The reflection didn't wave like a friend.
It waved like it knew something Ethan didn't.
Its fingers moved in slow arcs, too controlled, too confident—like it wasn't mimicking at all, but greeting. And then it stopped. Tilted its head sideways, just slightly. That's when it smiled.
Not a warm smile. Not even a human one.
A slow, deliberate, wrong kind of smile.
Ethan's stomach flipped. He slammed the bathroom door shut with a hard clack of wood and metal, his breath catching in his throat. The sound should've broken the tension.
But it didn't.
Because the reflection kept moving.
Even though the mirror was now behind a solid door, Ethan felt it walking. Stepping forward. Coming through. As if the mirror wasn't a barrier at all—just a window waiting to be opened.
His back hit the hallway wall. He didn't remember moving.
His heart pounded hard against his ribs, fast and shallow.
Then—
Everything froze.
The flickering lights stopped mid-stutter.
The second hand of the clock halted in place, poised between moments.
Even the constant hum of the refrigerator—the noise he'd never noticed until it was gone—fell silent.
It was as if the entire apartment, the whole world, had taken a breath and didn't know how to exhale.
And in that unnatural silence…
The doorbell rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Ethan turned his head, slowly. As if under water.
Drawn not by choice, but like something had looped a thread around his chest and was gently reeling him in.
He reached out. Hand hovering over the knob.
This time, it turned.
Click.
He opened the door.
The hallway was empty—almost. Still. Colorless.
But at the far end, just beneath the flickering ceiling light—
He stood.
Same hair. Same face. Same confusion sitting behind the eyes.
The other Ethan didn't move. Not right away.
Then, slowly, he raised a hand.
So did Ethan.
A mirrored moment.
But then the hallway stuttered. Flickered. Like a glitched-out video stream. The walls rippled, stretching like rubber, pulling apart, then snapping back into shape.
Reality hiccupped.
And the other Ethan finally spoke.
"Do you remember yet?"
The voice hit Ethan like cold water to the face.
His mind recoiled, searching for an answer that wasn't there.
"…What?" he said, barely above a whisper.
But the other him didn't answer. He was already walking away, steps silent, dissolving into the end of the hallway like smoke. Where he'd stood, only a folded slip of paper remained on the floor.
Ethan approached slowly. Bent down. Picked it up with shaking fingers.
Unfolded it.
You're asking the wrong question.
It's not 'Who am I?'
It's 'Whose memory is this?'
His hands clenched around the paper.
The question rang in his skull like a bell struck too hard.
He turned back into his apartment.
And stopped cold.
Something had changed.
Again.
The photographs on the wall—he didn't remember taking them. A child he didn't recognize smiled in one. A woman stood beside him in another. Her face was slightly blurred, like the ink hadn't set right in his memory.
There was a second toothbrush in the bathroom. A sweater slung over the arm of the couch. One he'd never bought.
All of it too familiar.
All of it wrong.
The world felt stitched together out of someone else's life.
And whoever it was, they were starting to remember, too.
Ethan walked to the desk. Picked up the first note—the one that started it all.
You're in my dream.
Wake up.
He let it hang in the air between his fingers.
Looked toward the black mirror of the TV again.
His reflection stared back. But this time, it didn't copy him at all.
It moved independently.
Then it raised one finger.
Slowly.
And pointed.
Behind him.
He spun around—
Nothing.
Just his apartment. Silent. Normal.
But nothing had been normal for a long time now.
Then his phone buzzed.
A single notification.
Mira has sent you a message.
Ethan frowned.
He didn't know any Mira.
But the message read:
If you're seeing doubles, you're not dreaming anymore.
You're remembering.
Find the stairs.