In My Shadow

Elliot sat in his usual seat on the subway, the one near the doors where he could lean his head against the cold window. The rhythmic clacking of the tracks always helped him escape his thoughts for a few moments, a brief reprieve from the monotony of his days. The train rocked back and forth, lulling him into a near-daze.

As the train slowed at the next station, Elliot glanced up and saw the doors slide open. That’s when he noticed him, the man at the far end of the car.

At first, Elliot thought nothing of it. Another face in the crowd, another stranger lost in the shuffle of their daily commute. But as his eyes lingered, unease prickled the back of his neck. The man looked familiar. Too familiar.

Elliot squinted, his gaze narrowing in on the stranger’s features, the sharp jawline, the slight crook of the nose, the mess of dark hair that fell into his eyes. It wasn’t just familiar. It was his face. His face, but older. Worn. A few lines etched deep around the mouth and eyes, like the man had lived just a little harder, a little longer.

A chill rippled through Elliot, settling low in his stomach. He quickly averted his eyes, staring down at his hands as if they'd offer some explanation. Just a coincidence, he thought, forcing himself to breathe steadily. People looked like each other all the time, right? Doppelgängers, genetic quirks, whatever.

The train lurched forward again, and Elliot clenched his fists, staring out the window. But the reflection was there too, faint in the glass. The man’s image overlaid on his own, their faces merging as if the universe was playing some cruel joke.

He glanced back, trying to catch another look at the stranger, but the man was gone.

The next time Elliot saw him was two days later. The morning had already been soured by a conversation with his boss, a relentless reminder that Elliot was on the verge of losing his job if he didn’t pick up the pace. He walked into the coffee shop, his mind buzzing with all the things left undone. The barista handed him his usual, black coffee, just how he liked it. As he turned to leave, he froze.

There, sitting by the window, was the same man.

Elliot felt his stomach twist. This time, he couldn’t brush it off. The man was dressed in a faded coat, his hands clasped around a mug, staring out at the busy street like he didn’t have a care in the world. But it was him. It was Elliot’s face, his own reflection staring back at him, but older. Only more worn.

The man’s eyes flicked over to him. Their gazes locked.

Elliot’s heart leapt into his throat. He fumbled with his coffee, nearly spilling it. He didn’t move for what felt like an eternity, until the man’s lips curled into a knowing smile, just a small, unsettling smirk. And then, he turned back to the window, as if dismissing Elliot entirely.

Elliot backed away, bumping into a chair as he stumbled out of the café. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he glanced back one last time before slipping out the door.

The man didn’t follow. But the smile stuck with him, like a crack had opened, and no matter how hard Elliot tried to seal it, he knew it was there.

Elliot couldn’t shake the encounter from his mind. The man’s face, his face, kept creeping into his thoughts like a splinter lodged too deep to pull out. At first, he tried to rationalize it. Like he had seen him before, somewhere, and his brain’s just messing with him. But as the days passed, his attempts to reason it away became weaker, the gnawing sense of dread sinking its teeth deeper.

The city was too big for this to be anything other than chance. Yet, as Elliot wandered through his day-to-day life, he found himself scanning every crowd, every sidewalk, every subway car for that man. He didn't even know why. Part of him wanted to see him again. Another part hoped he never would.

But it didn’t take long before the man found him.

It was late, too late to be wandering around aimlessly, but Elliot couldn’t stay in his apartment any longer. His thoughts had become too loud, the walls closing in on him, the questions swirling like a storm he couldn’t control. So, he walked. The streets were mostly empty, save for the occasional group of late-night revelers or the distant hum of a passing car.

That’s when he saw him.

Standing across the street, under a flickering streetlamp, was the man. Same worn coat, same expressionless face, only this time, he wasn’t smiling.

Elliot froze mid-step, the hair on his arms standing on end. The man just stared at him, as if waiting for something. As if daring Elliot to make the first move.

Without thinking, Elliot stepped off the curb, crossing the street before he could convince himself otherwise. His heart pounded in his chest, and his mind raced with a thousand thoughts, none of them coherent. He had no plan, no idea what he’d say, but the need to know, to understand, was overpowering.

