The Runaway

Stacey was excited for the first time in a long time. It had been years since she felt like this. All the responsibilities and stresses weighing her down would soon melt away. The lazy husband she could no longer stand would be gone. The children she had never wanted, but had been pressured into having, would no longer be her responsibility. The in-laws who hadn’t given her an ounce of breathing room since that horrible, embarrassing wedding would finally leave her alone.

She had given up everything for the man now passed out drunk on her couch. Her dreams, her career in genetic engineering, her freedom, her slender body, she had lost everything. He had given her nothing in return and in the end she had lost him too. He had changed so much she barely recognized him.

She breathed a sigh of relief; her new life was finally beginning. Her bags were packed and her flights were booked. She was finally going on the overseas holiday he had promised before they were married. She would rediscover who she was and discard the shadow of a woman that she had become.

At first she had felt guilty about leaving her children, and her husband would be a mess without her. The solution to all her problems had come to her one night as she lay in bed, crying herself to sleep. She had spent the better part of the last year working on it in secret and today it was ready.

She opened the door to the storage shed where she kept it. A soft blue glow flowed out onto the bare concrete like the gentle light of the dawning of a new day. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. A floor to ceiling cylindrical tube in the center of the room held her solution. A woman floated within the tube, her long grey and blonde hair flowed around her head like a halo. Stacey put her hand against the glass. The eyes of her perfect clone snapped open, she was awake.