“Father, those two children sleeping in the garbage look just like me,” Pedro said, pointing at the little ones sleeping cuddled up on an old mattress on the sidewalk. Eduardo Fernández stopped and followed his 5-year-old son’s finger with his eyes. Two children apparently the same age slept curled up between garbage sacks with dirty, torn clothes, their feet bare and injured.
The businessman felt a knot in his chest at the sight, but he tried to pull Pedro’s hand to continue walking to the car. He had just picked him up from the private school where he attended, and like every Friday afternoon, they returned home through the city center. It was a route Eduardo usually avoided, always preferring to go through the more affluent neighborhoods. But heavy traffic and an accident on the main avenue had forced them to go through this poorer, more run-down area.
The narrow streets were filled with homeless people, street vendors, and children playing among the garbage piled up on the sidewalks. However, the boy broke free with surprising strength. and ran toward the children, completely ignoring their father’s protests. Eduardo followed him, worried not only about how they might react to seeing such misery up close, but also about the dangers that region represented. There were constant reports of robberies, drug trafficking, and violence.
Their expensive clothes and the gold watch on their wrists made them easy targets. Pedro knelt beside the filthy mattress and looked at the faces of the two children, fast asleep, exhausted from life on the streets. One had light brown hair, wavy and shiny despite the dust, just like his, and the other was dark-skinned with slightly darker skin. But both had very similar facial features: the same arched, expressive eyebrows, the same delicate, oval face, even the same dimple on his chin that Pedro had inherited from his deceased mother.
Eduardo approached slowly, a growing unease that soon turned into something close to panic. There was something deeply disturbing about that resemblance, something that went far beyond his own. It was more than just a coincidence. It was as if I were seeing three versions of the same creature at different times in its life. “Pedro, let’s go right now. We can’t stay here,” Eduardo said, trying to firmly lift his son, though without taking his eyes off the sleeping children, unable to tear his gaze away from that impossible sight.
“They look just like me, Dad. Look at their eyes,” Pedro insisted when one of the little ones moved slowly and opened his eyes with difficulty. To a sleepyhead, he revealed two green eyes identical to Pedro’s, not only in color, but also in the almond shape, in the intensity of the gaze, and in that natural brightness Eduardo knew so well. The boy was frightened by the sight of strangers nearby and quickly woke his brother with gentle, yet urgent, touches on his shoulder.
The two of them jumped up, hugging each other, visibly trembling, not only from the cold, but from pure instinctive fear. Eduardo noticed that they both had exactly the same curls as Pedro, just in different shades, and the same body posture, the same way of moving, even the same way of breathing when they were nervous. “Don’t hurt us, please,” said the brown-haired boy, instinctively stepping in front of his younger brother, in a protective gesture that Eduardo immediately recognized with a shudder.
It was exactly the same way Pedro protected his younger classmates at school when a bully tried to intimidate them. The same defensive movement, the same brave stance despite his visible fear. The businessman felt his legs shake violently and had to lean against a brick wall to avoid falling. The resemblance between the three boys was striking, terrifying, impossible to attribute to chance. Every gesture, every expression, every body movement was identical. The dark-haired boy opened his eyes wide, and Eduardo nearly fainted on the spot.
They were the same piercing green eyes of Pedro, but there was something even more disturbing. The expression of curiosity mixed with caution, the particular way he frowned when confused or scared, even the way he shrank slightly when he was afraid. Everything was exactly the same as what he saw in his son every day. All three of them had The same height, the same slim physique, and together they looked like perfect reflections in a fragmented mirror. Eduardo held himself more tightly against the wall, feeling the world spin around him.
“What are your names?” Pedro asked with the innocence of his five years, sitting on the dirty sidewalk, not caring about getting his expensive school uniform dirty. “I’m Lucas,” the brown-haired boy replied, relaxing as he realized that this boy his age posed no threat.
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