The Thing In The Basement Is Getting Better At Mimicking People

I never had a close relationship with Sarah, my older half sister. She was born out of my Dad's earlier
marriage, so by the time I came into the picture she was already a teenager. We didn't argue or fight,
we simply never spent time together. I was starting kindergarten when she moved out, and she wasn't
thrilled about having a younger brother.

I barely saw her as I got older, meeting only occasionally during holiday get-togethers or in the once
in a blue moon visits. But we were on good terms, so when the cops called us a few days ago to let us
know they found her body, I was devastated. Some neighbors apparently called 911 when they heard
screams and saw smoke coming out of the house. After the firefighters put out a fire in the basement,
they found some charred remains that they assumed were hers.

They couldn't identify her given the body's state, but all of the evidence pointed towards an accident.
She didn't have a husband or kids, so the duty of burying her fell on us. The funeral was what you'd
expect under such circumstances, lots of crying and mourning around a closed casket. But the deed
was done, I was left an only child, and a few days later we took to scouring her house and doing an
inventory of her belongings.

It was an all around unpleasant experience on many levels, it felt so wrong to go through her things
like that. But with her only living relatives being my father and I, we inherited her house and
possessions. We decided we didn't want them, so we’d sell almost everything. The plan was to only
keep some of Sarah’s stuff as mementos, things like pictures and whatnot.

I went along with Dad to help, and we went room by room, cataloguing items one by one. Given the
small size of the house it went pretty fast, but we started late into the day and so we wouldn't be able
to finish by nightfall.

"One of the detectives wants to drop by later, says he has some more investigating to do," my Dad
said as we were getting ready to leave. "He asked for someone to stay here tonight, but work won't
allow me. Could you do it, champ?"

"Uh, sure," I mumbled, not in the least thrilled about the prospect.

Dad packed a small box of trinkets in his trunk, and off he went home. The only room we hadn’t gone
into was the basement, and I wasn’t about to do it by myself. The wooden door leading into it was
wide open, charred by the fire and black with soot. The basement iself was in a similar condition,
ravaged by the fire and by the firemen’s attempts to put it out.

It unnerved me to no end, so I dragged a chair out on the porch and spent the evening there. I smoked
half a pack of cigarettes and drank some old beer left behind in the fridge, all while the neighbors
regarded me with curiosity. A few of them even approached me, giving me their condolences when
they found out I was Sarah’s younger brother.

The detective finally arrived at sundown, pulling onto the street in an old beater car. He looked like
your average guy when he stepped out, dressed in a cheap suit and a loose coat hanging on his
shoulders.
"Hello, I am detective Markus," he introduced himself.

"Clancy, nice to meet you detective."

"Likewise."

"I'd offer you a beer, but I assume you can't drink on duty."

"Eh, might as well," Markus said with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'm off the clock and I'll be here all
night."

That took me by surprise, but who was I to argue with the man? I fetched him a chair and a beer, so he
sat down and lit up a cigarette as well. We had some admittedly awkward small talk, but the subject
quickly moved to Sarah and her death. Markus asked the usual questions: was she depressed? Did she
go out, or was she a shut-in? Did she have any friends or romantic partners he could question?

All perfectly reasonable questions meant to dig up new leads, but I was the wrong person to try and
answer them. I wasn't particularly close to Sarah, so I didn't know most of the answers that Markus
wanted.

"Don't worry about it, I get it," he reassured me. "I don't speak much with my old man, for example.
Couldn't tell you his birthday if you put a gun to my head, let alone what he's up to these days."

"It's just...I never imagined she'd go like this, you know? I'd have made an effort if I knew."

"Don't beat yourself up over it, kid. What's done is done."

It was getting late and darkness settled, so we went inside. I led Markus to the living room, and he
shared some of the case details with me after we made ourselves comfortable.

"The reason I wanted to stay in the house overnight is this." As he spoke, he pulled out a smartphone
and browsed some files on it. "I'll warn you, they're pretty...disturbing. If you want me to stop it at any
moment, just say so."

He pressed play on an audio file, then laid the phone down on the small table between us. We both
leaned in as Sarah's voice resounded from the speakers. I'll do my best to write down what she said
from memory, as I don't have access to the recordings.

**Recording 01**

*"Is this app working? Test, test. Oh, okay. Well, uhhh, my name is Sarah. I moved into this house
two days ago, and I...uhhh...I heard some strange noises last night from the basement. I'm kinda'
paranoid right now, cause I live here alone. So I'll leave my phone out to record them and hopefully
find what’s up."*

**Recording 02**
*Some breathing is heard in the background and the phone gets set down. Footsteps walk away from
the microphone, then it's quiet for a long time. Markus skips through most of the recording, as it is
nearly 9 hours long.*

*About two hours in, around midnight, the microphone catches a distant crash. Some skittering
follows, sounding like a cat running around on bathroom tiles. It goes on for a few hours, with long
pauses between bouts.*

*"He...hello…" A deep voice calls out weakly.*

"What the hell?" I let out. Markus paused the recording and looked at me.

"Do you want me to stop it?" He asked.

I contemplated his offer. On one hand, whatever followed had the potential to traumatize me for life.
But on the other hand, the sheer curiosity would eat me up alive if I didn't find out more. So I gave in
and told him to let it play.

