Matt sat at the head of a giant oak table, his chin resting in his palm. Normally, it would have been an honor to sit at the head of the table. It would have meant that, for once, he had respect, but as he looked up from his own reflection in the polished wood, he saw seventeen chairs. Each chair was immaculately carved, polished to perfection and no one was sitting upon them.
These chairs were not empty, however. Physically, yes. There were no bodies to fill the empty spaces in between the armrests, but as Matt looked to the closest chair on his left he could feel the energy of a boy with flaming red hair, perhaps corrupted by the power of his own family, perhaps he was just eerily mean spirited. Matt looked a few chairs down on his right and felt the transparent memory of a fragile woman that had more presence in the room today than she did when she was alive. Matt felt the shadow of an old friend standing beside him, but when he lifted his head expecting to see the crooked nose and friendly eyes of his former bodyguard, there was no one there. In some way, there were people in those chairs. Unseeing and unfeeling, just going through the motions of their past lives like an imprint in Matt's new, utterly lonely world.
Matt felt no compassion for the Alcran family that had all succumbed to a shared fate. Death at the hands of a greedy and twisted man that had already died. Sentenced to die with him and serve his every need in the afterlife. The late Matteo Alcran was an evil man. A man capable of countless murders without lifting a finger, but Matt had loved him for he had given Matt life. A life he almost took back to keep himself alive.
Matt's brow creased at the very thought. The poor boy had been hated by this family. His very first introduction with them resulted in almost bleeding to death at the age of five. Forced to live in two feet of sawdust for six months because of what he was. A clone. Matteo Alcran's clone. It is inaccurate to call him so now. He is the only living Matteo Alcran, therefore he is now the original, but for the first fourteen years of his life. He was nothing but 'a filthy clone.' The modern society's misguided view of a person equivalent to scum.
It seems impossible after what the Alcran family had put Matt through over the years that he were to feel anything after their deaths. Even when they were all alive, if they weren't throwing him looks of disgust, they were ignoring him. He was always a bit on the lonely side, but at least the others were there. He would always be able to pick a fight if he were bored or wander into El Patron's study and listen to his stories depicting El Dorado. Now, he sat alone at a dining table that seats eighteen in a billion dollar estate that he is now the sole owner of, in the middle of a country that separates Mexico and the United States that is an active member of a hundred-year drug war that his predecessor was the reining Lord of. He has never felt so alone.