"Twin" (2020)

𝖙𝖜𝖎𝖓;⁣

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Just like her.⁣

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Auburn ringlets crested slender, pale shoulders. Big, green eyes lit up an English rose countenance, all snowy white with rosy cheeks. A smattering of fiery freckles dashed across a ski slope nose, and a perfect, pink pout presented a sickly-sweet smile. By anyone's reckoning, the twins were beautiful. A Victorian kind of beautiful, where each girl looked to be sculpted in delicate porcelain, threatening to crack at the slightest mishandling. ⁣

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But they weren't so fragile. Instead, both girls enjoyed rough and tumble, climbing trees and painting recklessly. Fingers dashed with bright chaos, each girl would splatter a canvas until it dripped with rainbow euphoria. They'd scale the trees in the garden, hiding amongst leaves and twigs to spy upon the neighbours, and kick a football across the flawlessly coiffed lawn. ⁣

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It wasn't until much later, well into their teens, that one twin began to harbour darker interests. Roadkill. Crime scene photographs. Fire. She'd scrape her ginger hair into a ragged bun and lean in close to the spilled guts of a flattened badger, while her sister gagged and wretched at the stink. She'd pore over gory photos of car accidents and rollercoaster crashes, while her sister turned away in disgust. When she carved open her first human victim at just eighteen, her sister screamed, and screamed, and 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘥. ⁣

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She couldn't run, she couldn't hide, and when she looked down and saw the blood on 𝐡𝐞𝐫 hands, she was certain she couldn't breathe. ⁣

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After all, sharing a conjoined body meant doing 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳.⁣

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Originally written and shared as part of Verbuary 2020: https://tinyurl.com/mr3j89nn