Chapter 7: The Twin Nightmares

Chapter 7: The Twin Nightmares

“Did it send you?”

The words, raw and broken, hung in the cold, stale air of the cellar. The man—the man with André’s face—cringed away from the light of her phone, his eyes wide with an agony so profound and human it made Clarice’s heart ache. This was not the empty, placid gaze of the creature upstairs. This was the face of a man who had been living in a nightmare far longer than she had.

“No,” Clarice breathed, the single word a puff of white in the frigid air. “No, I live here. I… I found you.” Her voice was a fragile thread. Her mind was a kaleidoscope of fractured images: the figure on the couch, the fingers slicing through the air, the sterile perfection of the house above.

The man’s terror-stricken expression softened into disbelief, then a flicker of desperate, impossible hope. “You live here? With it?”

“With André,” she corrected, her own words sounding hollow and insane. “I thought… I thought he was my landlord.”

A harsh, choked sound that might have been a laugh or a sob escaped him. “It’s not André. I am. I’m André. That… thing upstairs… it’s a copy. A parasite. It took my face, it took my house, and it locked me down here. It studies things. Before it… replaces them.”

The pieces clicked into place with the sickening finality of a crypt door swinging shut. The robotic routine, the lack of personality, the inhuman stillness, the horrifying rehearsal over her bed. It wasn't a strange man; it was an alien thing wearing a man’s skin. A mimic. Her desire to understand was fulfilled with a truth more horrifying than any fiction.

“We have to get out of here,” she said, the adrenaline finally cutting through her shock. Her new goal was simple, primal: get this man, the real André, out of this tomb. Get them both out.

“He’ll be back soon,” André whispered, his voice trembling. “It’s always back at the same time. You have to go. Leave me. It will find you.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she snarled, the rage returning, giving her strength. She found the small tray of surgical tools. Her eyes landed on the largest, sharpest scalpel. Grabbing it, she scrambled over to him. The heavy-duty zip ties were thick, biting deep into his raw, swollen wrists. She sawed at the first one, the plastic groaning in protest. The blade was sharp, but the angle was awkward. Her hands were slick with a cold sweat.

“What does it want?” she asked, her voice a low hiss as she worked.

“To learn,” he rasped, his eyes fixed on the open hatch above, a square of fading daylight that represented a heaven he hadn’t seen in weeks. “It watches. It learns routines, speech patterns, muscle movements. It learns how to be a perfect copy. And when it’s done… it takes over.”

The first tie snapped. He cried out, a small sound of pain and relief. She started on the second, her knuckles scraping against the cold metal pipe.

They were so focused on their task, on the rhythmic scraping of the scalpel against plastic, that they almost missed it.

Click.

It was the soft, familiar sound of the front door opening and closing. Upstairs.

Clarice froze, the scalpel held motionless. André’s face went slack with a new, more immediate terror. She glanced at her phone. The time glowed back at her in stark, digital numbers: 5:45 p.m.

Right on schedule. The machine was home.

The obstacle was no longer a locked door or a hidden secret. It was the monster itself, walking just a few feet above their heads. They were trapped in its workshop.

“Hide,” André mouthed, his eyes wild.

But there was nowhere to go. The cellar was a concrete box. Clarice killed her phone’s flashlight, plunging them into a thick, suffocating blackness. She grabbed André’s arm, pulling him with her into the deepest, darkest corner, behind the looming shadow of the steel table. He was still bound at the ankles, his movements a pained, awkward shuffle.

Every sound from upstairs was magnified in the silence. The soft, measured footsteps crossing the living room. The hum of the microwave starting, a countdown to their discovery. 120 seconds. The footsteps moved again, this time towards the back of the house. Towards the master bedroom. Towards the hatch.

They held their breath, a shared, silent prayer in the dark. Maybe it wouldn't look. Maybe its routine was so rigid it wouldn’t notice the slight displacement of the rug, the faint scrape marks around the hatch she’d made.

Silence. A minute passed. Then two. The only sound was the frantic, terrified thumping of their own hearts.

And then, a soft creak from directly above them. The hatch.

A perfect square of light appeared, flooding the cellar. And silhouetted in the opening was a tall, familiar figure. The Mimic.

It stood there for a long moment, its head tilted in a curious, bird-like manner. It was a dark shape against the light of the bedroom, its features indistinct. Clarice could feel its gaze sweeping the small room, a cold, analytical energy that felt like being pinned under a microscope.

“Clarice?” The voice from above was calm, flat, tinged with a perfect imitation of concern. It was the voice she had known for weeks. “I know you are down there. The front door was not double-locked. That is a deviation. Please come out. You are with a dangerous thing.”

The real André, huddled beside her, began to shake uncontrollably. “Don’t listen to it,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “It lies. It’s the monster.”

The Mimic began to descend the ladder, its movements fluid and unnervingly graceful. As it stepped onto the cellar floor, it turned, and the light from the bedroom above caught its face. It was André. Perfect, unblemished, wearing the pristine grey suit, the fixed, placid smile plastered on his face.

“You see?” the Mimic said, its voice resonating in the small space. It gestured to the bruised and broken man beside Clarice. “It is a violent, unstable creature. It trapped me down here and took my place. I have only just managed to escape. Thank you for freeing me. Now, step away from it.”

Clarice was caught, frozen between two identical nightmares. Her mind screamed. One was a monster playing the part of a man, the other a man who looked like a monster. Who did she believe? The beaten victim, or the calm, rational-sounding landlord?

The real André struggled to his feet, a defiant, desperate act. “She knows what you are!” he shouted, his voice raw. “She saw you! She knows you’re the copy!”

The Mimic’s smile didn’t falter. It took a step closer. “It is confused. The trauma has damaged its mind. Clarice, look at me. Look at him. Who appears to be the threat here?”

Her gaze flickered from one face to the other. The bruised, terrified face of the man beside her. The clean, calm, smiling face of the creature before her. Her logic was dissolving. The evidence of her senses was failing her.

And then she saw it.

In the dim, reflected light from the hatch, she looked into the eyes of the Mimic. They were empty, soulless, and from their depths, a faint, sickly yellow light seemed to pulse, an unnatural glow like phosphorous insects trapped behind glass. It was the detail she’d missed in the dark, the one thing that proved this was not human.

Her heart seized. She had her proof. This was the monster.

Relief, sharp and fierce, flooded her. She took a half-step back, positioning herself beside the real André, the man she would protect. And as she did, her gaze fell upon his face, and she offered him what she hoped was a reassuring glance.

But the reassurance died in her throat, replaced by a scream that had no sound.

Because in the eyes of the bruised, terrified, and utterly human-acting man beside her—the man she was about to save—the very same, sickening, inhuman yellow light was now beginning to glow.