I am reaching for a box of mac ‘n’ cheese when the hair on my arms stands up straight. She is here; she must be. I stop, look over my left shoulder, and nothing but normal strangers roaming Kroger. I slowly look over to my right, and there she is standing at the end of the aisle; my doppelgänger. Instead of disappearing out of sight like every normal. She motions for me to follow her. She turns and walks towards the back of the store. ​Should I follow? I have been wanting to ask this woman who she was since I first spotted here over a year ago while I was walking down my street. See the thing about this woman is she looks exactly like me. Same hair color, eye color, nose, everything, right down to the scar above my eyebrow from my brother. ​Now standing in Kroger with Mac ‘n’ Cheese in my hand, I made a decision, which seems entirely too reckless for me, I followed. Abandoning my shopping cart, I headed in the same direction. I rounded the corner of the aisle and saw her duck into the back. ​I entered the back room and looked around the area confused by its emptiness. Where had she gone? I wasn’t that far behind, she couldn’t have gone – ​“Come with me now,” ​This woman has grabbed my arm and started to drag me further into the back of the store. ​“Who are you? Where are we going?” ​She said nothing and kept dragging me towards the back exit sign. I pulled back trying to remove myself from her grasp, but was unsuccessful. She pulled me through the exit into the ally behind the store. We continued along the alley until we reached sleek black SUV. ​“Get in, hurry!” ​I hopped into the back of the SUV and the other me went around to the passenger side. There was a man in a black suit in the driver seat. ​“Nice to finally meet you, Ms. Blackwood. Sad it has to be under these circumstances.” ​“What circumstances? What is happening? And for the love of God please tell me who you are,” my curiosity had be overthrown by frustration at this point and I needed answers. My other self turns in her seat to finally look at me. ​“We are from Reality 3. It’s another form of your reality, but with a different timeline. I am also Lucy Blackwood, and I am trying to save us. Someone has placed a hit on you from another Reality which includes all of us. We need to collect the rest of us and fight for safety. You were part of the next Reality being targeted.” ​Before I could respond, the Kroger behind us burst into flames.

I looked back behind me and the girl was staring intently. She had the same broken face and dirty blonde hair falling long past her shoulders. I ignored it and walked away without looking back all the way until I got to the top of the hill. I looked back and she was gone.

A few months later, I was walking down the lane my hands brushing up against the foliage on the road side. I looked over the surrounding fields. The sun made it hard to see very far so I concentrated on the path. Something in my peripheral distracted me. I looked over to the field again, and Altair jumped out of my skin. The girl was back. We stared each other down for a moment and I finally managed to blink, but when I opened my eyes she was gone. The only way in and out of the field was via the road and she had just disappeared like that.

A week later, I was looking out of my window onto the hills and mountains when something caught my eye the girl. This time I knew I had not imagined her up. She was wearing a green floral dress with a pearl bracelet, and as I looked down at myself I jumped up from the windowsill. I was wearing the same floral dress and pearl bracelet. I ran down the wooden steps and flew out the front door and ran to where she was stood. She was gone again. I turned to look around but no trace or her at all.

I felt a tap on my shoulder which made me jolt backwards. She was there stood in front of me, but where had she come from. “Hello Ellie” she said in my voice. I was startled to see she had the same voice as me. “Erm hello..?” “My name is Anna” “What is your business here and why do you look like the mirror image of me it’s very unnerving” “Because I’m you Ellie I am you” I nervously laughed and took a small step backwards away from her, but she took the same step towards me. “What do you want with me?” I said shaking in fear. “I don’t want anything with you Ellie but there is something you would see”. She gestured to a gate that lead onto the farm outback. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you explain yourself” I breathed cautiously retreating slowly to my front door. “Ellie you need to see” she walked up to me staring me down like a hawk. “It will explain everything about your past” “There is nothing I need explaining thank you” I said and ran back into my house and slammed the door shut

I could hear her pounding on the door. I was desperately trying to keep the door closed but with every bash she made I felt even more powerless. I shrunk to the floor as the door fell open. Then darkness