*"Hello," the voice calls again, this time sounding more human. "Is...is an...any one...anyone
there…"*

*No one answers it. The voice falls silent, and the skittering carries it away from the microphone. No
more sounds are heard that night.*

**Recording 03**

*"What the hell? What the hell?! I knew it, someone's living in my basement!"*

**Recording 04**

*"Okay, I...I calmed down a bit. I was terrified after I listened to the last recording, so I ran out of the
house and called the cops. A squad car came after about half an hour, the bastards took their sweet
time. But I showed them the recording, I went back inside accompanied by a cop, and we checked out
the basement."*

*"No one was there. We turned the place inside out, we checked everything, but the room is small. No
windows, no exits, and no place for someone to hide. The cops think that it was an intruder that broke
in, but they couldn't find any signs of it."*

*"They said they'll patrol the neighborhood at night and keep on the lookout for any suspicious
activity. One of them also asked me to keep recording, just in case."*

**Recording 05**

*"Okay, here goes. I'll leave the phone out tonight as well. The cop car just passed on the street, so I
feel a bit safer."*
*The sound of the phone being placed down is heard, and Sarah’s footsteps follow. She leaves, and
the recording is silent for a few hours. Markus skips ahead through it, until another distant crash is
caught. The skittering returns, stopping a few feet away from the microphone.*

*”Hello?” The voice calls out. “Is anyone there?”*

*It sounds more...feminine than the last time. Still inhuman, sort of like an artificially generated
voice, but verging on crossing the uncanny valley into natural sounding territory. It calls out a few
more times over the span of a few hours, sounding more and more like a woman. When it becomes
apparent that no one will answer its calls, the voice stops. The skittering takes it away from the
microphone, and the rest of the recording is silent.*

“This is getting...all kinds of freaky,” I mumbled.

“I know,” Markus admitted. “Never seen anything like it before. Do you recognize the voice by any
chance?”

“Not a clue,” I admitted. “It doesn’t sound familiar.”

“I was afraid that would be the case,” Markus said with a sigh. “Sarah confirms a possible identity to
the voice in a later recording, but I wanted to double check.”

“Then maybe show it to Dad,” I provided a solution. “He was closer to Sarah than me, he might have
an idea.”

Markus fell silent for a long moment. He joined his hands beneath his chin and leaned forward,
propping his elbows on the table. The look in his eyes turned grim and worried.

“I’m sorry, sonny,” he said out of the blue. “For all you’ve heard so far, and for all that’s to follow.
But I’m glad it’s not your father that decided to stay, these recordings might just break him.”

“What?” I asked dumbfounded. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It will all make sense if you keep listening,” Markus answered.

The change in his demeanor was strange, and the night took an unnerving turn. I should’ve backed
out, I should’ve kicked him out, I should’ve done a lot of things differently. But my curiosity mounted
to levels beyond my ability to rein it in. So I proceeded to listen further.

**Recording 06**

*"What the hell?! That was Mom!"*

*Sarah cries into the microphone for a few minutes before the recording ends.*

**Recording 07**
*"I’m...I’m not gonna call the cops anymore. That was Mom calling out. I don’t...I want to talk to her,
she’s been gone for so long."*

**Recording 08**

*"Okay, I’ve calmed down a bit. I hope. I’ll wait here tonight."*

*The recording is silent for a long time. It turns off abruptly after about half an hour.*

“Do you know anything about Sarah’s mother?” Markus asked me.

I jumped back in my chair at the sudden interjection, completely absorbed by my thoughts.

“Not really,” I admitted. “She died before I was born, it was why Dad remarried.”

Markus gave me a thoughtful nod of his head in answer, and he played the next recording.

**Recording 09**

*”It’s back, I’ll start another recording.”*

*The scurrying returns. Sarah’s breathing is audible in the background, and it gets faster as the sound
approaches her. A chair creaks, presumably as she gets up, and her footsteps join the skittering in the
background.*

*”Hello?” The same woman’s voice from the previous recording calls out.*

*”Who are you?”*

*”Who are you?” The voice repeats Sarah’s words back to her.*

*”Mom?” Sarah cries out in a trembling voice.*

*“Mom?” The voice repeats her words again.*

*“Who the hell are you?! How do you have my mother’s voice?!”*

*”Who are you?” The voice repeats.*

*Footsteps resound again, approaching the voice as it says the same line over and over.*

*”Answer me!” Sarah demands.*

*Knocking is heard, as if someone bashes a door with their fist.*

*”Answer me,” the voice cooes.*

*”What do you want?”*

*The voice lets out a few garbled words, but they are unintelligible. Its pitch and intonation adjust
before it speaks again.*

*”Sarah, my dear, is that you?”*

I was left stupefied. The uncanny valley was finally crossed, and the voice sounded decidedly human
for the first time. It held none of the animalistic traits from before. The subtle anger and malice in it
was gone, replaced by a deep sense of compassion and worry.

*”I hav...haven’t seen...you in so long,” the voice continued.*

*Sarah weeps silently in the background, but she doesn’t answer the voice again. It, however, keeps
calling out.*

*”I’ve...I’ve miss...missed you, my dear…”*

*Footsteps sound out as Sarah backs away, and the voice grows distant. It calls out, over and over
again, but the facade cracks. It can’t maintain its grasp on the charade for long, and it devolves back
into the uncanny valley slowly.*

*The footsteps pick up speed until they turn into a run. After a few seconds, the voice becomes
inaudible. A door is opened and closed shut with force, and Sarah starts crying uncontrollably. The
recording stops.*

“The recordings are timestamped,” Markus said. “After this one ended, Sarah didn’t make another one
for a few days.”

Considering what I’d just heard, I didn’t know what to answer. I kept silent, mulling over my own
thoughts and feelings on the matter. As intriguing as the situation was, I mostly felt horrified and
sorry for Sarah. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what must’ve gone through her head after living
through that.

