A Flicker in the Dark

I don’t remember when the flicker started.

Maybe it was when I first felt the ground shift beneath my feet, the familiar cobblestones of the alley dissolving into dirt, then into grass, then back again. It was like a blink, a momentary lapse in my vision—but more profound, more jarring. It was as if the world itself couldn’t make up its mind.

Or maybe it was when my hands—my own hands, I was sure of it—touched the weathered wood of my father’s old door, only for the door to change, the wood turning smooth and polished, younger somehow. And suddenly, it wasn’t my father’s door at all. It belonged to a different house, one I had never seen, never lived in.

I never lived there. Did I?

The unease began to gnaw at the edges of my mind, like an itch I couldn’t quite scratch. Each time it happens, a flicker, a shift, I find myself questioning everything I’ve ever known. Everything I am.

But what am I, really? Who am I?

There are moments when I catch glimpses of memories that don’t belong to me. Or maybe they do. I’m not sure anymore. The sound of children laughing, a brother’s voice calling my name—only, it’s not my name. But it feels like it could be, like it should be.

There was that time, I think, when I caught my reflection in the window of a shop I don’t remember entering. My face was there, looking back at me—but the eyes, the eyes were wrong. Too dark, or maybe too light. The smile, too wide or too tight. I leaned closer, and for just a second, the face in the glass wasn’t mine at all. Or was it? It looked like me. It felt like me. But something was off. How could I forget my own face?

I find myself standing in places I don’t recognize, talking to people I’ve never met but who speak to me like they know me. I can’t bring myself to ask who they think I am because deep down, I’m terrified they’ll tell me something I won’t understand. I smile and nod, answer their questions, and carry on as if everything is fine. As if I’m fine.

But I’m not fine.

The flickers are becoming more frequent now. The world shifts and shudders, and with it, so do I. Some days I’m tall and strong, my hands calloused from work I don’t recall doing. Other days, I’m small, frail, with a voice that trembles when I speak. And I do speak, sometimes, to people who seem to know me, who call me by names that don’t belong to me. But I answer anyway, because who else would they be calling?

And who else could I be?

I started keeping a journal, trying to track the changes, to make sense of them. But when I look back at the pages, the handwriting is different. Sometimes it’s neat and precise, other times it’s a scrawl, barely legible. And the entries—they don’t match up. One day, I write about a life I’m sure I’ve lived, only to turn the page and find that I’m describing something completely different, a place I’ve never been, people I’ve never known. Or maybe I have. I can’t tell anymore.

There’s a whisper, too, just on the edge of hearing. A voice—not mine, but familiar—muttering, murmuring words I can’t quite catch. I strain to listen, to understand, but the voice shifts and changes like everything else. It’s elusive, just beyond my grasp, and it drives me to the brink of madness. If I could just hear it clearly, maybe I’d finally understand. Maybe I’d finally know who I am.

But the more I reach for it, the further away it slips, until I’m left alone with the silence, the oppressive weight of it pressing down on me, suffocating me. The air is thick, heavy with the scent of something I can’t name, something that makes my stomach churn with unease.

I start avoiding mirrors. Every time I catch my reflection, it’s different. It’s subtle at first—a slight change in the curve of my jaw, a faint shift in the color of my hair. But then it becomes more pronounced, more jarring. My eyes—sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes brown. My skin—pale and smooth one day, tanned and rough the next. I don’t know which face is mine anymore. They all feel wrong, like masks I’m forced to wear.

I avoid people, too. They look at me strangely, like they’re seeing something they can’t quite place, something that doesn’t belong. I can see the confusion in their eyes, the hesitation in their voices when they greet me. Sometimes they call me by a name I don’t recognize, and I have to stop myself from correcting them because what if they’re right? What if that’s who I’m supposed to be?

But how can I be so many different people? How can I live so many different lives? The memories are all jumbled now, overlapping and twisting together until I can’t tell which ones are real and which ones are just figments of my imagination. I remember growing up in a small town by the sea, but I also remember the city—tall buildings and crowded streets, the smell of exhaust and the constant noise. I remember a family—parents, siblings, a home filled with warmth and laughter. But I also remember being alone, isolated, the only sounds in my world the echoes of my own footsteps.

