בדיקת ה-DNA מצאה לי תאומה שמתה לפני שנולדתי

Episode 1 — read the full opening

Read the complete first episode here, then continue the chat story in the next episode.

1. Tamar

   Are you awake? I just got the DNA test results you bought me for my birthday. Please tell me I'm reading this wrong.

2. Lior

   I'm up. What did you find? Another cousin in Canada? Send me a screenshot.

3. Tamar

   It says: 'New close match — identical twin, 99.96% shared DNA.' The name is Yael Armon. We don’t have a sister named Yael, do we?

4. Lior

   We don’t have any siblings at all. Just each other. Maybe two samples got the same barcode by mistake.

5. Tamar

   I clicked her profile. No photo. Only a birth year and a gray note: 'Account managed by a family member.' She was born in 1990. I was born in 1998.

6. Lior

   Then she can’t be your twin. Call the company, not Mom. She'll freak out before we know if it's a mistake.

7. Tamar

   I already opened a chat with support. The rep said the match underwent an 'unusual manual review' before they sent it to me.

8. Dr. Shalev

   Hello Tamar. I'm the genetic counselor on the team. I want to confirm: Was your sample collected on Monday and sent from the envelope ending in 441?

9. Tamar

   Yes. It was sealed until I opened it. Why do you ask, as if you think someone swapped me out?

10. Dr. Shalev

    We don’t suspect that. We reran both samples. This is not a match between ordinary siblings. Our system shows a pattern consistent with identical twins.

11. Tamar

    But we were born eight years apart. Even I know that’s impossible.

12. Dr. Shalev

    That’s exactly why we escalated the case to the lab director. Please do not contact the second party through the website yet.

13. Tamar

    Why? What aren’t you telling me?

14. Dr. Shalev

    The second sample is not from an active account. It was archived years ago from a medical research project.

15. Tamar

    So how does it show up now as a match? And who manages that account?

16. Dr. Shalev

    I'm investigating. Meanwhile, do you have a small crescent-shaped scar above your left eyebrow?

17. Tamar

    Yes. Since I can remember. Why are you asking about that?

18. Dr. Shalev

    Don’t send me a picture. I’ll get back to you in ten minutes.

19. Tamar

    Lior, they know about the scar. It’s not on the questionnaire and I didn’t send any photos.

20. Lior

    I’m coming over. Don’t reply to anyone until I get there.

21. Tamar

    Too late. Just got a private message from someone named Noga Armon. She wrote: 'I'm Yael's sister. Please don’t block me.'

22. Noga Armon

    Tamar, the company told us about the match. I know it sounds impossible but I have to ask: How old are you?

23. Tamar

    Twenty-eight. Who was Yael and why does her DNA say she's my twin?

24. Noga Armon

    Yael was my sister. She died in a car accident in 1990. According to the birth year on your profile, that’s eight years before you were born.

25. Tamar

    Then this has to be a mistake. Ask them to remove the match.

26. Noga Armon

    I wanted to think that too. But I just sent you a photo we kept from her last week alive. Zoom in over the left eyebrow.

27. Tamar

    That’s me.

28. Noga Armon

    No, that’s Yael. The photo was taken eight years before you were born.

29. Dr. Shalev

    Tamar, don’t open any more files from Noga. We found who requested the preservation of Yael’s sample. The name on the form is your mother’s.

30. Next episode: Tamar confronts her mother about why her signature is on a biological sample stored eight years before Tamar was born — and discovers a missing page in her birth records.

Original SALiiO fiction. The characters and events belong to the story.