The Doppelganger Files                                                                                                                                                        Invasion

Footprints painted in blood walked on the rug, a woman’s body is laying in the kitchen and there’s a knife in the sink.

"I don’t understand what’s going on". Her voice was desperate in the last moments of her life; such strange last words you would think that she would have wanted to say something more poetic at the end of her life. Her killer thought as they drag the dead body into the bathtub. A liquid compound was poured onto it and white fumes rose in the air as the everything of that person melted and was eventually washed down the drain. An acidic bath is the most effective way to get rid of the evidence... well it’s not like anyone would miss her anyway.

A family of four sat at the table for dinner; their two children at ages three were busy fighting over we gets the last piece of meat. A smile adorns the man’s face as he looked at his wife,

"Hun, you’ve really outdone yourself with this meal".  He said, appreciation glinting in his gaze. The woman smiled back at him he said,

"I glad you like it". A little giggle escaping her lips as she did.

She looks just like his wife, she smiles just like her and her voice is the same but actually, this is the first time he had ever met this woman.

Later that night – with the children asleep and the lights off; his wife climb on top of him and they made love. The pleasure that she’s giving him is like nothing he had ever felt in the years of their marriage together.  He can’t help but asked what has gotten into her since she had not the one to inmate anything sexual between them for a long time now. Of course, it wasn’t as if he was complaining.

Breathless and panting they both lay on their backs, looking up at the ceiling. He was about to say something to his wife when his attention was the focus on a mark on her shoulder that he has never seen before. Turning her head, her ebony mane easily covered the mark.

"Where did you get that?" the man asked, his fingers brushing her hair out of the way to uncover the object of his question.

"What are you talking about?"  She asked innocently.

But when he pushed back her soft hair to indicate what he was talking about it was gone.  

"There was a mark on her right shoulder just a second ago". He explained feeling a bit embarrassed.  Was he seeing things? He wondered to himself. The woman beside him grins in the dim light.

"May I push you so far after work" she brushed her lips against his once more.

"I don’t mind really".  He quickly said and laughed. As the night grew older they continued. What man wouldn’t be happy to have a wife like this one?  

As the says drawled on the man was beginning to notice that something was definitely different about her as he suspected at first. How can she forget her own children’s name or call them ‘you’, how can she not know about the details of the neighbor’s party when she was the one organizing it? These questions popped into his head and he wants to ask them but somehow he can never get to sit down and talk with her.  It was like she was a different person altogether but that would be crazy, he chided himself thoughtfully. Maybe she was just tired and needed some rest.

The night came and the man turns over only to find that the spot where his wife should be is cold and empty.  Curious where she would have gone to, he got up looking for her, wondering about the reason she would have to be up this late. At the end of the passage, in the living room, a small light spilled onto the walls, there were two shadows there, they whispered barely broke the silence in the house and immediately an alarm went off in his head.

Did someone break in? But the alarm system did trip. Reaching for a baseball bat he crept cautiously to the area where the shadowy figures were but now he could only see one on the wall. What is going on? The man wondered, eyes darting around.

Suddenly his movement was restricted by something, he wasn’t sure what it was as he looked down and saw nothing, a hand was over his mouth preventing the cry for help in the help from sounding. He dropped the bat and his attract dragged him into the living room, throwing him into a chair with such easy as if he was a doll.  Whatever it was on they used to tie him up it was stopping him of his strength, constricting like a snake around his body; it wound tighter the more he struggled. The man thought that this couldn’t get any worst; the event that has to happen already was strange and alarming enough but when he looked at his attacker nothing could have prepared him for what he was looking at.

The phrase- what the fuck? Came to mind when the light revealed his wife standing comfortably beside himself only he was tied up in a chair looking at his imposter. There was another way to put it since he didn’t have a twice as far as he knew. He stared at the man, staring back at him. It could have been a mirror, his own reflection; only your reflection wasn’t supposed to be moving on its own. He wanted to say something, to understand what was going on but the constricting force around him made it difficult to breathe so speaking was next to impossible

The copy of himself come close to him, he even had his voice. "I know", he began, "it’s a lot to take in right now and for you, it might be a long time before you understand what is really going on". The imposter smirk slyly. "But don’t think about it too much because where you’re going that’s going to be insignificant. His grin was just like his only move sinister, there was something dark about him.  The man narrowed his eyes at the imposter, it was all that he could do to convey what he was feeling at the moment when he turns his neck to look at his ‘wife’.

"Don’t look at her, you already had your fun, now it’s my turn". The imposter said before kissing the woman. "And don’t worry about your children, I’m sure they’ll have a better time with me than you. So with that said I relieve you of your fatherly duties".

The woman came over to him and leaned down to his ear. "You wife didn’t deserve to live this life so I had to remove her from it indefinitely if she was as cooperative as you were when she could have lived".

Sorrow and pain flood his senses. His real wife was killed and he has been sleeping with a stranger for the past few weeks and their children- what will happen to them, what will they do to him? His thoughts stopped there as the constriction around his body because even more unbearable. He cried out, he was being crushed, his chest felt like there was a hold in the center of it expanding by the second.

No matter how much he tried there was no sound coming from him.

"Oh, I see that you finally notice that something was wrong." His imposter said confidently. "You can’t speak but you’re thinking it’s because of the constriction caused by the time gate I strapped onto you when I grabbed you earlier but it’s not the only reason". The impostor explained. "You will never make another sound in this world ever again because in a few minutes you will no longer exist in this dimension".

The man’s eyes grew like saucer when he heard that an imposter’s creepy smile stretched to a full on beam, splitting his face from ear to ear. "Look down". He said. "You’ll that you are already fading away.

The man glanced down as much as he could to discover the horror of the truth that his imposter stated. His legs and hands were now transparent. He did more screaming and a few curses fell from his lips but it when unheard and he was powerless to stop what happens to him.

A pair of eye watched what was happening in the living room completely confused why he was seeing two of his fathers but he didn’t dare move or make a sound from his hiding place. He was terrified of what he was looking at the light coming from his father’s chest who is sitting in the chair. It started out dimly and then its intensity was so great that the boy was momently blinded. When he recovered and looked at the same spot he’d disappeared.  The little boy dashed to his room hoping that this was all just a nightmare that he would wake up from any moment now.

The impact with the solid ground from the fall was not what alerted the man but the strange trembling of the walls around him. before he could register the pain he was feeling in his head and the rest of him, the loud boom sound going off all over the place and apparently coming closer to his location is what got his attention then came the eerie streams of light. He looked around and notice that he was laying on the carpet in his living room through the place was dark, it was hard not to distinguish those walls even in the terrible condition that they were right now. It looked like the house when through a train wreck. His first thoughts were in his family and he tried to get up but his legs feel like they have been twisted to the point of uselessness.

"Was it all a dream?"  No, dreams were pleasant this was something else.  He added thoughtfully as he crawled to the doorway and hooked his arm on the nearest solid object he could see and then peer through the glass.  In every direction, there was black smoke from burning buildings, strange sound of screams that howl through like a curse and eerie lights that caused him to duck his head in, unsure of what to think. He rolled himself and called out to his sons as best as he could.

"Michael! Jake!" but there was nothing, no one here but himself. Here? Where is here? He was sure that he wasn’t really home; the memory of what just happened still fresh in his mind and with the pain he called for his wife.

"Kate!"  But what was he expecting, she was gone, they all were.

Shakily he got to his feet using on the object at a time to get his destination and when he was finally outside, he slumps on the steps from the sight before him.

"Where am I?" he asked softly.