It happened about a month ago. I was walking down the street when I saw her. It was like looking into a mirror, she looked exactly like me. Seriously from the color of her eyes to the shape of her face we looked exactly the same. I was pretty freaked out and ran away. The next day when I showed up to school she was there. Everyone was confused, they were probably thinking "Why the Hell is there two of them." I soon learned that her name was Jesica. I avoided Jesica at all chances but could not help noticing that she would always watch me. She would literally stare at me with out blinking or anything. Anyways she just stoped me on my way home. She raised her arm to show a knife. "Oh SHIT!" I thought. "You need to go." She told me. I then proceeded to run like a bat from hell. Note, Ya'll get to decide how this one ends. I hope everyone is doing okay.

Eyes. Everytime she’s near I feel her eyes. Preying on me. Tracking me. Waiting for the right moment to pounce.

I take a deep breathe. Bracing myself for the unavoidable confrontation. It never gets easier, seeing your own face, looking into your own eyes.

Finally I make a quick turn on my heal and slam my reflection in the nearest wall. Digging my finger nails into her shoulders. Or is it my shoulders? It still confuses me. I shake the thought from my head as I practically scream in her face. “What do you what from me!”

“You know what I want” she replies, unamused, bored even. We’ve been through this a thousand times and yet still I refuse her command.

“I will not kill him.” I mean to shout but it comes out a whisper. Quiet, weak, desperate.

“I can not kill my brother” I tell her and myself. “I can’t and I won’t. “

“Think of all of the people that will die if you refuse to do it. Why save one and sacrifice millions in the process”. Now she is the desperate one.

“Because he is my brother. My family. The only family I have, we have. And you want me to kill him.”

All she can do is roll her eyes. “Don’t you get it? He’s not our brother. He’s not the one we love. He’s evil, wicked, an animal that needs to be put down.”

I jam forearm into her throat. “DO NOT say that about him. Not now, not ever. I can help him. You failed but I will not. I will be the one to save him. Do you ever think that maybe he knew that you would kill him and that’s the reason he’s became the monster that you say?”

She grabs my shoulders and before I can process what’s happening we’re switched and I’m the one against the wall. “You seriously don’t think that I tried to save him? I was foolish as you are now, and I thought I could help him. I was wrong.”

Her eyes glisten with unshed tears, she’s telling the truth and I know it. I shove her off of me. “Please don’t contact me again. I will consider what you say, but I need to make this decision on my own.

She stares at me, unmoving. She finally nods, uncertain. “I hope you make the right choice, for all of our sakes.”

It’s the last thing she says to me before she turns to walk away. Leaving as quickly as she came.

She smiles with my mouth and laughs with my voice, ringing through the springtime air. I am cloaked by the velvet darkness of shadow, but assorted trees cast a dappled light across her face. My face. I don’t think she knows I am here. I watch, intrigued. For though externally we are identical, this stranger is not me and I am not her. She smiles and laugh, just because this mucky excuse for a park, littered with smashed beer bottles and cigarette butts, is beautiful in her rose tinted gaze; and yet I rarely leave the safe confinements of my abode, for terror of the outdoors world. Sunlight burned my skin. Conversation pickled my brain. She the first reason I had ventured outside in over a year, because she was me, but better, more positive and cheerful. She made me realise what I could be. But I shrivelled

“Sophie, Sophie!” My friend Jem exclaimed, interrupting our enriching conversation regarding prostates and male G-spots. “Yes?” I said. “That girl looks EXACTLY like you. Look!” All four of us turned around in our seats. We were in a central London Weather Spoons for a catch up.

“Omg, she so, so does” gawked Ella. “That is weird”. I scanned the busy room and finally spotted my twin at the bar, ordering a pint of Guinness (my exact drink of choice)! “Go and get her Soph” slurred Pheobe, who had already ordered her second bottle of wine. “She could be our new best friend. Hehe.” They all looked at me expectantly.