“Why are you showing me all of this?” I asked Markus after a while. “If you really are a detective and
part of the police force, you’d lock stuff like this away behind ten locks and keys.”

Markus leaned back in his own chair, thinking my question over. He pulled out his crumpled up pack
of cigarettes and retrieved one from it. I pushed the ashtray closer to his side of the table as he lit it up,
and he bellowed out a cloud of white smoke.

“All in due time,” he answered. His eyes scanned me in a fashion completely different from before,
with a cold and calculated look behind them. “What do you think so far?”

“I...fuck, I don’t know. What the hell is going on?”

“Answer me, Clancy, and be honest,” he demanded. “Whether or not I’ll show you more depends on
it.”
I racked my brain, but I was truly and utterly stumped. The situation devolved too fast for me to keep
up, and I didn’t know what to think anymore. But I could tell that that wasn’t the answer Markus
wanted.

“It’s...I don’t know. A ghost? A demon? A skinwalker?” I hazarded a guess.

Markus seemed surprised by that. He pushed the cigarette away from his face, letting out another
lungful of smoke.

“And do you believe that?” He asked bluntly. “That it could be something...supernatural?”

“What the fuck else *could* it be?” I answered his question with another. “What do *you* think it
is?”

“What I think is irrelevant, I want to know what you believe.”

“That’s what I believe,” I answered. “I didn’t know Sarah well, but she wouldn’t fake something like
this. So either she was haunted by something, or you’re messing with me.”

“That’s the correct answer,” Markus said with a satisfied smirk. He put out the cigarette in the ashtray
and leaned over the phone, placing a finger over its screen. “So how about it? Do you want to hear
more?”

“Why would I want that?”

“Do you, or do you not, Clancy? No hard feelings either way, I can’t force you to listen.”

“I…yeah. Start the next one.”

I don’t know for sure why I decided that. We could sit here all day while I blame curiosity or, more
likely, stupidity, but those answers would be half-truths at best. It didn’t feel like a *want* at the time,
it felt like a *need*. I needed to go through with it, I needed to hear all of it. The reasons I felt that
way didn’t matter at that moment.

“I have a good feeling about you, kid,” Markus mumbled as his finger tapped the screen and started
the next recording.

**Recording 10**

*”I don’t know what to do anymore, it’s driving me nuts. Whoever’s messing with me comes back
every night, I hear them even now.”*

*The microphone picks up footsteps, and a door creaks open slowly. Faint mumbling comes from the
distance, accompanied by the familiar skittering. It pauses for a brief moment before it speaks up.*

*”Sarah, my dear,” the voice calls out, not entirely human. “Please, I just…”*

*The door closes shut with a loud thud, and Sarah retreats back into the room.*
*”I tried a lot of things over the past few days. It calls from the basement, so I got locks and put them
on the door. They’re untouched, so whoever it is isn’t coming from outside of the house. It hides in
there somewhere.”*

*”I called the cops again while the thing was there, but it left when the cops arrived. The two officers
asked me to unlock the door and they checked the basement again, but lo and behold, it’s as empty as
last time. I’m not sure what they think of me, maybe they suspect I’m fucking with them, so I can’t
rely on their help.”*

*”I even told Amy about the thing and showed her the recordings, so she slept over yesterday. The
thing somehow knew I wasn’t alone because it didn’t make a peep the entire night. I’m not sure if
Amy believes me or not anymore, hell I wouldn’t believe me if I were her. But she offered a solution:
get a roommate or a boyfriend, someone to live with me. It could work, but I...I don’t know
anymore.”*

“Do you know this Amy?” Markus asked as the recording ended.

“I think Sarah mentioned her a few times, but I never met her.”

I looked over my shoulder as I answered, at the corridor leading to the kitchen. The basement door
was on one of the walls there, and I could see the locks mentioned in the recording. They hung open
on the door, but they were still intact. Markus snapped his fingers to get my clearly distracted
attention, then he pointed down at the phone.

“Want to keep going?” He asked once more.

“Yeah.”

“Before I hit play, I want to ask you something again. Did you by any chance suffer any...mental
trauma? As a child, or even recently. Something that shook you to your core.”

I raised an eyebrow at the strange question.

“No, why?”

“You’re taking all of this surprisingly well. Your mental fortitude is pretty high,” Markus answered.
“That’s sometimes a sign of...never mind.”

He hit play before I could pry him for more details, so I fell silent to not miss it. But I made up my
mind, when it was over Markus would have a lot of answering to do.

**Recording 11**

*”I’ve tried my best to ignore it. I slept at friend’s houses some nights, but that’s getting harder to pull
off. I tried looking for roomates, but no one wants to share a small house with this stupid pandemic
around. And my search for a boyfriend is just as fruitless, I’m...I’m getting a bit old for the dating
scene. I’ll keep at it, but from the looks of things everyone’s mostly down to fuck and not much else. I
don’t want to resort to frequent one night stands.”*

*”The police still answer my calls, thankfully, but they’re not doing much. Even their patrols are
getting less and less frequent. I’m at a total loss here, I’ve considered selling the house and moving
but I can’t afford that.”*

*”Dad might be my last resort, maybe I can move in with him and...and his wife and son. We’re not
exactly friends though, so who knows. And I can’t risk telling them, there’s no chance in hell they’ll
take me in if they think I’m crazy.”*

Hearing that, hearing her opinion of me and Mom, it stung. Sure, we weren’t more than
acquaintances, but we’re not horrible people. We would’ve taken Sarah in if she reached out to us, so
to know that her salvation was so close, kept at bay only by superficial assessments of us, it...it
sucked. Plain and simple. And if she would’ve showed us the recordings, we might’ve even believed
her, especially Dad.

