PROLOGUE
 
Las Vegas, Nevada, April 10, 2012.
 
Elliot James had always been a curious child. Even at the age of seven, his thoughts strayed into realms most adults dared not linger. Questions of existence, mirrors, and shadows haunted him. Yet among all his fascinations, one thought clung harder than any other doppelgängers. The idea that another version of himself might be out there—breathing, walking, perhaps smiling with the same lips—both thrilled and unsettled him.
 
On his seventh birthday, beneath the shimmer of candles and the hollow applause of guests, Elliot made a wish. He leaned close to his father—Rift James, the man the world adored as a genius, a pioneer, the very architect of the Rift Game—and whispered, “Someday… I want you to make me a doppelgänger.”
 
His father smiled. To the onlookers, it was warm, charming, even paternal. But Elliot knew that smile too well. It was a mask. Rift James always said yes. Always. His promises dripped like honey, but Elliot had tasted the bitterness beneath them too many times. Every gift was never truly a gift; it was an experiment wrapped in shiny paper, a test disguised as kindness.
 
To the world, Rift James was a visionary. To Elliot, he was a collector of knowledge, of victories, of lives. And Elliot was his most precious specimen.
 
At first, Elliot forced himself to believe. He played the grateful son, treasured the promises, and hid the tremor in his voice when he said thank you. But deep inside, he knew the truth. His father's “yes” had nothing to do with him. It had everything to do with the Game. With science. With control. Rift James did not dream of giving his son a companion. He dreamed of splitting him open, remaking him, bending him into proof of his brilliance.
 
The day Rift James finally granted his son’s wish was the day Elliot’s childhood ended. A shadow was born—a mirror of Elliot, not created from love but from hunger. The doppelgänger was no brother, no friend. It was a tool. An instrument of his father’s greed. The living proof that Elliot was not a child, but a piece of research molded in flesh.
 
From then on, Elliot learned how to wear masks of his own. He smiled when told, obeyed when commanded, played the role of a son while the iron weight of betrayal ate at him from within. He lived in a cage made not of bars but of expectations, each one forged by his father’s hands.
 
What Elliot did not yet understand was that this was only the beginning. The Rift Game—Rift James’s crowning invention—was not just a blood-soaked spectacle for gamblers. It was a crucible. A place where lives were burned down to their cores, where pawns were shattered so kings could rise. And Elliot, the boy who wished too innocently, was destined to be thrown into its fire.
 
His father’s love was never real. It was the mask of a scientist who saw his son not as family, but as the perfect subject.
 
And so, beneath the glow of candles and the empty laughter of guests, Elliot’s fate was sealed. His request for a doppelgänger—innocent, childlike, fragile—became the weapon of his undoing.
 
The Rift had claimed its heir. And Elliot James would one day learn that the cost of asking was far greater than the gift itself.
 
 
SERIES.
 
Produced By: R. Asiao. & J.A. Platino.     
 
Pages: 911      Chapters: 17      Words: 247,558
 
Dark sci-fi, Dystopian, Thriller, Action, Drama, Survival Horror
 
First Edition.
Self-Published, 2025.
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All rights reserved.
 
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