“No. No. No Way. I never wanted a twin. I’mmmm the only Sophie in the village.” Pheobe hiccuped and grabbed some ice from the wine bucket to top up her glass. “What were you saying about your ‘experiment gone wrong’, Jem?” I swiftly brought their attention back to bedroom antics before they invited the poor girl over. Pheobe snorted. “Oh yeah, so what happened was...”

I glanced at her a couple of times throughout the rest of the night. It was fascinating. Is that what I really look like? I looked at myself on my phone screensaver and compared it to my doppelgänger. I wondered what her parents look like and if we would get on. We left the bar and I turned to look at her one last time but she was gone.

A year later and I’m back here in the same weather spoons with work this time. A few of us decided to grab a well deserved wind-down pint before heading home. We walk towards the bar and I slow down, distracted. A man was shouting my name. “Sophie! Sophie”. I keep walking while scouring the crowd trying to find a familiar face. My journey came to a halt as I bumped into a couple embracing. “Oops, so sorry” I said. “No problem” muttered a tanned Enrique Iglesias type guy, before he turned back to face his girlfriend.

I didn’t start walking again. His girlfriend was my look alike! That one, that time with the girls - the one Jem pointed out. This time I didn’t take my eyes off her. She was my exact copy. Same height, same smile, same fashion sense. And same name?! “Sophie” the Spanish man cooed. “I’ve missed you, my darling”.

I stared open mouthed like a blobfish until it became awkward. “Can I help you?” Said the shmoozy Spaniard. “I’m sorry, do you not think me and her look, like, really similar? Sorry to interrupt you both I’m just spooked.” I turn to Sophie two. “Hi, Sophie isn’t it? My names Sophie too. I just can’t believe how similar we look!”

She looked at me, horrified. She grabbed my elbow and marched me over to the corner of the room. Her head bowed and her eyes furrowed. I just let her guide me like a limp rabbit shocked into submission.

Every day in London, even on just a single, smoky morning, I saw thousands and thousands of people, huffing and puffing in their pinstripe suits, colliding furiously with ambling tourists.

My daily journey involved two different tubes, each woven with an intricate tapestry of people.

One bitterly cold November morning, I stood shivering on the platform, struggling to stay above the surface in the torrent of the treacherous crowd. I stood solidly and gazed ahead, waiting for those three endless minutes to pass until I could be enveloped in the polluted warmth of the juddering Jubilee line.

Finally, the train appeared, packed to the brim full of people. I politely stepped aside, while others, like warriors preparing for battle, got ready to launch themselves onto the carriages.

When the doors slid open, I watched the rows and rows of feet shuffle off, until I saw a pair of black, shining Doc Martens that caught my attention. They certainly won against my own scuffed, worn docs, unrivalled. My eyes travelled up her long slender body, wrapped up warmly in a mustard yellow coat, until I caught sight of her (...my?!) face.

My heart seized in my chest, pulling the reigns down hard on my airways.

The oddest sensation clutched me, as I looked hard at her in disbelief.

It was as though I had caught my reflection in a shop window. She had my pale blue eyes, golden spectacles and a blaze of red hair pulled tight into a braid at the nape of her neck.

I blinked, shook my head slightly and looked again. It was too late. She was lost in the sea of commuters.

For the rest of that journey, I sat staring out of the window, frozen in terror.

Who on earth was she? How could it even be possible?

I felt too astonished to tell a soul - and so my life went on.

Only, now, I was always on the lookout.

Some days, I caught a glimpse of the fierce shade of firey hair racing ahead of me in the crowd. Or sometimes my heart almost shattered in my chest, when staring out of the window, I saw my own eyes staring back at me.

Somehow, a year had passed, and spotting her a few times a week became a strange version of normal.

No one would believe me.

The following November, I stood, as I always did, waiting, for the train home. I had stayed late at the office, and the platform was eerily empty.

Darkness had settled like a thick cloak over the sky, and the cold wind hissed in my frozen ears.

“Emma.” A voice said, in a tone start sounded so startlingly like my own, I span around.

