another bandage and that one smarted more. Viviane realized from the pain and the bandages that someone had already drawn a blood specimen from her elbow and taken a biopsy of the fat tissue behind her arm. She surmised that Order of One Justice scientists were studying her cellular make up just as Dr. Renard warned her about.

Seeing Anaelle and Marielle for the first time since their kidnapping, Viviane was reminded of Dr. Renard’s story about them. She remembered how Marielle “died” once and was re-animated from her twin sister Anaelle. And Viviane also remembered that their mother Elise was someone still very much a part of her. The reality of finding the twins at last sunk in and Viviane found that she could not control all the emotions welling up inside of her. Viviane’s eyes misted over as they became watery.

“I was so worried about you two! Thank goodness you’re alright! I thought I might never see you girls again.”

Viviane wiped away tears from her face using her fingers. Seeing this, Anaelle held onto Viviane while Marielle got up to get a box of tissues for Viviane to dry her eyes with.

Marielle came back with the box. “Here, use one of these.”

“Thank you,” said Viviane and she grabbed a tissue from the box to dab her face and eyes.

Viviane coughed from being so emotional.

Marielle again wanted to help. “Hold on, I’ll get some water.”

Marielle ran off to get water while Anaelle stayed with Viviane to comfort her.

Viviane sniffed her nose some, but then realized something odd just happened!

Marielle returned with a small glass of water which she handed to Viviane and sat down next to her opposite of Anaelle. Viviane blinked her eyes in disbelief.

“Just now, Marielle, you ran off to get water without Anaelle. And right before that, you went by yourself to get a box of tissues. Don’t you two always do everything together?”

Anaelle spoke first. “Almost without exception we do everything together.”

Marielle spoke next. “But since we were kidnapped and brought here, I’ve been able to do some things without Anaelle.”

“But how?” Viviane was confused. This was not the way it was supposed to be.

Anaelle spoke first again. “Maybe it was the trauma of being taken away or the stress of being prisoners, but we realized pretty quickly that in order to survive, we’d have to work more independently, that we couldn’t waste all that effort doing the same thing all the time.”

Marielle went after. “Maybe that was it, but I also feel that something ‘awoke’ in me that gave me the confidence to not have to follow Anaelle all the time, that maybe I could do some of my own things especially if I had to.”

Anaelle and Marielle finished together and in sync. “But we still like being the way we were before, too!” They smiled and pushed their faces together so that Viviane couldn’t tell them apart. Then, they grabbed each other’s hands and swung back and forth with glee as mirror images of each other, giggling like the school girls they were.

For a brief moment, everything returned to normal as if they all forgot they were prisoners in this room. For just a little bit, everything was fine and everyone was going to be OK. Worries evaporated and for just the smallest interval of time, three girls were just happy to be living in the moment. Viviane considered Marielle’s newfound independence.

So maybe Marielle isn’t just a copy of Anaelle after all? Maybe Marielle does have her own soul separate and apart from Anaelle’s? Maybe if Elise could have known about this future, maybe she would never have died. And if so, maybe I would never have existed.

Did Marielle have her own soul independent of Anaelle’s? Did the original Marielle really vanish or did the original Marielle somehow live on in this new Marielle? Didn’t Marielle say that she felt something “awoke” within her to give her the confidence to be independent from her twin sister?

The business of teleportation raised many questions, the answers to which may never be known.