The man watched him approach, his face unreadable, until Elliot was standing just a few feet away.

“Who are you?” Elliot blurted, his voice trembling more than he would have liked. “Why do you…why do you look like me?”

The man tilted his head slightly, as if amused by the question. His eyes, sharp and calculating, seemed to study Elliot for a long moment before he finally spoke.

“You really don’t know, do you?” the man said, his voice low and steady. “I was wondering when you’d figure it out.”

Elliot’s heart skipped a beat. “Figure what out?”

The man gave a soft, humorless chuckle. “We’re connected, you and me. More than you realize. More than you could ever understand.”

Elliot took a step back, his head spinning. Connected? The word made no sense, but something in the man’s voice sent a chill down his spine. “I don’t…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, but you will.” The man’s smile returned, colder this time. “Soon.”

Elliot opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, the man turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadows of the night.

The next morning, Elliot awoke in a haze, his head pounding with the weight of too little sleep and too many unanswered questions. He tried to tell himself it was just some bizarre coincidence, but the man’s words echoed in his mind. We’re connected. More than you could ever understand.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was slipping, like the ground beneath him was shifting and he was the only one who noticed. At work, everything felt off. His coworkers’ voices sounded distant, distorted, like he was hearing them underwater. His reflection in the bathroom mirror looked back at him with too much intensity, his own eyes unfamiliar.

And then the emails.

It started small. A subject line here, a typo there. Emails in his inbox he didn’t remember sending. People mentioning things in passing conversations that Elliot didn’t recall ever discussing. At first, he brushed it off as stress or exhaustion. But then he found the photo.

It was tucked away in a drawer at his apartment, buried beneath a pile of old papers. A photo of him, except it wasn’t him. The man in the photo had his face, his same sharp features, his same wary eyes, but the background was unfamiliar, the clothes wrong for any time Elliot could remember.

He stared at the photo for what felt like hours, his pulse quickening as the edges of his reality began to fray. Who was this man? And why did it feel like some part of him already knew?

Days blurred into one another. Elliot’s obsession grew, feeding on every strange coincidence, every flicker of something just outside his grasp. His sleep was haunted by half-remembered dreams where the man, his double, would stand over him, whispering things he couldn’t quite understand but felt in his bones.

Finally, Elliot couldn’t take it anymore. He had to know. He had to find the man again, no matter the cost.

He started retracing his steps, returning to the places where he’d seen him. the subway, the coffee shop, the street under the flickering light. But the man was always just out of reach, like a shadow slipping through his fingers.

And then, one night, the stranger found him once more.

Elliot was standing at the edge of the same subway platform where he had first seen the man, his eyes scanning the faces of the crowd. The station was nearly empty, the air thick with the scent of concrete and cold steel. As the train roared into the station, he felt a presence beside him. He didn’t need to look to know who it was.

“You’re ready now,” the man said, his voice barely audible over the screech of the train.

Elliot turned slowly, his breath catching in his throat as he met the man’s gaze. There was no smile this time, only a look of grim finality. The man stepped closer, so close Elliot could feel the heat of his breath.

“It’s time to decide,” the man whispered. “Which one of us gets to live this life?”

Elliot’s mind raced, the man’s words echoing in his ears. “Which one of us gets to live this life?” The question made his blood run cold, a creeping realization seeping in that this wasn’t just some random encounter, this man, this thing standing in front of him, wanted something more. His life.

Elliot’s voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. “What are you talking about? What do you mean, live this life? You’re not me.”

The man’s eyes gleamed in the dim light of the subway platform, a sinister calm radiating from him. “Aren’t I?” he replied, taking another step closer. “Think about it, Elliot. Haven’t you felt it? Haven’t you noticed how things are...changing?” He tilted his head, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips. “The gaps in your memory. The photos you can’t explain. The people who seem to know you, but you don’t know them. The shifts in reality, the cracks in your world.”

Elliot stumbled back, his thoughts swirling in a dizzying storm. It was true. He’d been feeling it for weeks, maybe longer. But what the man was saying didn’t make sense. It couldn’t make sense.