It was me. I mean, it was her.

“It’s my time.” She said as I heard the approaching roar of the train.

“F-for what?”

“To be you.” She smiled - my smile, and gave my trembling body a sudden, violent shove towards the tracks.

Who may he be ? Friend or foe, let’s at least get to know him though. Although despite him being rather suspicious, I did my best to create a friendly conversation. “Hello?” “oh hey.” “Look man, Do I know you ?” “No , But I know you .” “A little too well.” “Oh oh what do you mean?” “You’ve perfected my everything, you have perfected your imitation of my walk, my talk, my causality, my social abilities, my personality.” “Yes, I have.” “You’ve hung out with my friends, You’ve hung out with my family and neither noticed the difference.” “I’m surprised you let that happen.” “What do you mean surprised!? I have a job.” “Oh yes your job, I got some work there too.” “But you don’t get paid. The boss has my credentials.” “Are you sure those are still yours though ?” “What?” “The bank manager trusts you too much, and she didn’t even ask for my identification papers.” “Oh wow, man. Why you gotta do this to me? “I got asked to blend in with your life from the government.” “ wouldn’t you become my best friend or someone else close instead?” “No. We already have a man there. His name is Bill.” “BILL?! What!? I can’t believe this!” “Hah, I’ll take everything away from you.”

“you’re not going to take the last part of my life away from me though!” Unfortunately, just as I said that , my new Girlfriend opened the door and had walked into the room and came across us both.

His green eyes flashed at me in passing, it could have been a mirror or perhaps a revolving door - but as the flood of first years pushed through the sticky plastic stairway to tutorial I had no opportunity for a second take. The topic had been Descartes and his rather imprudent treatment of his cat. The astonishingly boring French philosopher had pitched his feline companion against a wall under the pretense that it was not an intelligent being such as himself and could therefore be deemed “dumb matter”. I hesitated to join the discussion and then balked at the prospect of being shot down by my seeming omnipotent professor. There was a certain violence involved in making your voice heard. I thought back to the face in the crowd from earlier. There was something there, I don’t think I’d met him before but couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to speak with him. During the brief recess given halfway through tutorial I stalked out to the washroom to be alone with my thought, it was always so awkward pretending I was a part of one of the class subgroups I never knew which to choose really. And should I switch between groups or stick with one in the hope of gradual integration? It seemed if something was going to happen it would have by now. That’s how I am with people, there is either a presence or an absence - though I don’t think I’d ever considered throwing one of my peers against a wall, I did feel like there was one.

My eyes were a dim grey-green today, they seemed to change with the season but this huge seemed particularly dull. Rinsing my hands in the sink followed by my face I contemplated whether or not there would be a line for coffee. I didn’t mind the recess lineup actually, I felt more myself in crowds. There was no concern about being alone or about deciding what to say or where to look, it was all determined by the undifferentiated bumbling of the mass. When things were busy at the cafe there was no space for pauses of empty space or “small talk”, the baristas dashed around to perform the orders like a well oiled machine. Pushing open the heavy basement doors to the cafe, laden with old hunks of painted iron, I saw a sparsely distributed trio hanging off the display case barrier. I sighed and began to turn around when I saw him in the back corner - He smiled and I decided to move towards him for some reason. He shifted his body as I approached him in a manner that suggested intimacy. I reached out to shake his hand under some false pretense that we had already met. He clasped my hand firmly, but pulled me gently towards himself in an over the shoulder one armed hug. I shakily reciprocated the gesture in calm disbelief.

“I’ve been meaning to see you...” he seemed to whisper

Today, I woke up at around 11am. My body felt tied and I had a dry mouth. I got out of the bed sluggishly. I entered the bathroom to brush my teeth. After doing that, I went downstairs to have breakfast. I poured milk over a handful of ‘malt’ cereal. I added some protein power to this. I then left the kitchen. I entered the dining room, sat on the sofa and turned the TV on. I started eating my cereal whilst sticking through Netflix.