“Play the next one,” I demanded before Markus had a chance to say anything.

“You sure? You sound a bit riled up, maybe…”

“Play. It.”

Markus sighed deeply, but he did as he was told.

**Recording 12**

*"It's still here, it won't go the fuck away! I haven't talked to it in almost a month now, but it's still
here! It's going to drive me insane for real!"*

*"I can't take it anymore, I'll confront it again tonight. Maybe I can find out what the fuck it wants, or
get some answers."*

**Recording 13**

*The recording starts, and it is quiet save for static for a few moments. Sarah takes a deep breath and
a barely audible step.*

*”Are you there?”*

*The skittering returns, coming closer to the microphone than ever before. It sounds more frantic than
usual.*

*”Of course, my dear,” the voice says sweetly. “I’m always here.”*

*”You stop that, you hear me?! Stop using her voice!”*

*”Sarah, I…”*
*”I said stop! I know you’re not her!”*

*The voice coughs loudly. It changes as it does, slowly morphing and growing deeper. When it stops,
it sounds male.*

*”Sarah, honey…”*

I paused hearing that. It was Dad’s voice, no doubt about it. Although it sounded ever so slightly off, I
could recognize it. Up to that point, my running theory was that the thing could mimic the dead. But
Dad is still very much alive, so that threw my theory under the bus. I didn’t know what to believe
anymore.

*”What do you want?”*

*”I just want to see you, open the door.”*

*Sarah backs away as her breathing grows faster.*

*”Please, honey,” the voice begs again. “It’s dark down here, I just…”*

*”Shut up!”*

*Sarah runs away from the door as the voice’s calls continue in the background.*

“That was your father, correct?” Markus asked when the recording ended.

“I...yeah.”

“And what does that tell us?”

I pondered the question for a moment.

“It’s not a skinwalker, like I thought at first. I don’t know much about them, but like, skinwalkers
need to kill their victims to copy them, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Markus answered. “But they do need to hear the voice they’re trying to copy. And
anyways, a skinwalker could’ve broken down the door.”

“So it’s something else,” I deduced. “But what?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

He went to play the next recording, but I stopped him.

“Where do you know so much about skinwalkers from?”

Markus chuckled drily.

“All in due time, Clancy. We still have a few recordings to go through.”

He hit play on the next recording, so we listened.

**Recording 14**

*”It’s not just Mom and Dad anymore, the damn thing has so many voices now. Amy, my ex
boyfriend Clint, random voices I can’t place. Hell, it even used the voices of those two police officers
that went down in the basement looking for it.”*

*”It...it keeps calling for me. Pleading and begging, feigning confusion, asking to be let out. But I
won’t do it, I won’t open that damn door ever again. Fuck whatever I keep down there, it can have my
stuff for all I care.”*

*”I’m tired. I can’t sleep because of it. It’s getting so hard to do anything, I swear. Today I almost got
fired for mixing up customer orders for the twentieth time. I nearly snapped at the manager, but I
stopped at the last second and apologized. Some coworkers noticed I’m acting off and asked me about
it, but I can’t tell them. They’ll think I’m crazy. Hell, I’m starting to think I might be crazy myself.”*

**Recording 15**

*”Sis?”*

That’s as far as I got into that particular recording. I slapped my hand over the phone, with enough
force to send cracks into the glass surface of the table. Markus jumped back in his chair, taken by
surprise.

“What the hell?!” I let out. “That’s my fucking voice!”

“I knew this one would get to you,” Markus answered with a half grin. “Or, well, get to you more than
the others.”

“I never visited Sarah here,” I stressed. “It couldn’t have heard my voice, so how the fuck did it copy
me?”

“Think, Clancy. Did it ever hear Sarah’s dead mother?” Markus answered my question with another.
“For how long has she been dead?”

“Twenty years,” I said as I finally understood.

“So what does that tell you?”

“It doesn’t need to hear people’s voices.”

“Correct,” Markus said, satisfied by my breakthrough.

“So what, it can read minds?”

“Maybe?” Markus said, scratching his chin. “At the very least, it can form a...connection with people.
But until we catch it and see for ourselves, I can’t say for certain.”

“Catch it,” I echoed his words. “Is that what this is all about? You want to catch it?”

Markus wiped his smirk off his face and looked at me intently.

“Yes, Clancy. Either catch it or kill it, and solve your sister’s case.”

“So what, are you…”

But Markus didn’t let me finish. He pushed my hands away from the phone’s screen and hit play on
the recording, interrupting me.

“All in due time,” he repeated once more.

*”Sis, are you there?” It repeats in my own voice.*

*It’s been some time since Sarah’s first recording of the mysterious voice, and it sounds thoroughly
human at this point. No more cracks in its facade can be gleamed.*

*”Listen to me, and listen well. I won’t put up with this anymore. You have tonight to leave my house
and leave me the fuck alone. I’ll go to bed, I’ll plug in some earphones, and I’ll ignore you. If I hear
you again tomorrow night, you can bet your ass I’ll come down there and end you, whoever or
whatever you are. Understood?”*

*She sounds...different somehow. Worried. Tired. Manic.*

*”Please, sis, for fuck’s sake open the door and let me out.”*

*”And why would I do that? How’d you get down there, anyway?”*

*”I...fuck, I don’t know. I can’t remember. But it’s scary down here. Let me out, please.”*

“It copies your mannerisms well, it’s spot on actually,” Markus interrupted.

“It does,” I admitted, feeling the color in my face draining little by little as I listened.

