The Unseen Miracle

Chapter 4

Lucia barely slept. The memorial room haunted her, rows of the dead, standing behind glass, reborn but broken, and Mark, Mark wasn’t just one of them. He was the first. Prototype Null. Unstable. “Wake him, and you risk the world.”

The words Elara didn’t say screamed louder than the ones she did. By sunrise, Lucia had made a decision. She would confront her husband.

Back at the Mansion, Mark was in the sunroom, dressed in black slacks and a linen shirt, trimming bonsai trees with a level of calm that only made Lucia’s nerves fray more. She didn’t waste time. “I know what you are.”

He paused. “Do you?”

“I saw the memorial room.”

Silence. The snip of scissors. “I saw the photos. The names. The version of you marked Unstable.”

He looked up. “And did you see what came before that?”

Lucia stepped forward, voice trembling. “You died. That’s what came before.”

Mark nodded. “Yes. I did.”

Flashback, 12 Years Ago. A war zone. Not with bullets, with viruses. A village ravaged by a strain known only as “Type R.” No cure. No survivors. No hope.

A young man with a satchel of herbal compounds knelt beside a child gasping for air.

He wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t licensed. He wasn’t a doctor, but he healed five people that day. He died hours later. Not from the virus. From what came for him after.

A black-ops team under international jurisdiction, wearing no insignia. Sent to collect the one thing they couldn’t replicate, Mark Lewis's blood. They left with his corpse, and someone brought him back.

Lucia stared at him. “So Marvin brought you back. You’re some sort of weapon.”

Mark shook his head. “No. I escaped Marvin. What they brought back wasn’t me.”

His voice lowered. “And I’ve been fighting it ever since.”

Lucia’s chest tightened. “You’re saying there’s something else inside you?” Mark didn’t answer.

At a black site in Northwood, the cryochamber hissed open. Subject Zero, the Phantom, stepped out. His face was identical to Mark’s. 

His features were sharper. His gaze was predatory, and unlike Mark, he remembered everything. Dr. Saul Kramer bowed. “Welcome back.”

Subject Zero looked around. “Where is the woman?”

Kramer hesitated. “Lucia Thomas. Still married to Subject Null.”

Zero grinned. “Then let’s kill the duplicate.”

He stepped forward, voice cold. “And retrieve what’s mine.”

At Marvin HQ, Surveillance Room, Elara watched the satellite feed. Subject Zero was active. She turned to her subordinate. “Double Mark’s security. Assign ghost protocol to the wife. And activate Omega Contingency.”

“But ma’am.”

“If Subject Zero reaches her, Mark won’t just lose control. He’ll become him.”

At the Mansion that night, Lucia packed a bag. Mark didn’t stop her. “I need time,” she said. “To figure out what part of this marriage was ever real.”

He nodded. “You won’t be safe on your own.”

She looked him dead in the eyes. “Was I ever?”

As Lucia left the mansion, a sleek black car followed silently behind. Inside it, Subject Zero adjusted his cufflinks. He watched her with unblinking interest and whispered, “Hello, wife.”

...

Lucia took the back roads out of the estate. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she needed to breathe, to think. 

She couldn’t stay in that house, with him, not after learning he’d died and come back as something that wasn’t entirely human.

She stopped at a roadside diner an hour outside the city. The kind of place with sticky menus, broken jukeboxes, and the smell of burnt coffee clinging to the walls.

She sat in the farthest booth, facing the exit, just like Mark used to do. “Habit is dangerous,” she thought. 

“It means you’re still thinking like you trust him.” Lucia opened her laptop and connected to a private network Lena helped her set up.

Within seconds, she pulled up files she wasn’t supposed to have. Marvin archives. Buried security footage. Restricted R&D documents.

She found one labeled: Subject 0A: Mirror Project, Personality Divergence Trial.

The thumbnail preview showed Mark, or someone exactly like him, walking calmly into a testing chamber and snapping a man’s neck with one hand.

Lucia slammed the laptop shut. A shadow fell over her table. “I hope the food’s better than the coffee,” a voice said. She looked up. Her blood ran cold. It was Mark.

Lucia stared in disbelief. “You, you’re?”

He smiled. “Your husband? Not quite.” He slid into the booth across from her, casually adjusting his sleeves. 

Every inch of him looked like Mark, same voice, same eyes, but there was a stillness in him that Mark didn’t have. 

A surgical precision. Like everything he did had been rehearsed a thousand times. “Who are you?” she breathed.

He leaned in slightly. “I’m the version they never wanted you to meet.”

Lucia reached for her phone. He was faster. He lifted it gently from her hand and placed it face down on the table. “Let’s not call anyone. We don’t need to make this messy.”

Lucia swallowed hard. “What do you want from me?”

The man’s smile faded. “I want what he stole.”

Back at Marvin HQ, Elara stared at her screen. The signal from Lucia’s tracker was static. “Where the hell is she?” she muttered.

One of the analysts raised a hand. “Ping just came through, rural diner off I-17. But someone used a jamming spike. She’s not alone.”

Elara stood. “Send the Delta team. Now.”

In the diner, Lucia’s mind raced. He wasn’t trying to kill her. Not yet.Which meant he needed her. “Mark said you’re unstable,” she said slowly.

“Not me,” the Phantom said, grinning. “He’s unstable. That’s why they buried him. I was the original. He was the backup.”

Lucia shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It will,” he said, “when you remember.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I’m not here to hurt you, Lucia. I’m here to wake you up.”

Lucia reeled. The Phantom leaned closer. “You were there. At the beginning. Before the fire. Before Marvin erased everything.”

Her pulse thundered. “No, that’s not possible.”

“You’ve forgotten more than you know,” he whispered. “And he never told you, did he? What you were to me before Marvin rebuilt him in my image?”

Lucia couldn’t breathe. The Phantom stood. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Lucia. Very soon.”

He placed something on the table, a locket. Inside was a photo—her and him, but not Mark Lewis. It was the Phantom.

Outside the Diner, Black SUVs roared into the lot. Delta operatives stormed the building. It was too late.

The Phantom was already gone. Lucia stood frozen at the window, staring into the snow. Everything she thought she knew was shattering, and the worst part?

Somewhere deep inside, she already knew it wasn’t a lie. Back at the mansion, Mark jolted awake, gasping.

Blood trickled from his nose. He touched his lips. Whispers echoed in his head, memories he’d never lived, and somewhere, a voice spoke. “She's remembering. You can’t protect her anymore.”