Doppelgänger

doppelgänger

By: Solara Mai

I breathed a long sigh and tipped back in my chair. This day couldn’t go by any slower. Every minute that went by felt like an eternity as I watched the hands on the clock move in slow motion. I never liked school anyways, everyone was just the same here. Everyone was a robotic and emotionless shell of a person. Nobody actually cared about each other. Everyone was fake. God I wanted to leave this rebarbative building. If I had it my way, I would leave this city behind and move out into the countryside, away from all of the hogwash that this city was infused with.

The bell rang its monotonous sound, beckoning all the students to their next class. Day after day all of us would follow the command of the bell, walking soullessly from class to class listening to dull and soulless lectures by the teachers. Waiting for the time to go by quicker. We were all trapped here in a continuous cycle but I seemed to be the only one to be opposed to it. This society had lost its heart and spirit, everyone was equivalent to a lifeless machine .

After school, I dragged my heavy body down the filthy alleyways. The air was polluted with smoke from nearby factories as workers worked inside as slaves to the machinery. If you ask me, this was just a step back into the past, instead of society evolving and moving forward we had gone back in time to the Industrial revolution.

Stepping inside my house which was located in the outskirts of the city, I breathed another long exasperated sigh. I lived with my aunt who had just given birth to triplets. I could hear them wailing and fighting with each other from a few rooms down. My aunt’s husband had left her a day before she gave birth, running off with some woman, leaving her to fend for herself. She was a small and feeble widow, she barely had any life left in her to take care of her children, let alone me. She lacked the vivacity that most women in her family exuded. I was told that my mother was quite gregarious and amiable in her youth, apparently there was nobody that she couldn’t get along with. Maybe that’s why my father loved her so much. Loved her too much. He drained and broke her in front of my eyes, stole the liveliness out of her till she was no more. When he realized what he had done he could not live with himself. That I did not blame him for, what I could never forgive him for was taking my mother with him. But that was then, I had given up living in the past ages ago.

“ Doyle, what were you doing last night out in the garden ? “

I turned to look at my aunt as she delicately lifted herself out of her rocking chair. Confused I replied ,

“ ma’am I am sorry but I cannot recall going into the garden last night, perhaps you saw Azael walking around drunk again”

She shook her head surprisingly firm and retorted,

“ No I am sure it was you, you were sitting by the fence in a ball slowly counting down the days of the week over and over again. You were muttering to yourself and rocking side to side. I would've gone over to check on you but Mallory, Persephone, and Deirdre started crying again so I had to tend to them . When I got back you were gone so I assumed you went back to your room.”

I looked at her bewildered. I was not sure what to make of what she said. I could not remember ever being in the garden. I never went to the garden, gardens were a favorite of my mothers’. I had been feeling lethargic and disoriented all day but I had blamed it on the migraine that had been going on all morning. Even with that, I couldn’t have been that disoriented to have wandered myself into the garden… Could I ?

“ I don’t remember this at all, I'm sorry…. Maybe I sleepwalked ? Are you sure you saw me? Maybe the dark lighting played a trick on you.”

My Aunt looked at me with wary eyes, she shrugged her shoulders and went back to her chair. If she had more energy she might’ve said something back. I threw my stuff by the kitchen window and headed to my second floor bedroom. The house wasn’t much but it was home for now. It was built very lean and had staircases weaving upwards on a steep hill.

My bedroom overlooked the small garden and the grimy city streets.The days were getting shorter and the sun had already started to set, giving an eccentric reddish purplish glow to my room. I looked beside my bed to see a green pot on the light stand with a small black flower growing out of it .It must’ve been the courtesy of my aunt. I sat down on my bed and stared out my window. I saw an owl fly towards my house and up over the roof. It was still quite early for an owl to be out. It must’ve been sick or something. With nothing better to do, I decided to go to sleep.

Sometime in the night I woke up to an eerie sound coming from the garden. My brain was still fuzzy as I reached for my alarm clock. 4:44am it read. Had I slept for that long ? I turned my head towards the window, where that ghostly sound was coming from.

“ Tuesday…..Wednesday…Thursday…Friday… Saturday… Sunday “

A voice repeated slowly. It was a strong but weak voice, it slurred every word, enunciating every letter and putting an emphasis on Sunday every time.Chills ran up my spine as I sat there, dumbfounded, not sure on what my next step should be. I slowly started creeping towards the windows when suddenly I heard that same owl from early that day screech… then everything went quiet. My eyes felt heavy and I collapsed to the ground.

I woke up with a jolt to hear yowling from the triplets. I was in my bed fully dressed in the clothes I wore yesterday. It had just been a dream, I thought to myself. I looked over at my pot to see that the flower had grown significantly. I hopped out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Every morning I had to force myself to go to the school and repeat its dull pattern but this morning I felt like I wanted to leave this house. I shaved my face and looked at my tired self in the mirror. I looked exhausted. I picked up my toothbrush from next to the razor and started brushing my teeth. My head felt fuzzy and I still had a steering headache. Everything around me was a blur of shapes and colors and I felt lost at sea.As I leaned over the sink to wash my mouth I froze, I looked at the counter to see my toothbrush still lying there untouched. Shakily I looked down into the palm of my head. In my fingers I held my razor. As I opened my mouth blood splurged out and I leaned over the sink letting it trickle down the drain. I was in shock. I had been out of it but I had not realized to the extent of how much.The razor in my hand was covered in blood and scraps of things I didn’t want to imagine were wedged between its blades. Gagging, I rinsed out my mouth and fumbled out of the bathroom.

