Chapter 9: The Mimic

Chapter 9: The Mimic

The slam of the final cupboard door had been the closing of a book. The old story, the one about a noisy, chaotic haunting, was over. A new one, written in a terrifying, silent script, had begun.

Jenna’s confession hung in the air between them, a toxic fog of guilt and revelation. Kanashii. Sad. Shiritsuku. It clings. The words redefined the terror. They were not being haunted by a monster; they were being stalked by a sorrow.

The two sisters huddled together on Remi's bed, a small island in an ocean of menacing quiet. They had dragged the mattress into the living room, unwilling to be separated by a wall. Sleep was a distant country neither of them could hope to visit. They spoke in hushed whispers, as if any loud noise might provoke another violent outburst. The doll sat on the coffee table, a silent, enthroned warden, its presence a constant, oppressive weight. With Jenna there, its need for the television's companionship seemed to have vanished. It had a new show to watch: them.

“We have to do something,” Jenna whispered for the tenth time, her voice raw. She was looking at her phone, scrolling frantically through pages about Japanese folklore, Shinto rituals, and curses. The internet, which had been a digital prison for Remi, seemed to be working perfectly for Jenna. A calculated decision, Remi thought. The entity was allowing this. It wanted them to understand. It was part of the game.

“What can we do?” Remi whispered back, pulling the thin blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I threw it away. It came back. It controls the apartment, Jenna. It controls my laptop. It controls everything.”

“There has to be a weakness. An off-switch,” Jenna insisted, the desperate practicality that had served her so well as a flight attendant now focused on the supernatural. “Everything has rules.”

A profound thirst scraped at Remi’s throat. She hadn’t had a sip of water in hours, too terrified to venture into the kitchen where the violent symphony had taken place. But her dehydration was becoming unbearable.

“I need some water,” she murmured, slowly disentangling herself from the blanket.

“I’ll go,” Jenna said instantly, her eyes wide with alarm.

“No, it’s okay.” Remi forced a note of resolve into her voice. “I can’t let it keep me a prisoner in one room. It’s my kitchen.” It was a small, pathetic act of defiance, but it felt necessary.

She slid off the mattress, her bare feet cold on the laminate floor. Every nerve ending was screaming as she walked the few yards to the kitchen entryway. The cupboard doors were all closed, looking unnervingly normal, as if their earlier tantrum had never happened. She held her breath, reached for a glass, and turned on the tap. The sound of the running water was an alien intrusion in the thick silence.

As the glass filled, she heard it.

A whisper, soft as a spider's thread, from the living room behind her.

“I need some water.”

The voice was not just familiar. It was her own. A perfect, note-for-note echo of the words she had just spoken.

Remi froze, the water overflowing the glass and spilling over her trembling hand. She turned around slowly. Jenna was still on the mattress, her face pale, her eyes locked on Remi. She had heard it too.

“Did you…” Jenna began, her voice barely audible.

Remi could only nod, her throat too tight for words. The entity wasn't just watching them anymore. It was listening. It was learning. It was practicing.

The psychological siege intensified over the next few hours. It was a subtle, insidious campaign. A faint sigh in Remi’s voice would drift from the empty bedroom. Jenna would hear a quiet humming from the bathroom—a tune Remi often hummed while brushing her teeth—only to find it vacant. The mimicry was flawless, capturing every slight inflection, every breathy nuance of Remi’s voice. It was like living with a ghost of herself, an echo that had gained its own volition.

The horror was no longer about what the doll would do to the apartment. It was about what it was doing to Remi. The red words on the wall, MY TURN, had transformed from a possessive threat into a horrifyingly literal statement of intent. It was taking its turn to speak her words, to sigh her sighs, to hum her tunes.

The breaking point came just as the grey, pre-dawn light began to filter through the blinds. Remi, her bladder aching, finally worked up the courage to use the bathroom. She left the door open a crack, needing the thin slice of light from the living room and the comforting silhouette of her sister on the mattress.

She avoided looking at her own reflection, focusing on the tap as she washed her hands. The running water was a small, normal sound she clung to. She turned it off, the sudden silence making her ears ring. She took a deep breath, and finally, against her better judgment, lifted her head.

For one single, heart-stopping, reality-shattering second, the face in the mirror was not her own.

Staring back at her were two unblinking, black glass eyes. The skin was the color of pale, flawless porcelain, with the faint web of cracks near the hairline. The lips, a slash of serene, painted red, were pulled into a placid, knowing smile. It was the doll's face, perfectly superimposed over her own, wearing her messy brown hair like a wig.

Remi let out a strangled cry and stumbled backward, crashing against the door. She blinked, her heart trying to hammer its way out of her chest. When she looked again, her own face stared back at her—eyes wide with terror, skin clammy with sweat, mouth agape in a silent scream. But the afterimage was burned into her vision, an eidetic phantom of the porcelain mask that had stolen her identity.

She scrambled out of the bathroom, gasping for air, her legs threatening to buckle. “Jenna,” she choked out. “Jenna, in the mirror… I saw it. I saw its face. It was my face.”

Jenna was on her feet instantly, rushing to her side. “What do you mean? Remi, you’re shaking.”

“It was wearing my face!” Remi sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at the bathroom.

Jenna’s gaze followed, but then darted past, toward the large, dark screen of the powered-off television. Her eyes widened. “Remi…” she whispered, her voice filled with a new, colder dread. “Look.”

Remi turned, her tear-filled eyes struggling to focus. In the black, reflective surface of the TV screen, she could see the dim reflection of the living room behind them. She could see the mattress on the floor. She could see herself and Jenna, two pale, terrified figures clinging to each other.

And for a fraction of a second, she saw it again. The reflection that was supposed to be hers flickered. Her shadowed, terrified face was momentarily replaced by the smooth, impassive porcelain of the doll. A ghostly, transparent overlay. An identity being tested, tried on for size.

Her gaze snapped from the television screen to the doll itself. It sat on the coffee table, watching them. The physical object was there, but its phantom was beginning to walk, to speak, to exist in her place.

The full, horrifying weight of its agenda crashed down upon them. This wasn't about being seen or heard. This lonely, clinging sorrow didn't want a friend. It wanted a life. It was methodically, patiently, learning how to be her. It was stripping her of her voice, her habits, her face. It was erasing her, piece by piece, to make room for itself.

"My turn," Remi whispered, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. She was finally beginning to understand. It wasn't its turn to play. It was its turn to be Remi Vance.