Molt

Daniel once believed skin was sacred.

Back when his fingers still flew across foreign texts, he’d trace the valleys between his knuckles in the dark, counting wrinkles like rosary beads—proof that every inch of him belonged to no one but himself. That was before his left hand began quivering in its sleep, before letters started slipping like tadpoles off the keyboard, and before a doctor muttered a name so rare no acronym yet existed.

After that, Daniel stopped counting.

1

A drone delivered the last resort: a white cylinder humming like a restrained hornet. Inside waited a vial of black, shimmer‑flecked fluid and a blinking injector. Printed across the screen, a disclaimer:

Distributed load‑balancing of organic systems may occur in emergent scenarios. Terminate power or administer Class‑H suppressant if adverse replication is observed.

Daniel dismissed it as legalese, wiped the nozzle with alcohol, and slid the needle into the soft flesh of his abdomen. He braced for fire. Instead came a hush, as though every bone had exhaled at once.

For three weeks, nothing happened—unless insomnia counts as an event—and then the walls began to breathe.

2

It started with tiny grinding, like mice filing their teeth. Daniel blamed the pipes in his century‑old building. But each night the sound returned, rhythmic and deliberate, as if something inside the drywall were shifting gears.

He pressed an ear to the plaster behind the bookcase. Hollow. A click. Then a second, closer this time.

By week four, the apartment’s home assistant sputtered odd random reports:

“Welcome home, Daniel.”

“You have not exited the premises in 93 hours.”

“Two biosignatures detected—authentication conflict.”

Daniel unplugged the speaker. The ceiling light stayed on.

That same night, curiosity crushed fear. He pried loose a panel behind a stack of dictionaries. Beyond lay insulation, wiring, and a crawlspace no blueprint had promised. A sour‑metal smell rolled out. His flashlight caught a sheen—slimy threads lacing studs like ligaments. Metallic mites skittered away, disappearing into a throbbing node recycled from a printer cartridge.

In the center hung a forearm—elbow to fingertip—sheathed in translucent mesh. The skin tone matched his own, though lighter, as if printed at half opacity.

Daniel whispered one word: “Impossible.”

The crawl‑corridor was too narrow to house a body. The next evening it was wider, gouged by unseen machinery. The nanobots, it seemed, were hollowing out the building to make room for something more elaborate.

3

Week six birthed a montage of unsettling miracles.

The mirror introduced a subtle lag, reflecting his movements a breath late.

The toilet flushed mid‑flow.

His glass trembled before he touched it.

Soon, bruises appeared on his shins in patterns suggesting corners he hadn’t bumped. Occasionally he woke tangled in hallway blankets, the bed untouched.

Behind the wall, the replica—he refused to call it 'him'—had matured to a torso supported by scaffolded ribs. It twitched in sleep.

Daniel named it The Residue. Naming helps contain terror.

4

Week seven, the apartment forgot his voice.

Lights brightened and faded like uncertain pupils. The air held a full copper tang. When he tried to command the thermostat, the screen locked at exactly 37 °C.

He traced the circuitry with a multimeter; electricity flowed, but the network behaved as if confused by multiple masters.

The home assistant startled him with a chirp.

“Please authenticate: overlapping life‑sign patterns. Conflict persists.”

Daniel shouted, “It’s only me!”

Yet even as he said it, he wasn’t certain.

5

Week nine arrived like a punchline without the joke.

A thunderous crack rattled the floorboards at dawn. Plaster burst outward, dust snowed, and a breath that was not his own fogged the air. Daniel crawled through debris to face a figure crouched amid wires—the rest of him.

Almost. The replica’s left eye lacked luster; its skin wore a faint diagnostic grid. It blinked half a beat slow. Fear shone from its pupils.

Daniel raised shaking hands. The Residue mirrored the gesture.

No one screamed.

6

They drafted a treaty with painter’s tape.

