[Fear System Log: 5:01 A.M.]
Current Arc: The Shadow
Assigned Role: Mary Caldwell — Protagonist
Emotional Status: Focused / Fractured
Objective Unlocked: Trap the Entity
Task Completion: 89%
Mary moved like a soldier preparing for war.
Gone was the shaking girl hiding beneath her covers. That version of herself had been studied, mimicked, and dismissed. The thing pretending to be her had gotten comfortable.
But Mary Caldwell wasn't going to die afraid.
She was going to fight smart.
She was going to win.
First: inventory.
The camera was still rolling from her previous nights. Hours of footage, some reviewed, most not. She marked each file with dates and oddities.
She gathered her phone, her laptop (which she'd finally found inside the microwave), and all the SD cards she could locate. They were scattered — one behind the couch cushion, one beneath the floorboard.
The mimic had been studying her recordings too.
It wanted to learn how it looked from her point of view.
A chill skated down her spine.
She snapped the notebook Delacroix had given her open and scribbled one phrase:
It needs to know how I see myself to finish becoming me.
Second: isolation.
She covered every mirror in the apartment with old sheets and duct tape. Bathroom, vanity, hallway — every reflective surface, gone.
Next, she removed the bulbs from the hallway and living room lamps, throwing the apartment into low gloom.
The mimic had been most active in the dark.
Let it come.
Third: bait.
Mary opened her closet and pulled out a black hoodie identical to the one she always wore. She took a pillow, duct-taped it into shape, and dressed the makeshift "her" to sit at the desk.
The mimic always copied her when she was vulnerable.
She left a handwritten note on the desk:
"I give up. Take it. Just let me go."
And beside it, a cracked pocket mirror — the same one that had shown her a smirking reflection days ago.
Then she turned on the camera. Hidden on the bookshelf, facing the room.
And slipped into the closet.
Time passed slowly in darkness.
Every creak of wood made her heart stutter. The closet felt tighter than she remembered, like the air had been scooped out and replaced with static.
She had her phone, set to silent. The Fear System occasionally flickered alerts across the screen:
[Time Remaining Until Entity Emerges: 00:12:43]
[Reminder: Do NOT engage before full manifestation.]
Twelve minutes.
Then eleven.
Then—
A whisper.
Just one syllable:
"Mary…"
She held her breath.
From the slats of the closet door, she saw the mimic enter.
It was her — same clothes, same tangled hair.
Except its movements were off. Too fluid. Like a memory reanimated.
It walked to the desk. Stared at the note.
Then it smiled.
Not kindly.
Knowingly.
Mary's heart thundered.
The mimic sat down in the chair, mimicking the pose she always used when she cried.
Head on arms.
Breathing steady.
Then it turned slightly… and looked straight at the closet.
Mary's lungs froze.
It couldn't see her.
Could it?
The camera was still rolling. She had to wait.
Another system alert pinged silently:
[Manifestation: 93% Complete]
[Hold Position.]
The mimic began to hum.
Soft. Familiar.
It was the same lullaby her mother used to sing when Mary had nightmares.
Her last gift before dying.
The mimic had dug deep for that.
Mary nearly broke then.
Then came the final phase.
The mimic stood.
It turned toward the covered hallway mirror.
Stared at the sheet like it could still see through it.
And then…
It began to bleed.
At first it was from its fingertips, dripping quietly onto the wood floor. Then from the eyes, the mouth, the ears.
The mimic didn't scream.
It laughed.
Because it wasn't the one bleeding.
Mary felt something hot drip onto her shoulder.
Her hand flew to it.
Wet. Sticky.
Blood.
She looked up.
And in the narrow gap above the closet—
A face stared back.
[Fear System Alert: THE ENTITY IS ALREADY INSIDE.]
The closet door flew open.
Mary screamed and kicked, flailing as hands — her own hands — tried to drag her out.
She slammed her elbow into the mimic's jaw. It stumbled.
Not enough.
It lunged again.
But this time—Mary was ready.
She triggered the motion sensor on her phone. Light flooded the room.
The camera flash popped.
The mimic shrieked, recoiling.
"Smile for the camera, you bastard," she growled, and shoved the mirror in its face.
The mimic froze.
For the first time, it looked afraid.
The mirror's surface shimmered.
Two Marys stared at each other.
One alive. One hollow.
The mimic began to glitch—skin blurring, eyes stuttering in and out of alignment, mouth opening and closing like a broken doll.
Mary whispered, "You can't be me. I already am."
And she smashed the mirror against its face.
The thing collapsed in on itself.
Not like a body, but like a memory unraveling.
It crumbled into smoke.
Gone.
Silence.
Then:
[Fear System Notification: ENTITY NEUTRALIZED]
[Objective Complete: The Trap]
[Reward: Increased Resistance to Psychological Intrusion]
[Arc Progress: 98%]
Mary fell to her knees, breath wheezing.
She laughed — too loud, too long.
The mimic was gone.
But something inside her whispered…
Not yet.
She turned to the camera. Stopped the recording.
When she replayed it, she saw everything.
The mimic bleeding. The mirror breaking. Her fight.
But in the final frame, just as the footage cut out—
There were two Marys still in the shot.
One crouched in the foreground.
And one standing just outside the window, smiling.
[Fear System Alert: PARADOX DETECTED]
[Warning: Residual Echo Detected in Subject's Mental Field]
[Initiating Final Sequence: "Gone"]