I wake up groggy and disoriented. I open my eyes and slowly scan the room, blinded by the fluorescent light strip above me. I try to sit up and take a deep breath, but as soon as I begin to inhale, I feel a sharp pain in my chest, following up through my throat. I start to struggle and choke, coughing against whatever it is that's obstructing my airway. I raise my hand to my lips and find a tube filling mouth.

"Jesus, girl, don't pull on that! Hold on!", a woman in a nurses uniform (so, what the hell, let's call her a nurse) scolds as she rushes over to me. "Right now, cough, love, yeah that's it, a few big coughs", she says, while she yanks on the tube and wrenches my lungs from inside me.

When I'm finally free of the fiery tube of hell, I sputter and gasp, convinced there is no oxygen in the room, and if there is, it's staying very fucking far away from me.

The nurse laughs and hands me a glass of water. "Calm down", she says, as though dying of asphyxiation is no big deal, "Just take deep breaths and drink this. I'm just going to check your vitals. Do you know why you're here?"

I glare at her, and answer her only after finishing the water and regaining what feels like sub normal control of my breathing, "Yeah", I grunt, "New liver, woop, woop!" If she doesn't appreciate the 'woop'-ing, she certainly doesn't appreciate the fist-pumping.

She clucks her tongue like only Irish mothers seem to be able to do, looking me up and down like I'm shit on her shoe. "Yes, very impressive. Alcoholic with liver failure at 22. 'Woop' indeed." I pull a mock indignant face and tell her, in the chirpiest voice I can manage when I still sound like Darth Vader, "Now, now, don't diminish me to one thing. I am not merely an alcoholic. I am an alcoholic druggie." I snicker and wink at her, and tell her how much I'll miss her as she leaves the room in disgust.

Finally alone, I swing my legs out of the bed and brace myself to stand up. I yank the drip from my arm like they do in the movies, which, by the way, hurts a hell of a lot more than they make it seem. After cursing everything and everyone around me, I put on my shirt. Being a junkie and 'a little too fond of the drink', I'm used to being in a hospital and know how to get myself ready to go. The worst part, by far, is removing the catheter. Really you should remove the 'fluid' with a syringe, but tearing the balloony part and letting it spill out works too. I stab it over and over with a pen that the nurse left behind and watch my own piss spill out onto the bed sheets. Then I pull, which I won't go into detail about because it hurts like fuck and is not something I like to dwell on.

Just as I'm pulling on my jeans, an older nurse approaches me. I can see her preparing to say something and cut her off before she can, "Listen, granny, I don't care what the procedures are, I need a drink and I need it now, so I'm out of here, and don't even bother giving me whatever scolding I can see rolling behind your eyes and just let me go."

She seems taken aback, a reaction I'm very accustomed to, and inwardly I'm pleased. I turn my back on her to put on my shoes, when suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder. This disarms me. I'm not used to people coming so close to me. My hair is unkempt and dirty, my face is hardly inviting, and my general posture is the embodiment of 'fuck off'. I whip around and find myself caught in her gaze. I'm struck by the familiarity of her stare, and look at her more closely. Do I know this person?

"Ciara." She whispers my name, smiling at me. I feel uneasy and confused, finding myself unable to speak. "Please, follow me." I can't tell you why I want to follow her, I guess because I can't remember the last time someone wanted me to follow them instead of leave them. She turns her back on me and walks away, apparently trusting I will do as she says. I'm frozen in place, trying to comprehend the feelings coursing through me. But I am an indulgent person, and because such a big part of me wants to follow her, I ignore the wary thoughts screaming at me, instead walking along in her wake.

Not once does she look back. I am in awe of this woman. How does she know my name? How did she know I would not be able to resist following her? What does she want from me?

She takes me outside the hospital, clicks open a black car only a few paces from the exit, and sits in the passengers seat, apparently waiting for me to take the drivers. I walk around to the right side of the car and pull the handle, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement from her before I get in. "What are you waiting for, get the fuck in!" she shouts, no longer sounding like a sweet old Irish lady, but a serious American prison guard.