I remember love, too. A woman’s face, her smile, the way her hair caught the sunlight. But then, another woman—different hair, different eyes, but the same feeling, the same pull in my chest. And then another. And another. How can I love so many people? How can I be in so many places, live so many lives?

I am not real.

I am nothing more than a fragment, a shadow, a reflection in a mirror that doesn’t exist. I am being made and remade, torn apart and stitched back together by hands I cannot see, by a mind I cannot comprehend. I am not one person, but many, a patchwork of identities that don’t quite fit, that never quite align.

I try to hold onto who I am, but I’m slipping, dissolving, unraveling like a thread pulled too tight. Each flicker tears away another piece of me, another memory, another face. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.

The whisper is louder now, insistent, like a storm brewing on the horizon. It’s there in the background, a constant hum that I can’t escape. Sometimes it sounds like a voice, other times like a chorus, a cacophony of thoughts that aren’t my own. I can hear them, feel them pressing in on me, demanding my attention, but when I try to focus, they scatter like leaves in the wind.

There are moments when I’m sure I’m on the verge of understanding, of finally grasping the truth, but then the flicker comes, and it’s gone, lost in the darkness that follows. The world shifts, the ground trembles beneath my feet, and I’m thrown into another life, another identity, another version of myself that I don’t recognize.

I find myself staring at my hands, at the lines and creases that shift and change with each flicker. One moment they’re the hands of a young man, strong and steady, the next they’re the hands of an old woman, wrinkled and frail. I clutch at the fabric of my clothes, trying to anchor myself, to hold onto something solid, but even my clothes are unfamiliar, shifting from rough wool to soft silk, from simple rags to intricate patterns I can’t place.

I am dissolving.

I can feel it now, the whisper growing louder, more insistent. It’s like a storm on the horizon, dark clouds gathering, the air thick with the promise of rain. It’s coming for me, to change me again, to make me into something else, someone else.

But I don’t want to change. I want to stay as I am, whoever I am.

But it’s too late. The flicker is coming, the ground shifting beneath my feet once more, and I know—*I know*—that when it passes, I won’t be the same. I’ll be someone else entirely, with new memories, a new face, a new life that isn’t mine.

And I’ll forget this moment, like I’ve forgotten all the others.

The flicker comes.

The world shifts.

And I am lost again.

Or maybe I was always lost. Maybe there was never a single version of me to begin with. Just fragments, pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together, scattered across time and space, caught in the endless cycle of creation and destruction. Maybe I am nothing more than a vessel, a blank slate to be filled and erased, over and over, until there’s nothing left but a husk, a shell of who I once was—if I ever was.

I can’t tell anymore. The lines between reality and illusion, between past and present, have blurred beyond recognition. The world is a kaleidoscope of shifting colors and shapes, a twisted reflection of a reality I can no longer grasp. I am trapped in this endless loop, this flickering nightmare, and I don’t know how to escape. I don’t even know if I want to.

Because if I escape, what will be left of me? Will I even recognize myself?

Or will I dissolve completely, lost in the void of forgotten memories and discarded identities?

I am nothing. I am everything. I am no one. I am everyone.

The whisper is all that’s left now, the constant hum of voices that aren’t my own, a chorus of thoughts that have merged and melded until I can no longer distinguish where one ends and another begins. They’re a part of me now, or maybe I’m a part of them.

I close my eyes, but the flicker comes again, stronger this time, more violent. The world twists and shifts, and I’m torn apart and reformed in an instant. My hands are different now, larger, rougher, but they feel like they belong to me. But do they? My face is unfamiliar in the mirror, but it’s always been unfamiliar, hasn’t it?

I can’t remember. I can’t remember who I was before the flicker, before the world started rewriting itself around me, before I started rewriting myself. I am not one person—I am many, a thousand faces, a thousand voices, all of them mine and none of them mine.

I can’t hold on anymore. I am unraveling, dissolving into a mush of confusion and despair, a mess of thoughts and memories that don’t belong to me. The flicker is coming, and I know—I know—that when it passes, I won’t be here anymore. I’ll be gone, lost in the darkness, a shadow of a shadow, a whisper of a whisper.

The flicker comes.

The world shifts.

And I fade into the silence.