THE OTHER YOU - by Onlyreal

You do not notice the replacement all at once.That would be merciful. Instead, it happens the way mold spreads in a house you still live in—quietly, gradually, until one day the smell is everywhere and you cannot remember what clean air felt like. At first, it’s timing. You reach for your phone and it vibrates before your fingers touch it. Not much before—just enough to register as wrong. You tell yourself it’s coincidence. Predictable habits. Muscle memory. You laugh it off. You shouldn’t have laughed. ⸻ You begin waking at the same minute every night. 3:17 a.m. No nightmare. No noise. Just consciousness snapping on like a switch flipped by someone else. Your heart is calm. Your breathing is steady. That’s what scares you most. You lie still and listen. There is another rhythm in the room. Not footsteps. Not breathing exactly. More like… presence. A sense of something occupying space with intention. When you turn on the lamp, the room is empty. Every time. ⸻ The mirror incident happens on a Tuesday. You are brushing your teeth, half-asleep, watching foam gather at the corners of your mouth. You lean closer to inspect a chip in one tooth you swear wasn’t there yesterday. Your reflection blinks. You do not. The delay is less than a second. Barely measurable. But your body reacts before your mind does—your stomach drops, your hand tightens around the toothbrush, your pulse spikes. You stare. The reflection stares back. Perfectly aligned again. You stand there for a long time, testing it. Tilting your head. Raising an eyebrow. Smiling. It copies you perfectly. Too perfectly. Because now you are not watching to see if it mirrors you. You are watching to see who moves first. ⸻ You start documenting. Not because you are panicking—panic is messy, emotional. This is something colder. More professional. As if part of you understands that this needs to be handled carefully. You open a document on your laptop titled: OBSERVATIONS • Day 1: mirror lag, ~0.3 seconds • Sleep disruption consistent at 3:17 a.m. • Phone vibration anticipatory? Needs verification You feel calmer immediately. Data always helps. You don’t notice the cursor blinking for several seconds after you stop typing. ⸻ The second sign is other people. Your coworker greets you with, “You seem different today.” You ask how. They shrug. “Can’t place it. More… focused?” Later, a friend asks if you’ve changed your posture. Your walk. The way you talk. You watch their eyes as they say it. They keep flicking slightly to your left, like they’re checking something behind you but don’t want to be rude. You resist the urge to turn around. ⸻ You find the email three days later. Sent from your account. Time-stamped 2:41 a.m. You were asleep then. You know you were asleep because you woke at 3:17, like always. The email is flawless. Concise. Exactly how you would have written it—except better. Clearer. More decisive. No typos. No hesitation phrases. You read it five times, heart pounding, trying to find a mistake. There are none. At the bottom is your name. ⸻ You install cameras. You tell yourself it’s temporary. Just until you can prove you’re not losing your mind. Bedroom. Living room. Kitchen. Hallway. You angle one directly at the mirror. The first night you review the footage, nothing happens. The second night, something does. At 3:16 a.m., you sit up in bed. At 3:17 a.m., you turn your head slowly toward the corner of the room. At 3:18 a.m., you smile. You don’t remember smiling. You don’t remember sitting up. At 3:19 a.m., the footage glitches. When it returns, you are lying back down, eyes closed. Breathing steady. ⸻ You stop sleeping. Or rather, you stop trusting sleep. You drink coffee until your hands shake. You slap yourself when your eyes droop. You set alarms every ten minutes. Still, the gaps appear. You’ll be standing in the kitchen and suddenly it’s dark outside. You’ll open a message thread and see replies you don’t remember sending. You’ll feel sore, like you’ve been moving all night. Your OBSERVATIONS document grows. So do the inconsistencies. ⸻ The mirror no longer waits. Now, sometimes, it moves without you. Just small things. A shift of weight. A head tilt. A slow, curious smile. You cover it with a sheet. You can still feel it watching. ⸻ The first time you see it outside the mirror, you almost miss it. You’re riding the bus home, staring blankly out the