More out of shock than fear, I clamber into the car as fast as I can. I take this moment to look her up and down. She might be short, but she's not frail, her hair is grey and wild. Her eyes are green with the vibrancy of a twenty year old discovering cocaine. She looks strong.

"Well, didn't you go fucking AWOL?", she barks, grabbing my head on either side, her hands planted right below my ears. I struggle against her grip, shaking my head from side to side and pulling on her arms, leaving us in a strange embrace. "Jesus Christ!", I yell, and she lets go, laughing. She raises her hands in surrender and pulls a kissy face. "Just making sure it was you", she tells me, stroking the tiny brown birthmark above my eyebrow. I frown and knock her hand away.

There is a silence. She is looking at me intently, as though drinking in what she's seeing. "You don't look like I expected.", I hear her mutter, causing a jarring sense of inadequacy to pulse through me. I'm on the overweight side, my teeth are in shit, I wear the ugliest glasses because they were the only ones I could steal that I could see through, my skin is still slightly yellow from the liver failure. In short, I am not a runway model.

I exhale loudly and retort, "Jesus, thanks, just what I wanted to hear after a life or death surgery." The woman raises her eyebrows but says nothing. I am becoming very frustrated and am on the verge of getting out of the car when she speaks again.

"You're right, I'm sorry if I offended you." I jerk my head slightly in a vaguely nodding gesture, but do not open my mouth to speak. She continues. "You can call me Dee." Something far off rings in my head, and she… I mean, Dee, seems to notice this. She smiles, "Seems familiar but out of reach, right? Let me buy you dinner."

My turkey and ham dinner lies half eaten and forgotten in front of me. My mouth is hanging open and Dee is looking at me like I'm a four year old child who keeps missing the potty. "Jesus. Fuck. Jesus fucking…. Jesus." Dee rubs her face as though she's exhausted. "Do you understand?", she asks, more pleading than questioning. I open and close my mouth uselessly, and eventually manage to get a few words out. "Can… Could…. What… Tell me again."

Dee slaps her palm to her face and says through gritted teeth "Okay, one more time." She takes a deep breath before taking me through the story again.

"About thirty years ago, a scientist called Aldous Leekie decided to start a revolutionary experiment. Project Leda. He wanted to create and raise human clones. And, for the most part, he succeeded. However, at some point in the experiment, when the clones were created but yet to be born, one of the surrogates found she was carrying twins. This surrogate's name was Amelia. She lost faith in the experiment, I still don't know why. So she ran. When the twins were born, she left one in the care of the church. I don't know where that clone is now. For the other, she sought the help of Siobhan Sadler. Siobhan has never told me how Amelia found her or why she sought Siobhan out specifically, but, for now, it doesn't matter. Siobhan helped Amelia get the child, Sarah Manning, into the fostering system in England, where she knew she could eventually get Sarah into her care. You have to understand, Siobhan Sadler is a very powerful woman. She has connections that are very important. Siobhan knew this man, Carlton, who, she says, had inside information on the experiment. Years later, he sought her out to tell her that some of the clones were becoming ill. He had no guarantee that Sarah would be affected, but he couldn't guarantee her health either. So they came up with a…. a contingency plan, if you will. That's where I come in. I'm a doctor, and Siobhan came to me for help. I don't quite know how to explain this in non medical terms…. I could get a sample from Sarah and alter the embryo so that it would be a genetic match for Sarah. Not an identical clone, just a match. So the child could donate marrow, organs, and so on, to Sarah if the need ever arose. You are that child."

Dee looks at me as though I might have some intelligent response to this. I don't know what to say. I take a shaky breath.

"So, you're telling me I was genetically engineered to…. to what? Save this Sarah Manning's life?"

Dee looks me right in the eye, and says, "Yes, and it's time to fulfil that purpose."