“Given enough time to learn, that thing could be a top predator.”

“And let me guess, you can’t let that happen.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Markus corrected.

“All in due time,” I replied and pushed play on the recording.

*Sarah doesn’t say anything else. Her footsteps carry her away from the basement door, and the voice
pleads in the background. It shifts back and forth between different people, quick and almost
seamless. For short periods of time between the adjustments, glimpses of the animalistic nature make
it through.*

*The recording ends after Sarah closes the door to her bedroom.*

**Recording 16**

*”Okay so I can’t get a firearm, I don’t have the money for that. And I don’t even know how to
handle one anyway. And fuck me, gasoline’s getting pretty expensive too, but I could afford a canister
worth a few gallons and a box of matches.”*

*”The current plan is simple: I’ll fuck that thing up if I hear it again tonight. I’ll pour gasoline into the
basement through the crack beneath the door, and I’ll light it on fire from up here. Fuck the house,
fuck the authorities, fuck the repercussions, I can’t let it live. I don’t care if I end up in prison or a
looney bin so long as it dies here.”*

“My God, Sarah…” I mumbled as the recording ended.

Hearing her in that state of mind broke my heart. No one deserves to go through what she did, and the
fact that we didn’t help her sooner, that none of us made an effort to be in her life, it ate me up inside.
We could’ve made a difference, I could’ve made a difference. Maybe then, this tragedy would’ve had
a better ending.

“There’s only one more to go,” Markus said.

He leaned over the table and slapped a hand down on my shoulder, giving me a tight squeeze. I
nodded my head as I felt tears forming at the corners of my eyes, and signaled for him to play it.

**Recording 17**

*”The fucker is still here. I warned it, I tried to be nice, I really did. What more could anyone ask of
me?”*

*A liquid sloshes around in the background, presumably the gasoline. Her breathing is strained and
close to the microphone. Metal rings out as it hits the floor.*

*”Sarah? It calls out, in the voice of her mother.*

*”I warned you!” Something topples to the floor, and the sound of rushing liquid is heard. “This is on
you, it’s not my fault!”*

*”Sarah, please!” The voice yells, more desperate than ever. “What are you doing?!”*

*”What I said I would! You didn’t listen, why didn’t you listen?!”*

*”Please, Sarah! You don’t have to do this! Just...let me out, please!”*

*”Enough! Stop using her fucking voice!”*

*The thing falls silent. Sarah takes a deep breath, and the sound of gasoline pouring out of the canister
dies down as it presumably runs out. Her clothes rustle as she searches her pockets, and she shakes the
matchbox when she finds it. The sounds of the matches jumping around inside is the only audible
thing for a moment.*

*”You know what that is, don’t you?”*

*She opens the box and fumbles around with the matches for a moment. The voice doesn’t answer
her, but instead skitters away from the door frantically. Sarah takes one final breath, and the sound of
a match being struck is heard loud and clear.*

*”Get fucked.”*

*The microphone doesn’t pick up the lit match hitting the ground, but it picks up the gasoline
igniting. Air rushes in as the flames begin to burn, and Sarah lets out a yelp. The voice begins to
scream loudly, rapidly switching back and forth.*

*“Please!” It lets out one final call, for the first time using Sarah’s voice.*

The recording ended, leaving me wrapped up in a whirlwind of emotions. I was horrified, I was
stupefied, I was strangely glad for it to finally be over. I was a mess, to put it bluntly. My body felt
like it melted into the seat. But I quickly composed myself when I remembered that Markus still had
some questions to answer.

“Did Sarah kill it? Did we bury a monster instead of her?” I asked in a single breath.

“I don’t know,” Markus answered. “It could very well be the case, but then…”

“Then where is she?”

“Exactly, plus a lot of other things don’t line up. But to be fair, they didn’t line up no matter which
angle I went at it from. All that we know for certain right now is that someone died in a fire.”

“So, monster hunter, huh?” I asked after a few moments of heavy silence.

“Pretty much,” Markus answered. “I’m the one they call when shit gets spooky, and let me tell you,
this shit is very fucking spooky.”

“Okay, but all of this still doesn’t answer the most important thing: why show me this? Any of this?” I
asked.

Markus lit up another cigarette and leaned back in his chair. For the first time since he entered the
house, he seemed truly comfortable, like he had nothing left to hide.
“We’re always on the lookout for new recruits, so consider tonight your entry test,” he admitted.
“You’re a bit...rough around the edges, but you seem like a decent candidate to me.”

“Me? A monster hunter? You can’t be serious,” I shot back with disbelief.

Markus just shrugged his shoulders.

“You’ll never know unless you try, I sure as shit didn’t. Never expected to hunt the things that go
bump in the night before I tried.”

“And what if I refuse?” I asked. “Will you kill me? Or erase my memory or something?”

At that, Markus just laughed out loud.

“If you don’t want to, you don’t want to. Simple as. You can try to tell anyone, but who’s gonna
believe you?”

I frowned, and Markus caught on that he struck a nerve. So he composed himself and got up, taking
the phone and stashing it in his pocket.

“Look, kid, it’s like I told you time and time again tonight. I can’t force you to do anything. But
consider it, okay?” As he said that, he pulled out a business card that he tossed on the table in front of
me. “The world desperately needs more people like us, if there were more of us to go around then
maybe…”

“Maybe what happened here would’ve been stopped sooner.”

“Yeah. It might be too late for your sister, but you could make the difference for someone else. If you
make up your mind, doesn’t matter if it’s tomorrow or a year from now, give me a call. And take
care.”

