Muffin

He started to suspect Muffin was a clone based on how she’d fetched her stick this morning. She’d never done it quite so quickly or enthusiastically before. He blamed himself for his doubt: He’d informed his staff to never tell him if Muffin passed away, but to have a program in place to clone, grow, and train multiple Muffins at any given time. This way she’d never age, she’d never die, and if she did die, he’d never realize it. As a result, now he’d lost—or maybe lost—the only one who’d ever loved him for anything other than his money.