A Collection of Short Stories

The Twin

 I've decided to share this because I don't know what else to do. I don't know of anyone who could offer help, so I thought sharing this here might gain me some insight on my problem. It started about three months ago, when I was at the mall with two of my friends. We were sitting in the food court, eating the cheap Chinese food we always get when out on a shopping trip. We weren't doing anything out of the ordinary. It was a normal Saturday afternoon, and the day was going like any other Saturday afternoon spent at the mall. I grabbed a chicken ball with my fork, popped it in my mouth, looked up over my friend's shoulder, and that's when I saw her. She was standing amongst the crowd, looking right at me. When I first saw her I did a double take, thinking I was looking into a mirror. But that obviously wasn't the case. The stranger just happened to look exactly like me.

I quickly signalled my friends and told them to look behind them at the girl, thinking it was the weirdest thing to find a person who looked identical to you. They turned their heads, in quite an obvious manner, and stared in the direction of the girl. She hadn't moved at all, and she continued to stand and look at me. It was the weirdest thing. After a moment of scanning the crowd, both my friends turned back to me, confused looks plastered on their faces. They hadn't seen her. Just when I was about to point right at her, I noticed that she was gone. I found that weird, seeing as just a second ago I was staring right at her. It was like she had just vanished into thin air. Both of my friends shrugged it off, one of them bringing up how there are apparently five other people who look just like you in the world. But I couldn't shake the weirdness of it. To begin with, looking at her felt like having an out of body experience, but the way she just stood there, staring, unsettled me even more. I decided to forget about the incident, guessing that she was probably just as shocked as me to see someone who looked exactly like her, and that was the reason behind the stare. But that was only the beginning.

In the next few weeks that followed, I began seeing my illegitimate twin everywhere. She was there when I took the dog for a walk, standing on the opposite side of the road. When I was at the store, I would catch glimpses of her in the isles as I walked past them. When my friends and I hung out at the mall, I would see her in various stores, always staring. Now I couldn't believe that her stare was because of our similar looks. It seemed like she was purposely looking for me, everywhere. Like she was following me around. I was completely freaked at this point. I had pointed her out many times to whoever was with me at the time of her sighting, but they never seemed to catch sight of her before she just disappeared.

After about a month of her being seen everywhere, I started to notice how she seemed to be getting closer every time I saw her. One day she would be across the street, the next she would be only about 15 feet behind me. With each day the distance between us shrunk, and the sightings increased. At the month and a half marker, I saw her every day.

You're probably wondering why I never bothered to confront her. I would assume most people would try to talk to someone they thought was following them, maybe to ask them why or to tell them to screw off. But I was too scared, up until the day I saw her standing outside my classroom window.

It was Thursday afternoon and I was sitting in my period 2 data class, when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I could tell someone had their eyes trained on me. I turned my head around and looked at my classmates sitting behind me. Almost none of them were looking in my direction, the majority were staring into space and not paying attention to what the teacher was saying. The intense gaze I felt being burned into the back of my head clearly wasn't coming from anyone behind me. I was just turning back around to face the front when I saw her at the window. She was just standing there, looking in to the window, eyes fixed on me. I jumped in my seat, causing two students to turn and look at me. I motioned to the window, but like always they didn't see anything there. After giving me a weird look they returned to their work, and I turned to look at the window again. She was still standing there, face pressed against the glass, still looking at me. For the first time, her expression had changed. It was no longer a look of hidden curiosity, but now a playful smirk that showed she knew they didn't see her. Did she duck down out of sight when she saw me motion to the window? I couldn't be sure, but that was the only logical explanation.

I've decided that I'm going to confront her the next time I see her. This is too weird, and I need to know what the hell is going on. I need to know why she keeps following me around, and why she looks exactly like me. I'll update you on what happens when I confront her. Hopefully this is just something stupid, maybe she's just trying to scare me. That's a little hard to believe now, though.