With that, Markus left. I saw him to the door and closed it behind him, then I went to crash into bed.
My entire worldview was shattered tonight, and I decided to get some rest before I tried to make sense
of the pieces.

The following days were uneventful, but even so, the strain of that night hung over me. It permeated
my thoughts at all times, permanently active in the background as it burrowed deeper and deeper. Dad
returned, we finished clearing the house, and he put it up for sale. But I couldn’t focus on that, not
when every other thought I had was about those damn recordings.

In the end, I had to stay over for a little while longer despite my constant complaints. Because of the
slummy neighborhood and sketchy neighbors, Dad didn’t want the house to go unoccupied.

“That’s basically asking for thieves and punks to break in,” he explained. “And it’s gonna be hard to
sell it if squatters make nests here. So just hang on for a little while longer, okay?”

I wanted to fight him on the matter, to tell him he could stay over himself if he was that worried, but I
didn’t. I couldn’t, not when I knew the truth about what went down. He wouldn’t be another death on
my conscience. So I lived in the house for another week or so, helping out with renovations and
whatnot. And truth be told, it wasn’t all that bad. It was a bit creepy, sure, but the freedom of living on
my own was oddly pleasant.

One evening, after he went home and I was left all alone, I heard a knock on the door. I slowly made
my way over to answer, expecting either him or Markus, but who I found on the other side left me
terrified.

It was Sarah.

“Hey, Clancy,” she greeted, sounding almost casual.

“What...how…” I let out in a meek voice as my tears started to flow.

“I have a lot of explaining to do, I know, but…”

I didn’t let her finish. I jumped her, latching my arms around her shoulders as I bawled my eyes out.
She put her arms around me as well, and we hugged for minutes in the doorway as I cried.

“What happened? Where were you?!” I asked when we finally parted. “We...we buried you! We
thought you were dead!”

“I’m sorry,” she answered. “A lot happened, and I had some problems. I ended up running away to a
friend for a while, and…” She sighed. “It’s a long story, okay? And very crazy.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, rubbing away the tears. “Call Dad and tell him to come over, he needs to
know you’re okay asap.”

“Actually, it would be better for you to do it, I don’t want to give him a heart attack.”

“Good point,” I admitted. “We kinda’ got rid of most of the furniture, but make yourself comfortable.
I’ll call him and join you.”

“Don’t take long,” she said, and went inside to find somewhere to sit.

I watched her walk down the corridor towards the kitchen, pausing by the basement door. She looked
at it for a long moment, then she continued on her way. I pulled out my phone and Markus’s card,
unsure about what to do. The thing’s facade was good, damn near perfect, but as it spoke those last
words its voice cracked just a little.

PART II
A lot, and yet so very little, has happened since the last time I posted. I'm more confused and paranoid
than ever, I feel like I'm taking ten steps back for every step I take forward. The situation is slowly
devolving into a veritable mess, and I'm thoroughly entangled in the web of deceit that I admittedly
contributed to creating.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, so I'll pick up from where I left off. I ended up calling Markus
first, and he answered almost right away.
"Hello, this is detective Markus, how may I help you?"

"Hey. It's me, Clancy."

"Oh, hey Clancy. How's it going, did you make up your mind?"

I peeked inside the house before I answered, but I couldn't see Sarah. She was in the kitchen, and by
the sounds of pots being overturned, I figured she was raiding the cupboards for something to eat.

"Sarah came back," I whispered into the phone.

"What?!" Markus let out. "How? When?"

"Just now," I answered. "But I think it's the mimic, there's something...off about her."

"Okay, okay," Markus said and took a deep breath. "Stay calm, I'm here for you. Is she there right
now, are you keeping tabs on her?"

"She's in the kitchen, I'm outside on the porch."

"Good. Don't lose sight of her. Does anyone else know that she's back? Did you call your parents?"

"Not yet," I answered. "I panic called you for help."

"Okay, you made the right decision," Markus reassured me. "I knew I was onto something with you."

"What do I do now? Do I go in there and…"

"No!" Markus yelped. "Don't do anything brash, okay? Don't confront her until you know beyond a
shadow of a doubt that it's the mimic. I'm a few hundred miles away on another case, so the fastest I
can make it there is a few days from now."

"I wasn't planning to, don't worry. I'm not stupid."

"Just...keep tabs on her. If anything comes up, and I mean *anything*, let me know. I'll rely on you to
keep me informed. Can I do that?"

"Of course," I answered.

"You're a good kid, Clancy" Markus said, almost making me laugh. I'm twenty, for crying out loud.
"You have a good head on your shoulders, so I trust your judgement. If the situation gets dicy, or you
feel you're in danger, don't hesitate to run away."

"Will do.”

"I'll try to wrap up this case as fast as possible, hold out until then. Try to keep her isolated if you can,
it'll be less of a headache to clean up everything if she ends up being the mimic."
"That's gonna be pretty hard," I admitted. "She already asked to talk to Dad."

"You'll figure something out, I'm sure of it. Got to go now, but we'll keep in touch."

"Okay, talk to you later. I'll think up some bullshit and see where to go from there."

I ended the call and peeked inside the house again. The rustling had stopped.

"Sarah?" I called out hesitantly.

"I didn't disappear again, don't worry," she answered with a chuckle. "I'm brewing some coffee, do
you want a cup?"

"Sure."

"Did Dad answer?"

"He...uhhh…" I fumbled for words. "No, he left. For the...Grand Canyon, I just remembered. Said he
needed some time away, so he didn’t take his phone with him.”

"Oh, well in that case come in.”

