CHAPTER 2 — THE OTHER ME
1895 Words
When I first saw him—
the boy sitting at the edge of my bed,
the boy who looked exactly like me—
my brain didn’t register fear.
It registered disbelief.
A moment of pure, frozen confusion.
Because seeing your own face in the dark—
your own posture, your own eyes,
your own mouth curved in a smile you’ve never made—
is not something a normal person can process in a second.
It took me three.
The first second:
That’s me.
The second:
That’s not me.
The third:
Run.
I pushed myself back against the headboard so hard it hurt my spine.
He didn’t move.
He just watched me with a calmness that felt older than me—
like someone who had waited for this moment far longer than I had been alive.
“How… how are you here?” I whispered, voice cracking.
He blinked slowly.
Too slowly.
“That depends,” he said.
“Do you mean ‘here’ as in your room?”
He lifted a hand, tracing the air lazily.
“Or ‘here’ as in… your world?”
His voice was mine.
Not similar.
Not close.
Identical.
Only smoother.
Empty of hesitation.
I opened my mouth to speak, but all that came out was a rough exhale.
He stood up.
Same height.
Same hair.
Same everything.
Except his eyes.
Mine were warm brown, always slightly tired.
His were a colder shade.
Unblinking.
Reflective, like he had a different kind of light behind them.
“You touched the door,” he said.
“You weren’t supposed to. Not yet.”
“I didn’t open it—” I stammered.
“You didn’t have to. You touched it.”
He stepped closer.
“Contact is enough.”
The room felt smaller.
The air heavier.
Behind him, the shadows started stretching—
like they were reaching for him,
or bowing to him.
“What do you want?” I whispered.
He tilted his head.
“Not want.”
A soft smile curved on his lips.
“Need.”
I swallowed.
“My parents—”
“—won’t hear you,” he said before I could finish.
His tone was almost bored.
“They’re asleep. Deeply. I made sure.”
A chill crawled up my spine.
“You did WHAT?”
He shrugged.
“Relax. They’re safe. Safer than you, actually.”
My heart pounded loud enough for him to hear.
“Stop messing with— with whatever this is,” I said, trying to sound brave.
But my voice was shaking.
“You don’t belong here.”
He laughed.
Not loudly.
Not wildly.
Just a small, sharp breath of amusement.
“Oh, I belong here more than you think.”
He stepped close enough for me to see the faint shimmer under his skin—
the same glow the black door had.
“You don’t understand yet,” he whispered.
“But you will.”
---
THE ROOM STARTS TO CHANGE
He walked past me, toward the window.
The streetlight outside flickered violently the moment he looked at it.
He placed a hand on the glass.
And the glass rippled.
Like water.
Like the barrier between this world and something else was thin—
too thin.
I stared in horror.
“H-how are you doing that?”
He didn’t turn around when he answered.
“You think the Loop is just a dream?”
His voice softened to a whisper.
“I thought that too. Once.”
The window shimmered again, showing something behind the reflection.
A hallway.
The corridor.
The same impossible corridor from the Loop.
In my bedroom window.
I choked on air.
“No— no, this isn’t real.”
He finally turned to face me.
“Real?”
He laughed again.
“You think reality is the world you wake up to? The world that forgets? The world that erases everything?”
His eyes narrowed.
“The Loop remembers. Always.”
He took slow steps toward me.
“And it remembers you better than you remember yourself.”
I backed against the wall.
The room didn’t feel like my room anymore.
The paint on the walls flickered between white and the corridor’s pale blue.
My study table blurred at the edges.
My bookshelf stretched taller.
My clock reversed its ticking.
The Loop was seeping in.
Just like the Keeper warned.
---
HE KNOWS MORE ABOUT ME THAN I DO
“Stop,” I said.
“Just tell me who you are.”
He smiled.
“I told you already.”
He tapped his chest.
“I’m you.”
“No.”
I shook my head hard.
“You’re not me. You’re something pretending to be me.”
He looked disappointed, like a teacher whose student missed an obvious answer.
“If I were pretending,” he said, “I would choose someone better.”
I stared at him.
He lowered his voice.
“You know the night you almost died?”
My throat closed.
That night…
the fever…
the blackout…
the voice I heard—
Memories flickered painfully at the edges of my mind.
He stepped closer.
“That night, you weren’t sleeping.”
His expression softened.
“You were inside the Loop. You entered by accident. And you weren’t supposed to leave.”
I froze.
“What… what do you mean?”
He leaned in, so close I could smell the faint scent of cold air.
“You left something behind. And something else came out with you.”
I whispered the only question I could form:
“…you?”
