It sat there, screen flickering in the dark like a dying heartbeat. My reflection — or whatever was pretending to be my reflection — still smiled at me from the black glass.
It wasn’t a human smile. It was too wide, too stretched, like my skin wasn’t built to hold that expression.
I stared at it, frozen. My mind screamed for me to run, to throw the phone, to do something. But my body wouldn’t listen.
The reflection blinked. Slowly.
I didn’t.
Then it spoke — not from the phone, but from somewhere in the room.
"You’ve been asleep a long time.”
My throat tightened. My voice barely came out. “I’m awake.”
The reflection tilted its head. “Are you?”
The room felt wrong again, like the walls weren’t quite real, like the air was too thick to breathe. I forced myself to move, to stand up. My legs shook under me, but I stayed up.
I reached for the light switch. The moment my hand touched it, the room changed.
It wasn’t my bedroom anymore.
The walls were too tall, too narrow. The floor was cold, black stone. A hallway stretched ahead of me — long, endless, with doors lining both sides.
All the doors were slightly open. And from inside each one, I heard whispers. My voice. My laugh. My screams.
I spun around. The phone was gone. My bed was gone. My room was gone.
The only thing behind me was another door.
Wide open.
And standing in the doorway was him.
The other me.
He didn’t smile this time. His head tilted slowly, watching me.
“They didn’t wake up either,” he said, voice low and empty. “None of them do.”
My chest tightened. My heart raced.
“What do you mean?” I demanded, my voice shaking.
He took a step forward.
“You’re not the first me. You won’t be the last.”
The whispers from the doors grew louder.
I stepped back. “I’m real. I’m still me.”
He smiled again — that horrible, too-wide grin.
“That’s what they all said.”
The doors slammed open all at once.
And from each one, someone stepped out.
They all looked like me.
But their eyes were wrong. Their faces were wrong. Like they’d been worn too long, stretched too thin. Some had hollow sockets where their eyes should be. Some had mouths sewn shut. Some didn’t have faces at all.
They stared at me in silence.
And then, in perfect unison, they spoke with my voice.
“It’s your turn now.”
The hallway lurched, tilting sideways. The floor fell out from under me.
And I was falling — but I wasn’t screaming. The other me was.
The last thing I heard before everything went black was his voice, echoing from the hallway above.
The Stranger Who Wore My Face 10