I wasn’t sure if she believed me or not. She likely had her doubts, but until she’d confront me about
them, I decided to take my small victory.

“Be right over,” I answered.

I was thankful for the short reprieve, but I still needed to do something. So instead of trying to call
Dad and risk exposing my lie, I shot him a text.

‘Hey Dad, the detective called. He wants to examine the house again, so he said you should steer clear
of it for a few days. Gonna call you tomorrow, good night.’

Dad texted me back almost right away.

‘Okay, want me to come over in the morning and pick you up?’

‘No, I’ll be staying here to help him out.’

‘Okay, talk to you tomorrow then. Good night.’

‘Goodnight, love you guys.’

With that, I stashed my phone away and made my way to the kitchen. Sarah was by the stove, boiling
a pot of water. I observed her for a few moments, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary about
her.
“Do I have something on…” she mumbled when she noticed me staring, pulling at her shirt to check
on it.

“No, no, it’s just...I’m glad you’re okay, that’s all.”

She gave me a soft smile, and turned to dump a pack of coffee grounds into the pot. I couldn’t
remember her ever being this cheery and warm, especially towards me. But then again, her change of
attitude could be explained by what she’d been through. So I filed it under potential red flags, but
decided to hold my judgement for the time being.

“How much sugar?” She asked after she poured us a cup each.

“Two cubes is enough.”

She dropped two cubes into the murky liquid, handed me the cup, and sat at the table opposite of me.
We sipped the bitter insomnia for a few minutes, both unsure of where to take the conversation. When
it became apparent that she wouldn’t talk, I took charge of the situation and did so myself.

“So, long and crazy story?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about it, I’m all ears.”

“Okay, so, the jist of it is that I kinda’ went...stir crazy. Not sure why, but I did. I...uhh...I started
hearing voices calling out to me, thought the house is haunted, and I ran off.”

I took in what she said, hanging on every word. Sarah hid a lot from me in that confession, and I
wasn’t sure what to believe or do. Should I confront her? Bring up the recordings? The creature in the
basement that she tried to burn alive?

“That sounds rough,” I said instead, deciding to play along.

My hope was that, if she didn’t know I was onto her, she wouldn’t try to harm me or run away again. I
could only speculate about the mimic’s goals, but if it wanted to take over Sarah’s life and
masquerade as her, I needed to keep the illusion intact for as long as possible. The potential mind
reading it might’ve been capable of threw a wrench in that plan, though, so the only thing I could do
about it was to pray she wouldn’t try it.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “The last few months were a little...well, completely shit, to be honest. But I’m
doing better now, and I’ll start looking for a therapist soon.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

We took a few more sips from our cups, but something seemed to bother her. She stared into her
coffee intently, her brows furrowing as if she debated internally over something.
“You...you said that you buried me, that you thought I was dead. What’s that all about? Did you
declare me missing or something? Was it an empty casket?”

Another thing I needed to lie about, and possibly another attempt at deceit on her part. I made note of
it as I thought of an answer, filing it away with the rest of the evidence that was building up.

“No, someone...someone burned alive in your basement. Some neighbors called the firefighters, they
put it out, and we thought it was you. So the authorities declared you dead and we buried the body.”

“Fuck me,” she lamented. “That’s going to be hard to explain and overturn.”

“Who burned, though?” I prodded, trying to see if she’d confess to anything.

“I don’t know, some squatter maybe? I don’t want to badmouth my neighbors, but one of them might
have broken in if they noticed I was gone. We have to call the cops tomorrow and let them know.”

“We’ll see, it might be a better idea to hold off on that for a few days,” I said absentmindedly.

“What? Why?” She burst out. “If they think I’m dead, we should let them know as soon as possible.”

I needed to think of something fast, and her haste gave me an idea.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I answered. “I’m just tired and thinking stupid shit out loud, don’t mind me. I
have the number of the detective that handled the case, we call him right now if you want.”

Sarah eyed me with distrust for a moment, but it faded as quickly as it appeared. She reached out a
hand over the table, wiggling her fingers.

“Dial him and give me the phone,” she demanded.

I did as she asked, pulling out the phone and dialing Markus’s number. She snatched it out of my
hands after I put it on speaker, and I was hoping he’d catch on and play along. It rang a few times
before he answered.

“Hey, Clancy, what’s up?” He asked. “Did anything…”

“It’s not Clancy, it’s...it’s Sarah.”

Markus dropped the phone, and we heard the clattering as it hit the ground. He let out a few quiet
curses as he picked it back up.

“Sorry, miss Sarah. You really took me by surprise,” he said, feigning shock quite well. “I am
detective Markus, I was tasked with investigating your...well...death.”

“I know, detective, Clancy told me about you. That’s why I wanted to call you right away and let you
know I’m alive.”
“Those are amazing news,” Markus said. “I’m glad to hear you are fine and it’s all been a
misunderstanding.”

“Thank you. So how do I go about reverting the whole mess? Where do I need to go, who do I need to
call?” Sarah asked.

“Well, miss Sarah, it’s a convoluted process made no simpler by the fact that a body was found in
your house. I’m away on another case for a few days, but I suggest you wait until I return. Don’t
contact the authorities until we consult a lawyer, they might flip the case into manslaughter and pin
you as a primary suspect.”

Sarah looked up from the phone and shot me a confused glare. Markus had more or less told her the
same thing I had. I wanted to sigh of relief at his quick thinking, but I abstained. She couldn’t suspect
that we were working together.

“Okay. Thank you, detective, I’ll be waiting for your return,” she said in a defeated tone.

“No problem,” Markus replied. “Stay inside for a few days, don’t travel, and try to put together a
statement of what happened. We need as many details as possible to make your case.”