“No,” Elliot shook his head, his voice growing more desperate. “No, you’re lying. You’re some kind of trick. You’re not real.”

The man let out a soft laugh, almost pitying. “I’m as real as you are. Maybe more.” He looked at Elliot, his eyes narrowing with something dark and dangerous. “The question is, how long can you hold on?”

Elliot’s chest tightened, fear clawing its way up his throat. “Hold on to what?”

“To yourself,” the man said, his voice a low growl now. “Our worlds, they’ve been colliding for a while now. Two versions of the same life, the same person. Two realities can’t exist together for long. So, one of us has to go.”

Elliot stared at him, his heart hammering against his ribs. “You’re not real. This isn’t real.”

But deep down, Elliot knew. He felt it in his bones. The edges of his existence unraveling, fraying at the seams. Everything he thought he knew about his life, his identity, was crumbling.

The man’s eyes bore into him. “It’s simple, really. You’ve been living on borrowed time. You took my place, my life. But now I’m here to take it back.”

Elliot felt the ground sway beneath him. “No,” he whispered, stepping back further, his mind screaming for him to run, but his feet rooted in place. “This is my life. I didn’t take anything from you.”

The man’s face twisted into a cruel smile, his eyes gleaming with malice. “Oh, but you did. The moment you made a different choice. You don’t even remember, do you? The decision that split our paths. It doesn’t matter now. I’ve been waiting for this moment. And now, it’s time to finish what you started.”

Elliot’s head spun, the weight of the man’s words pressing down on him. A decision that split their paths? A choice that created two versions of himself? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t piece it together. But the man, his doppelgänger, wasn’t waiting any longer.

The screech of the subway train echoed down the tunnel, the lights in the distance growing brighter as it neared. The man’s gaze flicked toward it, and then back to Elliot, a cold gleam in his eyes.

“One of us has to go,” the man said, his voice calm, almost casual. “And it’s not going to be me.”

The train was nearly there. Elliot’s heart raced, his mind scrambling for something, anything, that would make this stop. He couldn’t let this man take his life. But how could he fight someone who wasn’t supposed to exist? Someone who was somehow him?

The train roared into the station, the blast of air from the tunnel rushing past them. The man took a step forward, his body unnervingly close to Elliot’s. “You don’t have a choice, Elliot,” he whispered. “It’s time.”

Before Elliot could react, the man grabbed his arm and yanked him toward the platform’s edge.

For a split second, Elliot’s body teetered, his feet half-off the edge, the train’s lights blinding as it hurtled toward him. The sound was deafening, the rush of wind nearly knocking him off balance.

But in that moment, something snapped inside of him. The fear, the confusion, the desperation all coalesced into a sharp, blinding clarity.

This is my life.

With a surge of strength he didn’t know he had, Elliot twisted his body, breaking free of the man’s grip. He swung his fist, landing a punch square in the man’s face, sending him stumbling back.

The man’s eyes flashed with shock and fury as he steadied himself, but Elliot was already moving. He charged at the man, shoving him hard, knocking him off balance.

The man’s feet slipped over the edge of the platform just as the train screamed past.

For a moment, everything froze. Elliot stood there, breathless, watching as the man’s body disappeared into the blur of the passing train.

And then, silence.

The train screeched to a halt further down the platform, and Elliot staggered back, his chest heaving. He stared at the spot where the man had been, his mind struggling to catch up with what had just happened.

Had he...?

The platform was empty. No sign of the man. No one had seen it. No one had seen him.

Elliot sank to the ground, his legs trembling beneath him. He stared at his hands, half-expecting them to belong to someone else, to see his own face reflected back at him in some twisted, impossible way.

But they were just his hands. His trembling, shaking hands.

The weight of it all crashed down on him, the exhaustion, the fear, the surreal nightmare that had somehow become his life. But as he sat there, on the cold concrete of the platform, one thought echoed in his mind.

I’m still here.

Days passed. Elliot tried to return to his normal life, to pick up the pieces and move on from the encounter. But something had changed.

Every time he looked in the mirror, he found himself pausing, staring just a little longer than necessary. Searching. Waiting.