I Heard It Too, Two Voices

Gavin pulled hard with both hands, tearing Cyril's entire arm down from the crack in his left shoulder. No blood flowed from the wound. Countless silvery-white threads simply stretched taut.

Then something strange happened.

Silver light spread rapidly from the main soul's shoulder. Bone, muscle, and hand appeared in turn. Within a few breaths, a complete left arm had grown back.

The severed arm was changing too.

Its five fingers spread apart. The palm lengthened, and a shoulder and torso grew from the torn end. What landed on the other side of the platform was no longer an arm, but another complete Cyril.

The two Cyrils were identical, with no difference between them.

If there was one difference, it was that both had grown a little blurrier.

The picture quality had dropped from 4K to 2K.

The number of people had doubled, but the total bitrate had stayed the same. Souls were unexpectedly fair about allocating bandwidth.

Gavin looked from one to the other.

"How do you feel?"

"It's a strange feeling."

Both Cyrils spoke at once, then turned to look at each other and pressed their hands to their chests at the same time.

There was no actual thread there, yet they could both sense the other's existence. Neither could read the other's thoughts or tell what he intended to do, but some connection between them remained unbroken.

After a brief silence, Gavin tried another question.

"Can you see what the other one sees?"

"I can sense a faint connection." The main soul shook his head, surprisingly cooperative. "But I can't see through his eyes."

Gavin nodded.

The soul had developed two perspectives after splitting, which meant these were two complete, independent consciousnesses.

Gavin was about to ask something else.

The expression on Cyril's main soul suddenly changed. He