Edit: I've made a few small additions to detail and fixed some typos and other errors. Persona 4 is copyrighted by Atlus and is used here without permission.
Borderline of Madness, Part 1: Secret Lab
Chapter Two: A Corner of Memories
"I demand that you tell me how to open this door, right now!" Naoto's voice broke with emotion. She was close to panicking. Or throwing a temper tantrum. Perhaps both.
The door to her sickly-green prison was, like everything else in the room, highly technological. There was a keypad that required a password to the side of the door. Naoto had systematically tried every combination of numbers she could think of, but even her logical mind had its limits, especially in a situation of such great duress.
Why do you want to leave me? Why do people always go? I don't want to be alone anymore.
Naoto glanced over her shoulder at the lab coat clad figure. "I don't understand why you keep saying that. You are obviously the perpetrator speaking through some sort of hologram image meant to disturb me by the similarity to myself, but I don't understand your motive in speaking like this."
The Shadow stomped its foot and gave an irate shriek. What is so difficult for you to understand? We are one and the same. I am you. Won't you just accept that?
Naoto watched as the doppelganger reached into one of its large pockets and retrieved a screwdriver. It began to tinker with some of the bolts on the side of the ominous drill above the operating table.
"What you are saying makes absolutely no sense. Why would I accept the words of something that isn't even real?" Naoto shook her head and returned her attention to the door, attempting to convince herself that what had said was true. She froze as she felt two arms slide around her shoulders. Her double leaned in and whispered in her ear:
Do you remember that day when they left you? Your parents? The day they waved goodbye and hopped into the car. That same car that was found latter that day smashed and twisted on the side of the road. They were the first people to ever abandon you. They left you all alone.
Naoto pushed her Shadow away. "Don't touch me!" Its words hurt. She hated thinking about the day her parents died. How dare this…this counterfeit bring up that day? Come to think of it, how did it even know about that day?
I know everything about you, Naoto-kun. I know that after your parents died, you decided to take up the mantle as a detective. But being only five years old, it was impossible. So you buried yourself amongst the books in Grandfather's library. Day after day, book after book. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett: their fictional detectives left you eager to enter your parents' world. You watched detective movies and idolized characters like Humphrey Bogart and Sam Spade.
Naoto blinked, considering for a split second that perhaps this reflection really was part of her. It knew things that she had never told any other person. But that was just ridiculous. It just wasn't logical. "You can't be me. Fission of the mind into two separate personas is not possible!"
The double shrugged. Sometimes you have to take life as it comes, Nao-chan.
"Don't call me that!" Naoto spat, briefly loosing her composure. The only person who she allowed to call her that was her grandfather.
He abandoned us to, you know. .
"That…that is simply not true. He is simply in America, working on an important case. It has nothing to do with abandoning me." Naoto turned away, attempting to hide her own doubt.
Then why is it that every night we are alone in that big, creaky old estate? He isn't there for us. No one is. No one ever has been. You remember school, don't you?
Naoto shuddered at the thought. She'd spent her pre-teen years at a private boarding school. It had been absolute misery. She'd done her best to forget those horrible years spent in what she believed to be the very personification of hell.
All our classmates hated us for being smarter than they were; for being better than they were. And they hated us for knowing it. They called us names and they made us cry. If we weren't alone we were being teased. Mocked. Tormented.
Naoto sank the ground, cradling her knees to her chest. The double's words had cut down to her very core. It was all she could do not to cry. The box of memories she had locked long ago had been pried open. Everything came flooding out.
"I would sit in the class room and read books because no one wanted to play with me. The other students…they would steal my books and make fun of me. They called me 'Webster' because I had a large vocabulary—as if that is a bad thing!—and kicked my chair. I became very adept at removing spitballs from my hair and retrieving my possessions from wherever my classmates had hidden them." Naoto blinked quickly in an attempt not to cry. "I learned that trusting others is foolish. I became a detached observer. Being alone was the only way to survive. Friends are needless complications that will only betray you in the end."
But you did make one friend. Remember?
Naoto's eyes clouded and she hastily swiped her hand across them. "Sherlock. He was the only friend I had at school. I got him when he was just a puppy. And then those boys…one day when I was on a walk, they knocked me over and started beating Sherlock with sticks and throwing rocks. I yelled for them to stop it. When they did not, I punched one of them in the face as hard as I could. I had never been one to stand up for myself, so I think they were initially surprised. The other boys watched their leader fall to the ground with his lip gushing blood…and they attacked me. I was beaten quite badly, for they far surpassed me in number, strength, and size. Then they…they killed Sherlock and…and…"
They threw you in the dumpster. Just like everyone does when they're finished with you. When they're finished with us.
Naoto laid her head on her knees, her body shaking with sobs. "Stop it! It isn't like that." Her denial sounded so forced. What was this thing? This double? How could it possibly know?
In that dumpster, cradling that lifeless puppy, you decided that the only way to get respect was to become the ideal detective male. So you quit school and joined Grandfather in his private detective agency.
"Shut up!" Naoto yelled, her attempt at composure completely forgotten. "You don't know anything about me!"
The double began to laugh, and suddenly its voice grew louder. No matter how many cases I solved…I was still nothing. People call me the "Detective Prince," but not one of them cares what happens to me. All I have to do is solve their problems and then I am completely useless! The Shadow towered over Naoto its eyes glowing an eerie yellow. A dark cloud began to swirl about its feet. You know exactly what I am talking about, right Naoto-kun? I am you after all.
"That…that isn't true! You're not—"
INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT
An alarm blared, cutting Naoto's words short. The double stopped glowing and raced over to the control panel.
What is this? Not those miserable louts. The double began frantically pressing buttons. They will not find this place. I will make sure of that. No one can ever get close to us!
Naoto looked up at the screen. Sure enough, there were four figures standing in the middle of a bunker that looked quite similar to the room in which she herself was. Steel walls and floor, eerie green lighting, computer panels…
"They…they're coming for me!" She was overjoyed. She had begun to doubt Seta and his team…and perhaps her own worth. Perhaps, she had thought, she was not worth their effort. What exactly had she done to deserve their help? Called them imbeciles and spiked their drinks at the club in an attempt to loosen them up. However, they had just fed her that nonsense about "personas" and "shadows" and…
Naoto glanced at her double, her eyes growing wide. "Shadows…they were…telling the truth?"
You cannot rely on anything they say. They'll betray you before you can even bat an eye. Or perhaps they'll use you to solve the case. The do need a party member with a brain after all. But, they will just throw you away when all of this is over. It is best to let them die before then. Don't worry. They'll never find us.
Naoto stood angrily, "But I want to go with them!"
No, we have yet to complete the body alterations.
Naoto glanced back at the operating table and flinched. "No. They will make it. I have seen them rescue every single missing person. Yukiko Amagi, Kanji Tatsumi, and Rise Kujikawa all survived. My deductions lead me to believe that it was Seta who saved all of them. He will find me too."
Naoto turned her back on her double and sat down near the center of the room in clear view of the only door. Seta and his friends would find her. Maybe then someone could explain what was going on.