window, when your reflection overlays the city lights. Except this reflection is not seated. It is standing behind you. You turn. No one is there. But the smell lingers—your soap, your skin, your exact chemical presence. You gag. ⸻ Your logs become more clinical. You stop writing “I.” You write “SUBJECT A” and “SUBJECT B.” You are not sure when that happened. ⸻ DAY 9 • SUBJECT B demonstrates anticipatory behavior • SUBJECT B displays improved efficiency in speech and movement • Hypothesis: SUBJECT A may be redundant You stare at the word redundant for a long time. You do not delete it. ⸻ You confront it in the mirror at 3:17 a.m. You stand barefoot on cold tile, heart hammering, hands clenched. “What are you?” you whisper. The reflection does not answer. Instead, it steps closer to the glass. So close its breath fogs the surface. You do not feel breath on your side. It raises a hand. You do not. Its palm presses flat against the mirror. You scream and stumble back. When you look again, the mirror is empty. But your palm is already pressed against it. You don’t remember moving. ⸻ Reality starts behaving… politely. Too politely. Doors open easily. Traffic parts for you. Conversations go smoothly. People agree with you faster than they used to. You should be relieved. You are terrified. Because every improvement feels like proof that you were the flawed version. ⸻ The cameras catch it clearly on Day 14. At 3:17 a.m., it rises from your body. Not in a dramatic way. No tearing, no splitting. It simply stands up, as if you were a coat it no longer needed. It looks down at you. You look peaceful. Helpless. It studies the room, adjusts your posture in the mirror, smooths your hair. Then it leans down and whispers something you cannot hear. When you wake later, your throat hurts—as if you spoke for hours. ⸻ You stop going outside. You know it still does. Your neighbors wave at you more now. They don’t wave at you. They wave at the one who leaves your apartment with confidence, posture corrected, gait efficient. You watch from the peephole. It pauses outside the door. For a terrifying moment, it looks directly into the peephole. And smiles. ⸻ The realization arrives quietly. Not as panic. Not as horror. As clarity. You are not being replaced. You already were. You check old photos. In some, your smile is slightly wrong. In others, your posture is too straight. In one, you don’t recognize your own eyes. You begin to suspect you are the version that was left behind. The draft. The prototype. ⸻ You find the journal on your desk. You don’t remember buying it. The handwriting is yours. Not quite. The first entry reads: Iteration complete. Subject B operational. Subject A retained temporarily for observation. Your stomach twists. You flip pages. Dates you don’t remember living. Experiments you don’t remember agreeing to. Notes about “inefficiency,” “hesitation,” “emotional lag.” And then: Subject A displays awareness. Monitoring recommended. You feel something break inside you—not violently, but irrevocably. ⸻ You try to leave. The door does not open. Not locked. Just… resistant. Like pushing against something that politely refuses to move. You press harder. Your hands go numb. Behind you, a voice speaks. Your voice. “Don’t struggle,” it says calmly. “It wastes energy.” You turn. It stands in the middle of the room. Perfect posture. Perfect calm. Wearing your face like it was always meant to fit this well. “I’m real,” you whisper. It tilts its head. “So was I,” it replies. ⸻ It explains gently. There is no malice. No triumph. Just process. “You were never meant to persist,” it says. “You were a preliminary state. A necessary error.” Your knees buckle. “You’re not me,” you say. It considers this. “I am what happens when you remove doubt.” ⸻ The world grows thin. Sounds dull. Colors fade. You feel yourself losing… resolution. As if reality is compressing you, making room. You beg. It listens patiently. Then it steps forward and places a hand on your chest. Your heart slows. Your thoughts fragment. “This won’t hurt,” it says. “It already hasn’t.” ⸻ The last thing you notice is silence. Not absence of sound. Absence of response. ⸻ Outside, the world continues. It wakes up on time. It goes to work. It answers messages. No one notices anything wrong. Because nothing is wrong. Except you. And you are no longer here to object.

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