His grin widened.
“Now you’re catching up.”
---
HE CAME HERE FOR A PURPOSE
I stumbled to my feet, dizzy.
“What do you want from me?”
He watched me carefully.
His answer was slow.
Precise.
Like he was choosing each word with intention.
“I need you to come back.”
“To the Loop?”
“No.”
His tone darkened.
“Deeper than the Loop.”
My heartbeat stuttered.
“What’s deeper?”
He didn’t blink.
“The place where I came from.”
Every instinct in my body screamed NO.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said firmly.
His smile vanished.
And the room went silent.
Completely silent.
The kind of silence that isn’t absence of sound
but the removal of it.
He stepped forward.
“Don’t make this harder,” he whispered.
“I said no!”
For the first time, his expression changed—
He looked surprised.
Then amused.
Then slightly irritated.
“You’re stubborn. That’s new.”
“I’m not the one breaking into someone else’s room!”
“You wouldn’t be so scared,” he said calmly, “if you remembered everything.”
“I don’t WANT to remember!”
He paused.
Then his voice softened so suddenly it scared me more than his anger.
“I know,” he said.
“I didn’t want to, either.”
I blinked.
“What?”
He stepped back, putting distance between us for the first time.
His eyes lowered a little—
as if something weighed on him.
Something he didn’t want to carry.
“You think I came here to hurt you?”
He shook his head.
“No. I came to warn you.”
That confused me more than anything else.
“Warn me? About what?”
He looked toward the window again.
The corridor reflection glowed—
brighter this time.
Clearer.
“You aren’t the only one waking up.”
My stomach dropped.
“What does that mean?” I asked quietly.
He didn’t answer.
He turned toward my desk, trailing his fingers along the wood.
Where his hand touched,
the symbols from the corridor appeared—
carved into the surface like fresh wounds.
When he pulled away, one mark remained:
A circle.
Divided in half.
A door split open.
“What is that?” I asked, stepping back instinctively.
“A lock,” he said.
“And a key.”
He looked at me with a strange emotion in his eyes—
something like fear, but older.
“Someone has started opening it from the other side.”
“Who?”
He met my eyes.
“You.”
I shook my head violently.
“No. No, I didn’t—”
“Yes,” he said.
“Not this you. The other you. The one still inside.”
I froze.
My skin turned to ice.
“There’s… another me?”
He nodded once.
“A version of you that never woke up. A version trapped behind the door. And now he’s trying to get out.”
I felt dizzy.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” he whispered.
“Then why do you think the dream tries to erase itself every time you wake? Why do you think you forget? Why do you think the Keeper warned you?”
His gaze sharpened.
“The Loop is trying to protect you from… him.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
He whispered:
“Because he doesn’t want to switch places with you.”
My eyes widened.
“He wants to replace you.”
---
THE WARNING
The room dimmed again.
The lights flickered in unnatural patterns.
He looked toward the door suddenly, alert.
“They’re close.”
“Who’s close?”
He didn’t answer.
He stepped back, fading into the dim part of my room.
The shadows swallowed him—
as if they recognized him
as if they were made for him.
“Listen carefully,” he said, voice echoing strangely.
“I won’t be able to come next time.”
My breath caught.
“Why not?”
He hesitated.
For the first time, he looked uncertain.
“Because the dream is changing. Because he is changing. Because the Loop is thinning.”
His voice lowered.
“And because once he reaches you… I won’t matter anymore.”
My heart thudded painfully against my ribs.
“What am I supposed to do?”
His eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
“Remember.”
“I told you—I can’t remember anything!”
“Not yet.”
He exhaled slowly.
“But the next fever will take you deeper. And when it does… don’t run this time.”
The shadows rose higher around him.
He was fading.
“This world isn't as solid as you think,” he said.
“So hold on to the parts of it that matter.”
“Wait!” I stepped forward.
“Where are you going?”
He looked straight into my eyes.
“Back.”
“To the Loop?”
“No,” he whispered.
“To the place behind the door.”
My blood ran cold.
He gave me one final look—
something like pity,
something like fear,
something like a warning.
Then the shadow swallowed him completely.
And he was gone.
---
THE FINAL SOUND
The room was quiet.
Too quiet.
I stood there for a long time, trembling, staring at the carved symbol on my desk.
Then—
A sound.
A soft, steady, familiar sound.
Thump…
My heart froze.
Thump…
The exact same heartbeat I heard behind the black door.
It echoed from somewhere inside the walls—
faint, distant,
but getting closer.
And with it, a whisper crawled into my mind:
“Next time… the door won’t wait.”
- Writer