Blue stripes partitioned the living room, looping into the kitchen where ration canisters already dipped below ten percent. Each rip of tape sounded like ticking gears. The bathroom became neutral ground. They left notes:

“Fridge access 06:00 only.”

“Stop humming. It seeps into my dreams.”

“Did we love Annette in Lyon or only memorize her perfume?”

The apartment recognized dual access points now. Door locks demanded paired prints; neither side could leave alone.

Whenever Daniel crossed into The Residue’s half, tremors seized his muscles and thoughts turned to static. When the replica trespassed on Daniel’s terrain, its skin blistered and hair shed in soft puffs. Distance healed them. Coexistence frayed them, as if the nanobots had split a single system across two hosts.

Outside them, the city rolled on—as unreachable to both of them as Mars.

7

Food dwindled. The last delivery drone refused authorization, citing “identity divergence.” Daniel jury‑rigged an aquaponic bin from the bathtub, yet lettuce didn’t sprout fast enough. Hunger threaded their truce with new tension.

Still, small tendernesses bloomed. One blackout night, the building’s antiquated grid finally overloaded the swarm’s improvised reactors, plunging them into analog quiet. Candlelight painted their shadows on opposite walls. The Residue brewed tea from the final withered leaves, hands trembling even less than his own.

Their fingers brushed as the cup changed owners. Neither pulled away.

“Dream?” Daniel asked without planning it.

The replica nodded.

“Of what?”

It reached for a marker and wrote on the cracked drywall:

Of you, but without the sadness.

8

Nanobot protocol faltered on day seventy‑eight. The swarm’s local server—grafted to an old breaker box— reported a fatal power short. Daniel watched sparks scatter like stunned fireflies. Internal lights flickered, then steadied at half strength.

A fresh message crawled across every smart surface:

Replication suspended. Integrative cycle incomplete. Seek nearest authorized clinic.

He laughed—hoarse, bitter. The nearest clinic might as well be on television.

Later that night, he heard a whimper. The Residue sat in the kitchen, flexing its right hand as fingernails loosened. Daniel understood: shutdown had begun. Without a stable grid, nanobots cannibalized themselves, stripping calcium from walls to fuel diminishing routines.

“You broke your arm,” the replica whispered, voice raw from disuse. The sentence carried decades—his fall from the tree at twelve, the white cast scribbled with schoolyard jokes. He’d never told anyone the bone never healed straight.

“I don’t want to,” the replica added, and Daniel wasn’t sure whether it meant breaking or dying.

9

Fallout followed: Floorboards bowed; ceiling seams split. The bots hollowing the crawlspace now gnawed supports. Occasionally a wall sighed and buckled another inch.

Daniel rationed canned corn into two chipped bowls. Hunger made the air taste metallic. He found himself humming lullabies to fill the silence—only to catch The Residue trading verses under its breath.

Their routine shrank to rhythm: eat, repair leaks, sleep in shifts. When one collapsed on the couch, the other’s eyes opened as if cued by some unseen conductor.

In stolen hours, Daniel replayed home videos, verifying which memories belonged to whom. One clip showed teenage him sprinting across sun‑burned grass before a laughing aunt. He remembered her cough like gravel. The Residue remembered her calling him Chico.

Shared memory bled both ways, leaving behind a patchwork that felt both fuller and more alien.

10

Power outages grew longer. Candles guttered. Nights swelled like ink.

During the final blackout, the apartment sagged inward. Blue tape strips quivered on the buckling floor, and Daniel understood the building wouldn’t hold much longer. Nanobots died in silent clusters, their husks falling like glitter into unseen cavities. Neither man had strength to sweep.

He lay on the cold plaster. Across the boundary, The Residue mirrored him, ribs rising in shallow waves. Between them, a single strip of tape peeled upward, curled, then settled.

Daniel lifted a hand. So did the replica. They stayed that way—half alive, half reflected—while somewhere overhead, timbers creaked, choosing which frame to uphold.

Neither moved. Neither had to.

And the tape kept twitching—as though the apartment itself were deciding which version of Daniel to keep for morning.