Downstairs my aunt sat in her rocking chair once again, slowly rocking Deidre from side to side. I wiped my mouth to make sure there was no trace of blood there. Before I could utter any words my aunt looked at me with anger flashing in her eyes.

“ Now where do you think you're going, Doyle ? Sit down and explain yourself.”

Caught off guard, I tried to give her an answer but all I got out was a few words that even I could not decipher. My mouth was on fire.

“ I give you my home and food and this is how you treat me and my kids ? What if that darn ball had hit one of them ? And even more running away without apologizing, this behavior is unexceptable.”

“ I- I’m sorry I don’t ever remember trying to harm the girls. I would never. I have be- en in bed all ....”

I tried to stutter out a few more words but my mouth failed me.

“Oh no don’t you lie to me like that young man, you know damn well what you did. Taunting them from the window for hours, throwing things at them. What has gotten into you?”

I stood there not knowing how to reply. I had never seen my aunt so angry before. She actually looked alive.

“ I’m so-ory, I must get to scho-ol”

I spat out and ran out the door, not even bothering to get my stuff. I could hear my aunt’s voice from inside the house as I ran all the way to school.

There was nothing different at school. The same old repetitive days. Ravens screeched outside as the chilly breeze crept into the classroom. I pulled my fleece tighter to myself and shivered.

On the walk home, I took the long route through the factories of the city. I walked under bridges, ladders, and was pleasantly surprised by a beautiful rainbow in the sky to which a drunken man pointed at and made jokes that made no sense.Once I got home, I avoided my aunt and went upstairs to my room. My bed had been ruffled up, I guessed it was the girls. I lay around in my room till dinner doing nothing in particular.

Dinner was an awkward one. Neither my aunt or I made a sound as the girls crawled around on the floor.

“ Doyle please stop lurking around in the garden and by my windows at night, even knowing that it is you, it still gives me the creeps. The lighting gives you an awfully ghostly look.”

“ I’m sorry.”

I had nothing better to say. My poor aunt must’ve been hallucinating, I could do nothing to help her.

That night I had that exact same dream as the night before. That’s what I told myself anyway. The dream felt so real. I went to my window hearing that voice again. Tonight it counted “Wednesday…Thursday…Friday… Saturday… Sunday “ over and over again in that ghostly manner. When I woke up, I had been sitting by the window sill in a curled up ball. I was shaking. It felt too real this time.

When I left for school, I ran into Azael who looked at me and screamed. He screamed at me to stop lurking around his house at nighttime and ran away from me.I was left dumbfounded unclear what to do. The events of the last few days were starting to creep me out.

At school, everyone seemed to avoid me more than usual. I could hear people whispering and chattering about me. I had always been an anomaly within this dull, draconian society. With these lurking rumors I could hear people whispering, my reputation ( That which I had somehow maintained over the last 24 hours ) was seemingly dreadful. I was on edge all day and even threw a punch at a teacher again, which of course ended with severe punishment and even more exacerbated my reputation.

On the days that followed, I kept having that same reoccurring dream. Every night, the voice would count down the days of the week , every night taking away one day. It had come to the point where last night it was only counting three days of the week. I had a lurking suspicion that once that voice hit Sunday, something bad would happen. Every night I would get closer to seeing who the owner of that voice was. Every time I got close, I would wake up.The voice seemed so familiar to me but I could not pinpoint whose voice it was.

Everyday I would get injured. I never did it on purpose of course, everything seemed to keep happening to me. I was never a clumsy kid or anything. I would be told by my aunt everyday about things I had never done but she had seen me do. My migraine was getting worse everyday and no pill was helping . It was a phenomenon that I still had the strength to keep myself upright.

Friday morning I woke up to the bathroom mirror shattering. My aunt blamed me for it of course, I tried to explain to her that I was in bed sleeping when it took place but she did not take my word for it. I surmised that it must’ve been a neighbor or a drunk man playing tricks on people . Or maybe everyone was going insane. Either way my life is a blur.

I dreaded going to sleep.Every night I would hear that voice, I would get closer and closer to it but everytime I would be awoken. It was calling to me, telling me something. I kept telling myself that it was just a dream but I knew that it wasn’t. I had a feeling, a bad feeling. In another world I might’ve tried to protect myself, fight to live.

When Saturday night finally came around, I took a knife from the kitchen and left it by my light stand. I felt safer that way. My plant had been growing steadily on the light stand throughout the last few days. It seemed to be the only thing that seemed alive. I have not gone to school in the last few days. I could not face the dead students . I felt empty inside.

When I woke up It was 4:44am like every other night . I couldn’t hear anyone outside. Slowly I picked up my knife and looked towards the window. What I saw made me cover my mouth, holding in a scream. By the window a figure stood. I could not see its face but I could see a wide smile creeping across its face . It was rocking side to side singing a lullaby my mother used to sing. I lunged towards it with my knife out. The figure did not move but only smiled at me. In those moments everything in me wanted to recoil. I didn’t want to die, something inside me screamed. I thrusted my knife into the figure. The silence that followed was agonizing . I gagged and spat out blood. Shakily, I looked into the palm of my hands to see both my hands clasped around my small pot and plant . I looked down to my stomach to see the knife logged deep in, my hand clasped around the knife. I fell to the ground bleeding and looked up at myself.He smiled back at me.