Seeing Double

Sunday nights were always slower at the Pickled Inn, which was why Sophia enjoyed working them. The regulars would stop in, keeping her entertained with small talk, and she could relax, taking her mind off reality.

By the end of her shift, only three men remained in the corner booth. They’d been there for hours, nursing their drinks in silence.

She began unloading glasses from the dishwasher beneath the bar, stacking them carefully on the shelf above. The clink of the glasses filled the quiet space, until a sharp, metallic sound broke her rhythm of glass and steam. Her ears caught it before her mind wanted to. The front door.

Locked.

Her body stiffened, though her hands kept moving, another glass lifted and stacked one after the other. Don’t react. Don’t let them see. Slowly, she tilted her head toward the mirror behind the bar.

She turned her head slightly toward the bar mirror to check behind her and watched one of the men walking back from the front door towards the opening of the bar rail. She glanced to the other side of the mirror, the other two men were already up and making their move to block her other exit. She stayed calm and continued to take the glasses out while trying to conceive an escape plan as quickly as possible.

“Can I get you boys anything else?” she asked, her voice steady, not daring to turn around. The floorboards shifted slightly near her exit, a heavy footstep threatening its presence. Sophia squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed hard. This is it.

Sophia forced her eyes open. In one swift motion she hurled a glass toward the sound and bolted for the staircase at the back of the bar. A large, callused hand clamped around her arm, yanking her down. Pain shot through her back as she hit the ground, pinned under his weight.

“P-please?” she managed to stammer out between breaths. “You can take the money, I swear to God, I won’t tell anyone. I never saw you—I never saw any of your faces.”

The three men loomed above her, grinning maliciously, like wolves closing in on their prey. Her stomach sank, and her blood went cold.

“Don’t play games with us, Olivia. You know exactly what we’re here for,” the man snarled. Sophia stared at him in confusion and horror.

Who is Olivia?

“I don’t know who you are or who Olivia is, but if you just leave now and take whatever, I’ll pretend I never saw any of you.”

The three men disregarded Sophia’s pleas.

“Scotty,” one of them called out, “call Edward. Tell him we found her.”

Sophia’s pulse spiked. She started flailing, attempting to escape the man’s tight grip.

And then the world exploded above her.

The windows blew inward, spraying shards across the bar. She scrambled upright, slipping on broken glass, disoriented, half-blind with adrenaline. Her ears were ringing. Over the bar she went, crashing to the floor on the other side. Sophia stumbled to the front door, clawing at the lock until it gave.

Her legs carried her in a wild sprint, further away from the men’s shouts in the distance. Around the corner, she ducked into a narrow alleyway, collapsing beside a dumpster, her chest heaving. Her hands shook so violently she could barely open her phone.

Megan. Help me.

She typed her roommate’s name with trembling thumbs, but before she could even finish, footsteps echoed in the distance, closing in on her hiding place.

Her breath snagged. She shut her phone off, pressed it against her chest, and curled into the shadows.

The footsteps abruptly stopped at the mouth of the alley. Sophia’s lungs burned from holding her breath. A figure emerged from the darkness and into the dim light, revealing a younger looking man.

She forced a desperate scream up her throat, but before the sound could escape, the figure’s hand clamped over her mouth.

“Stop it,” the stranger hissed in her ear. “I’m trying to save you.”

She thrashed at the man’s chest, panic shooting through her body. His grip only tightened. Sophia drove her heel back as hard as she could and connected with his stomach. He grunted and lost his grip on her as she tore free, disappearing deeper into the alley. In seconds he was on her again, tackling her to the ground.

“God, please,” she sobbed, her voice breaking. “Please don’t hurt me. Just let me go. I'm not Olivia or whoever you think I am, I swear”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the man said, his voice urgent but gentle. “I’m here to save you. I shot at those men back at the bar, the ones trying to kidnap you.”

“Who are you?” Sophia stammered, her voice still shaking.

“Thomas. Now, I’m going to let you up, but please stay here and let me explain everything to you. Got it?”

Sophia shook her head slowly in agreement. Thomas lifted himself off of her, keeping his eyes on her the entire time. He held out his hand. She hesitated, but accepted his help.

“What do you mean, explain everything?” Sophia asked.

“This is a lot to take in. Those men, they called you Olivia, right? The woman they were after, she isn’t you, but she looks like you. She’s your doppelgänger. An alternate reality has bled into this one.”

Sophia raised her eyes in disbelief and annoyance. “My doppelgänger?” This man is a lunatic, she thought. Maybe she was dead, or had hit her head and was imagining all of this.

His tone was flat. “It’s my job, as a multiverse keeper, to keep them apart. To keep the worlds in their places. Your doppelgänger, Olivia Engleswood, she doesn’t belong here, and I have to take her back. In her reality, she is wanted for treasonous crimes, and those men are after her.”

Her mouth opened, then closed again. She let out a shaky laugh. A multiverse keeper? Alternate realities? She must be dead.

She whispered, “Sir, is there someone I could call for you? You don’t sound alright.”

His eyes locked onto hers, steady but almost pleading.

“Sophia, listen. I know how insane this all sounds, and you have every reason not to believe me. Each reality isn’t supposed to know the other exists. But something has gone wrong. Your double, Olivia, figured out the other realities and escaped into yours.”

Her heart almost beat out of her chest. She wanted to scream and run, but his voice froze her in place.

“I know how to fix it,” he continued, low and urgent, “but we only have until sunrise. That gives us five hours before the time continuums start collapsing into each other. If that happens, both realities will be altered in ways we can’t undo.” Thomas’s jaw tightened as he looked off into the distance. “If we don’t find Olivia and the others who slipped through with her and send them back to where they belong, everything will unravel. All memory of you could be erased. Olivia could take your place permanently. You’d cease to exist.”

