Chapter 6 Who is the Real Madman?

Chapter 6: Who is the Real Madman?

The lab burns beautifully. Flames lick at research papers and computer servers, consuming a decade of Ward's obsession. I watch from across the street, Claire's urn clutched to my chest, as firefighters battle the blaze I started. Not the main Stevens Pharmaceuticals building—I'm not a monster—just the underground research facility where my sister died.

Three weeks since my escape. Three weeks of hiding, planning, and piecing together the fragments of my life. The evidence I gathered has been anonymously delivered to the FBI, the medical board, and key journalists. Ward's empire is crumbling around him, board members distancing themselves as the investigation intensifies.

Yet something nags at me—a loose thread in the tapestry of recovered memories.

I return to the scene as the flames die down, drawn by an instinct I can't explain. Emergency personnel are too busy to notice me slipping through the cordoned area, finding my way to a section of the lab that survived the blaze.

In a half-collapsed storage room, I discover a fireproof safe, its electronic lock disabled by the power outage. The manual override requires a key—which I find hanging around my neck. A key I don't remember acquiring.

Inside: a single USB drive labeled "ORIGINS."

Hours later, in my latest motel hideout, I plug it into my laptop with trembling hands.

The video that plays shatters my world anew.

Two infant girls, no more than six months old, lying side by side in hospital bassinets. The timestamp: twenty-nine years ago.

A nurse approaches, pointing to distinguishing features. "This is how you tell them apart," she explains to someone off-camera. "Claire has the birthmark on her right shoulder. Whitney's skin is unmarked."

I pause the video, hand flying to my left shoulder—to the small birthmark Ward had fixated on.

But that's impossible. The nurse clearly said Claire had the birthmark, not me.

I fast-forward through years of footage—home videos, surveillance clips, medical examinations—watching two identical girls grow up. In every early video, the distinction is clear: Claire with the birthmark, Whitney without.

Then, at age sixteen, something changes. The videos become focused on only one twin—labeled "Whitney"—but the shoulder visible in swimming pool footage clearly shows a birthmark.

My heart pounds as I realize the horrible truth: At some point, our identities were switched. I'm not Whitney.

I'm Claire.

The final video confirms it. Ward, much younger, speaks directly to the camera:

"Project Twin Switch, final assessment. Subject believes completely in acquired identity. Memory integration successful. She now responds only to 'Whitney' and has internalized all associated memories. The true Whitney has been relocated as planned. Contingency measures in place should original identity resurface."

My mind reels. I'm not the person I believed I was. I'm Claire—the supposedly weaker twin, the one Ward claimed to love first.

And the real Whitney? Where is she?

I have to know.

Using the last of my emergency cash, I rent a car and drive to the one place I've avoided—the psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of the city, where Ward's most sensitive "investments" are housed.

Breaking in is surprisingly easy with the access codes from the USB drive. The night shift is minimal, and I navigate the quiet corridors with unnatural familiarity—had I been here before, in my life as Claire?

Room 217. According to the files, it houses a long-term patient admitted three years ago. No name, just a number: Patient 1A.

The room is dimly lit, a single figure seated in a chair facing the window. From behind, I see only shoulders and dark hair, similar to my own.

"Hello?" My voice cracks.

The figure doesn't turn. "Claire, today Whitney didn't visit me again."

My blood freezes. It's Ward's voice.

I step closer. Ward sits in a hospital gown, speaking to his reflection in the window. "I keep telling them she'll come. My wife always keeps her promises."

"Ward?" I whisper.

He turns, eyes vacant. "Do I know you?"

A nurse appears in the doorway. "Miss, you can't be in here."

"What happened to him?" I ask, unable to reconcile this hollow shell with the monster who haunted me.

"Complete psychotic break," she explains, checking Ward's chart. "After the fire at his lab. He believes he's waiting for his wife, but according to his records, he never married."

"And... has anyone else visited him? A woman who looks like me?"

The nurse shakes her head. "You're his first visitor."

As she guides me out, I glimpse Ward's medical chart: "Patient exhibits fixed delusion regarding identical twin sisters. Believes he conducted memory experiments on them. No evidence such persons exist."

Outside, I lean against the wall, struggling to breathe. Is it possible? Could all of it—Claire, the experiments, the switched identities—be a delusion? Not Ward's, but mine?

I make one final journey, to a cemetery across town. The plot number from Claire's death certificate leads me to a simple headstone:

CLAIRE TAYLOR

Beloved Daughter and Sister

"Forever part of me"

I kneel, touching the cold marble, when movement catches my eye. A woman stands several graves away, watching me. My heart stops.

She is me. Or I am her. Identical in every way, except for one crucial detail I can see even from this distance—her left shoulder, exposed by her sleeveless dress, bears no birthmark.

Whitney. The real Whitney.

Our eyes lock across the cemetery. A thousand questions pass between us without words. She takes a single step toward me, then stops, uncertainty written across her face—my face.

I rise slowly, careful not to startle her. "I thought you were dead," I whisper.

"I thought you were her," she replies, her voice eerily similar to my own.

"I am," I say, understanding flooding through me. "I'm Claire."

She shakes her head. "No. Claire died three years ago. I'm Whitney. The real Whitney."

We circle each other like wary animals, neither sure what's real anymore.

"Ward," I begin. "He switched us somehow. Made me believe I was you."

Whitney's expression darkens. "Ward Stevens? The pharmaceutical CEO? I never met him until the investigation started. He's been institutionalized for years, living in some fantasy world."

"But the experiments, the memory manipulation—"

"Never happened," she interrupts gently. "Claire died of leukemia. You were there. You're Whitney, my cousin. You had a breakdown after her death, disappeared for months. Everyone's been looking for you."

Cousin. Not twin. The world tilts on its axis.

I touch the birthmark on my shoulder—the one that convinced me I was Claire. "This—"

"You've had that since birth," Whitney says. "Claire was always jealous of it."

As we stand there, mirror images with divergent realities, I don't know what to believe. Am I Whitney, having a psychotic episode? Am I Claire, somehow alive despite all evidence? Or am I someone else entirely, lost between identities?

One year later, the security footage at Willowbrook Psychiatric Hospital shows Ward Stevens sitting alone in the dayroom, talking animatedly to an empty chair.

"Claire, today Whitney didn't visit me again," he says to the vacant space. "But she'll come tomorrow. She always does."

The camera pans slightly, revealing me standing in the corner of the room, watching him. The sleeve of my uniform shifts, showing smooth skin where a birthmark should be.

I adjust my nurse's badge—"W. Taylor"—and continue my observations. The patient remains stable in his delusions.

In my pocket, a small notebook contains daily entries in two distinct handwritings—one belonging to Whitney, one to Claire.

Some days, I'm not sure which one I am. Some days, it doesn't matter.

We're both here now, watching over the man who tried to own us both.

And neither of us is going anywhere.