Chapter 20: The Other Camille
1045 Words
The message on the mirror didn’t fade. Camille wiped at it furiously, but the red lipstick smeared like blood across glass, a grotesque stain that refused to disappear.
You left me behind. So I became you.
It wasn’t just a threat. It was a confession.
She stumbled backward, breathing in shallow gasps. Her legs hit the bed, and she collapsed onto it, shaking. Her skin felt too tight. Her thoughts, too loud. She grabbed her phone with trembling fingers and called Archer this time.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Camille.”
“She’s been in my apartment. She used my lipstick. It was back, Archer—it was broken. I saw it smashed on the floor, and now it’s back, whole. She wrote something. She thinks she’s me.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said sharply. “I’m coming now.”
Camille barely managed to whisper, “I think I’m going crazy.”
“No,” Archer said. “You’re not. But someone wants you to believe you are.”
---
He arrived in twenty minutes, hair disheveled, eyes bloodshot. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. The moment he stepped into her apartment, he drew the blinds, checked all the locks, then pulled her into a long, wordless hug.
She melted into him, grateful for something solid. Something warm. Something real.
“She’s in here,” Camille murmured. “I can feel it.”
Archer’s jaw tightened. “Did you keep the message?”
She nodded and led him to the mirror. He studied the smear of red, then took out his phone and snapped a picture.
“Julian was right,” he said. “She’s escalating.”
“Who is she?”
“We don’t know. Not exactly.”
Camille pulled away from him. “What do you mean, not exactly?”
“She’s been around longer than you think,” Archer said. “A shadow. First just showing up in places you weren’t. Then following you home. Then watching you sleep.”
Her stomach turned.
“Julian saw her first. Outside your work. He thought it was you. He called you. You said you were home. That’s when we realized...”
“You didn’t tell me.” Her voice cracked with betrayal.
“We thought it would stop.”
Camille turned away from him, hugging herself. “I think it started the night I told you all I didn’t believe in love anymore.”
Archer’s silence confirmed it. That had been the trigger. Or maybe the invitation.
“I made her,” Camille whispered. “I made her real.”
“No,” Archer said. “She made herself real. She took your pain and wore it like a mask. But it’s not you. It’s not who you are.”
She looked up at him, eyes rimmed with red. “Then who am I, Archer?”
He stepped closer. “You’re the woman I fell in love with years before we ever spoke. The one who smiles like she’s hiding something sacred. The one who danced in that club like her heart had already broken, but her body still remembered how to move.”
He cupped her face gently. “You’re Camille.”
“And she?”
“She’s the void you left behind.”
---
That night, Camille couldn’t sleep. Archer offered to stay, but she told him to go. She needed to face the darkness alone. Or at least understand it.
She turned on every light in the apartment and sat at the vanity, staring at herself in the mirror. Hours passed. Midnight came and went. She thought of every time she’d hated herself. Every time she’d wanted to disappear. Every moment she wished she could be someone else.
And then, slowly, her reflection started to change.
At first, she thought it was a trick of the light. But no—her eyes in the mirror were colder. Her smile sharper. Her head tilted at an odd angle, mocking. Then her reflection raised a hand.
Camille hadn’t moved.
She froze.
The reflection mouthed something.
Camille leaned in.
“Let me in.”
Her chest tightened. “No,” she whispered. “You’re not me.”
The mirror shimmered like water.
“But I was born from you.”
She backed away, but the reflection pressed its hands to the other side of the glass, leaving red smudges behind. Lipstick or blood—she couldn’t tell.
Camille’s voice trembled. “What do you want?”
The reflection’s lips curled.
“To finish what you started.”
Then the lights flickered, and the image dissolved into ordinary glass.
Camille collapsed onto the floor, sobbing.
---
Three nights passed with no sign of her. Camille barely ate, barely slept. Damien sent flowers she burned. Julian sent silence. Archer called every hour. None of it helped.
She knew the woman wasn’t gone. Just waiting. Watching.
And then, a knock on the door.
She opened it without thinking—and came face to face with herself.
Same hair. Same eyes. Same body.
But colder. Smiling.
The Other Camille.
“Hello,” the woman said sweetly. “You finally opened the door.”
Camille’s body locked. She tried to slam it shut, but the woman was faster—slipping inside, pressing a blade to her stomach.
“Shh,” she whispered. “No screaming. You made this possible. Let’s not ruin the ending.”
Camille backed up, hands raised. “What do you want?”
“I told you. To finish what you started. To take the life you threw away.”
She stepped closer. “He won’t even notice. They won’t. You already erased yourself the moment you gave up on love.”
The knife bit into Camille’s skin.
Then—BANG!
The front door flew open.
Julian. Archer. Damien.
All three rushed inside, and The Other Camille turned, snarling. But she didn’t fight. She ran.
She darted through the window, shattering it, disappearing into the night like a phantom. By the time they reached the street, she was gone.
Camille collapsed in Julian’s arms, sobbing.
“She’s not me,” she whispered.
Julian held her tighter. “No. But she thinks she is. And now we hunt her.”
- Writer
