Smoke and Mirrors
LAURA’S MOM’S POV
The hospital corridor was cold, the sterile kind of cold that crawled under your skin no matter how many layers you wore. I had just stepped out of my physical therapy session, trying to reclaim fragments of normalcy, when I saw her.
She stood across the hallway, laughing gently with one of the elderly patients. Her smile—soft, warm—was hauntingly familiar.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
“Luna?” I whispered under my breath.
No, it couldn’t be. Luna was gone. Dead. Buried.
But this girl...
I stepped closer, my pulse racing.
She turned slightly and caught me staring. “Hi,” she said politely. “Do you need help finding a room?”
Her voice was different. Lighter. Her features, though nearly identical to Luna’s, were softer, a little younger. Her n
