Chapter 6 - The Doppelgänger
Arthur staggered backward, his shoulder blades colliding with the sharp edge of the refrigerator. On the screen, the other Arthur stood motionless on the front porch, wearing the exact same blue shirt, his dark hair disheveled in the exact same way. The only difference was the expression: the man on the screen wore a wide, empty grin that stretched too far across his face, revealing teeth that looked entirely too sharp.
“That’s not me,” Arthur whispered, his voice trembling violently as he pointed up at the monitor. “That’s... what is that?”
“It’s the one from the fire,” Lily whispered softly, her small hand reaching out to pat Arthur’s knee. She didn’t seem scared anymore; her young mind seemed to accept the impossible horror with a tragic, chilling simplicity. “He wants his room back, Daddy.”
Elena covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide and bloodshot. “Arthur, the deed. The documents from the purchase. The lawyer said the previous owner died abroad, but... what if he didn’t?”
Before Arthur could answer, the security monitor flickered. The image of the porch vanished, replaced by a flurry of rapid-fire camera feeds cycling through every room in the house. The nursery, the master bedroom, the basement, the attic—all of them empty, all of them bathed in the same creeping gray shadow that had crawled down the stairs earlier.
Then, every light in the house flickered violently before going completely dark.
The sudden blackness was absolute, heavy, and suffocating. The only illumination came from the glowing green status light of the security hub on the wall and the faint, pale glow of the television screen, which now displayed a single, flashing word in bold red letters: RECORDING.
“Arthur?” Elena’s voice came from the dark, trembling and small. Her hand found his arm, gripping the fabric of his shirt so hard her knuckles ached. “Where are you?”
“I’m right here, El,” Arthur said, reaching out in the dark until his fingers brushed her silk blouse. He pulled her and Lily into a tight circle, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. “Stay close to me. Don’t let go.”
A low, mechanical hum vibrated through the floorboards beneath their feet, growing louder, turning into a sound like a heavy projector reel spinning up in an empty theater.
On the wall screen, the live feed flickered back on. It showed the dark kitchen they were standing in right now. But the camera was looking down from the ceiling corner, capturing something invisible to their naked eyes in the physical room.
In the infrared glow of the screen, three distinct thermal shapes stood in the dark kitchen. Arthur, Elena, and Lily. And standing right between Arthur and Elena, pressing its featureless face against the side of Arthur’s neck, was a fourth, glowing mass of pure, freezing cold.
May you like
A sharp breath of icy air brushed against Arthur’s ear, smelling of ash and old paper, and a hollow, rasping voice whispered softly in the dark: “Smile for the camera.”
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