Sophia’s stomach lurched, cold fear flooding through her. Cease to exist. The words rang in her ears, impossible to grasp and yet carrying the weight of finality. She wanted to laugh in his face, to call him insane, to deny every word, but the sincerity in his voice, the raw urgency of his tone, made the laugh die in her throat.

“What do we do?”

“Olivia has probably already begun trying to fold herself into your world. That’s what they do. Doppelgängers aren’t just lookalikes, they’re mirrors. Even if they live separate lives in different realities, they’re tethered.”

Sophia began pacing, shaking her head. “That’s insane. You’re talking about magic? I don’t understand any of this.”

Thomas reached into his jacket pocket and revealed a simple looking pocket watch, but it was glowing faintly with shifting patterns of light on its surface. “All you need to know is when Olivia tore through, she left a wound between worlds. I have to reseal that tear at the exact moment it opened.” He turned the device in his palm, the lights shifting quicker. “This will let me turn time back to that instant and open the portal to her reality. It only works if we have her. If we don’t...”

“If we don’t?! You expect me to follow some crackpot with a glowing watch who just tackled me to the ground and practically shot at me? You better find her.”

Thomas arched a brow. “Would you like to go back to the bar with those three men? I’m sure they’d be thrilled to help.”

Her jaw clenched. He was infuriating. “Fine,” she muttered.

Sophia’s agreement had been thin, her voice brittle with disbelief, but she followed Thomas anyway. What choice did she have? His story was absurd… impossible. But those men at the bar were very real and adamant to capture Olivia, whoever she really was.

Now they were climbing the narrow stairway of her apartment building. The fluorescent lights buzzed above as they crept up the familiar stairwell to her apartment door.From the other side came voices, Megan’s bright, easy laugh, followed by another voice. Sophia froze like a deer in headlights. It was her own. Her first instinct was to charge in, to rip the imposter out by the hair. But just as she moved, Thomas’s hand clamped around her wrist.

“Don’t,” he whispered.

Sophia snapped her head toward him, eyes blazing. “That’s her. She’s in there with Megan!”

“And if you barge in,” he said firmly, “you make it worse. The more people who see a doppelgänger, the harder it is to repair the tear. We’re trying to limit contamination, not spread it.”

She jerked her arm free, whispering harshly. “So your plan is to just stand here? While she plays house with my roommate?”

Thomas rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw. “My plan is to keep the fabric of time from unraveling, that’s my job. So forgive me, Sophia, if that outranks your jealousy.”

“Clearly you’re not very good at your job, because this wouldn’t even be happening if you were,” Sophia muttered, partly to herself and partly to him.

They glared at each other, standing inches apart in the dim hallway, voices hushed but biting. His eyes burned into hers, his jaw was tight, his breath brushed her cheek. Before he could snap back, Sophia broke free of his grip and shoved the door open.

“Megan!” she gasped.

Her roommate froze on the couch, eyes filled with confusion, then darted between Sophia and the identical figure already standing in the center of the room. Olivia.

“What's going on?” Megan asked as she let out a nervous laugh.

“Megan, listen I know this looks insane just come here. I can explain it all, but she is not me!” Sophia cried, her voice ragged. “I’m me, Megan, it’s me!”

Sophia’s whole body shook as she stepped forward. “Megs, please. I know how this sounds, but she isn’t me. She’s from somewhere else, an alternate reality. You have to trust me. You have to come with us. Please.”

Olivia’s voice slid in, smooth and persuasive, almost gentle. “Megan, don’t listen to her. I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m here for you. Get behind me.” She reached her hand out to Megan with true sincerity on her face, seemingly fooling Megan.

Behind them, Thomas crept towards Olivia, his breath calm and controlled. In his hand, the pocket watch flickered faintly, its glow seeping through his grip. He inched closer, almost within arms reach of Olivia. As his thumb brushed the latch, Olivia's attention snapped towards him. Her eyes narrowed into black orbs, smearing her mask of calm.

In an instant, she lunged. Her hand seized Megan's head, dragging her foward. Before Sophia could even scream a blade flashed across Megan's neck. Megan’s body folded in on itself collapsing into the pool of blood forming on the ground.

“No!” Sophia’s cry ripped from her as she ran towards her lifeless roommate.

The pocket watch flared in Thomas’s grip, useless, its light flickering like a dying star. He was too late. Olivia’s wicked gaze locked with his before she spun toward the window. She vaulted herself through the opening, disappearing into the darkness.

Sophia’s legs gave out. She hit the floor hard, palms skidding through blood, fingers clawing at the rug as though she could pull Megan back to life.

Thomas dropped beside her, his arm wrapping around her as if he could hold her together while she shattered. “Sophia,” he rasped, voice unsteady, “I’m so sorry. I tried to stop her, I tried...”

She pressed her face into his chest, sobs muffled and endless, her body wracked with violent tremors. The room smelled of iron and perfume, the last trace of Megan still suspended in the air, clashing with the copper tang that clung to everything now. Sophia’s tears ran hot against Thomas’s shirt, darkening the fabric where her face buried itself.

“Please, tell me this is a nightmare,” she choked out. “It can’t be real. This can’t be happening.”

Thomas’s hand pressed against the back of her head, holding her steady as she fell apart in his arms. Sophia’s breath came in gasps, every sob stabbing deeper into her chest. Something unreal, almost supernatural, had shattered her reality, and now nothing in her life was untouched by it. Whether she believed in alternate universes or not, her reality was destroyed forever.