Liz opened her eyes. The room smelt strongly of antiseptic. It was dark, but not the all consuming inky darkness where nothing lives, it was the kind of darkness where shadows emerged before your very eyes, swirling up from the ground like thick smoke and moving, or so it seemed, towards you, ready to spirit you away. 

This was happening to Liz now. Half asleep she held up her hands to keep the shadow at bay, that figment of her imagination that had leaked out into reality, then quick as a flash she reached to switch on her bedside lamp, her heart racing, mouth dry.

She poured her self a glass of water from an ice-cool jug and lent back on her pillows. This was how most of her days started. Shortly a nurse would be in to see her, she would draw back the heavy curtains letting in the new day, a day that Liz would never be able to walk around in like a normal person, a day like all the others so far out of her reach. 

"How are we feeling this morning your Majesty?" came the voice of the palace nurse as she drew back the curtains.

"Like I 'm twenty-one again" The Queen said chuckling "Bring me my hand mirror, I want to admire Dr Morgans latest work"

"Yes Mam"

The Queen peered at herself in the mirror. Extraordinary. Thanks to Dr Morgan, she really didn't look or feel a day over seventy. And to think she was approaching one hundred and twenty-four! Since Dr Morgan had taken over her medical care in 2010, the ageing process had seemed to switch into reverse. It didn't come without some pain of course, but she could handle that if it meant she could still reign and enjoy life's pleasures.

"Dr Morgan will come to look at the wound in your side later today. Hopefully you'll be up and about for your birthday celebrations next weekend. Everyone's looking forward to it."

What Nurse Hilda didn't say was that the latest headlines in the papers weren't focusing on the festivities, but rather wondering why there were any festivities at all, shouldn't the Queen be dead by now and Charles finally be made King?

                                                        ***

In The East wing behind large double doors lay Liz otherwise known as Queen B. She gingerly touched her side and winced. The last operation had been a big one. They had taken a kidney, what would they take next?

Queen B had been born or rather created by the establishment in the 1990's and kept in hiding until the Queens body started to fail. She was identical to the Queen in every way apart from the fact she was only twenty-five years old. She was their dirty secret.

Sometimes she wondered if there were more dirty secrets like her throughout the palace, behind locked doors, in the darkness where shadows lived.