“Will do.”

Markus bid us goodnight and ended the call. Sarah tossed me my phone back, placed her half empty
mug on the table, and moved to get up.

“Where to?” I asked.

“I’m going to bed, I’m drained. Where’s my phone, by the way?”

“I don’t know, it probably got lost in the shuffle when me and Dad cleared out the house,” I lied. The
fact that she asked for it unnerved me, however. It made me suspect that she wanted to cover the
tracks and delete the recordings, so I couldn’t let her know that Markus had it.

“Bummer, I wanted to watch a show or something,” she lamented. “Anyways, I’ll be going. Feel free
to join me whenever.”

“No worries, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Suit yourself,” she said with a chuckle and left the kitchen.

I waited for a few minutes, listening to her enter her bedroom and changing. Her reactions up to that
point didn’t seem abnormal by any means, they were all perfectly reasonable, but I couldn’t shake off
the feeling that something was out of place. That sensation, coupled with the fact that she’d lied to my
face, made me suspect that she had more to hide.

‘That was a close call,’ I texted Markus.

‘You alone right now?’

‘Yeah, she went to bed.’

‘Okay. You have to figure out if she’s a mimic or not before I return, we’ll have to make our move.’

‘I’ll try.’

It was nearing ten in the evening by that point, but I didn’t feel tired enough to sleep yet. So instead, I
went online and did some research. I found a lot of stuff about a slew of creatures that sort of fit the
profile of what I was facing, but none of it lined up perfectly. I couldn’t rely on those reports, so I
decided to share my own story in hopes of finding out more. Maybe people with similar accounts
would come crawling out of the woodwork if I spurred them on.

I turned off the lights, sat back down in the chair, and typed away on my phone. The night progressed
as I did my best to capture my experiences in writing, and soon enough I was absorbed by the
recounting. Usually I’m not a speedy writer, I take longer than average even on short texts, but my
curiosity and need for answers fueled me like never before. I was almost done, when I felt a hand
coming down on my shoulder.

“What are you writing there?” Sarah asked from behind.

I fumbled with the phone, nearly dropping it. She gave me a good scare, and I could feel the
adrenaline coursing through my veins as my pulse rose. Sarah squeezed my shoulder tighter as she
laughed at my clumsiness, and I quickly backed out of the app.

“It’s...I’m…” I faked a sigh, as if she caught me red handed with something embarrassing. “I’m
sexting with someone.”

“Wow,” Sarah answered. “Keep it in your pants in my house, will you?”

She went around the table and sat down, not bothering to turn on the lights. That left the room in
almost complete darkness, with only faint rays casting in from the streetlamps outside. I could make
out the contour of her body, but any sort of details were obscured.

“What are you doing up so late? I thought you went to sleep.”

She picked up the coffee mug and took a loud sip. Her eyes had an almost surreal glow to them, and I
felt them boring into me in a way completely different from before. There was malice behind them as
she measured me up.

“Nightmares,” she answered, setting down the mug and rubbing her eyes. “Couldn’t sleep anymore,
so I got up. What about you?”

“Couldn’t sleep either.”

I tried to meet her gaze with my own, to confirm what I’d seen and felt, but she averted eye contact.
That made my paranoia levels rise as my whole body tensed, but I tried to keep calm. We had some
more small talk about this or that, nothing of substance, and I could feel her eyes on me again
whenever I looked away. It drove me up the wall to feel that calculated coldness, like I was facing an
ambush predator thirsty for my blood.

“Can I bum a cig?” She asked.

I threw her the pack and the lighter, and she pulled out a cigarette. The small flame illuminated her
face as she lit it up, and her skin looked deathly pale. When she passed the pack back to me, I smoked
one as well to calm my nerves. No more words were exchanged, we just sat there in each other’s
smoke exchanging quick glances. I checked my phone, finding it was nearly four AM by that point.
Something that the buzzing between my thoughts confirmed, it was getting late and I was too tired to
think straight.

But I couldn’t risk going to sleep either, not when I was unsure about Sarah’s intentions. For all I
knew, that was exactly what she waited for. She finished the first cigarette, then asked for another
one, and another one, chain smoking half of my pack in about an hour. I pulled out my phone,
checking the post in a last desperate attempt to focus and stay awake.

“Did she answer?” Sarah asked when the blue light hit my eyes.

“Who?”

“The girl you were sexting,” she said with a snort. “Or the guy, I don’t discriminate.”

“She...uhhh...she blew me off,” I mumbled.

“Oof,” Sarah chuckled drily. “Bad luck with the ladies?”

“Yeah,” I kept lying.

“I can set you up with one of my friends, if you want. A girl named Amy, she’s an absolute
sweetheart but she struggles with dating too, she can be a bit...awkward at times.”

The mention of that name made me perk up. I know that Markus said to keep Sarah isolated from
everyone, but Amy had also heard the recordings and she could’ve been useful to me in this endeavor.
She knew Sarah better than me, so if I could convince her, if I could get her on board, she had a better
chance of recognizing the mimic.

“Sure thing,” I answered, letting a bit of my enthusiasm slip through.

“Okay, I’ll call her over tomorrow.” She got up, walked over to me, and grabbed my arm. “Now go
get some shuteye, you can’t be looking like a zombie. She has *some* standards.”

“Tomorrow?” I protested. I wanted to meet Amy as soon as possible, sure, but Sarah’s haste surprised
me.

“Yeah, tomorrow. No offense, but you’re kinda’ boring and I could use her company.”
“Ouch, offense 100% taken,” I answered with a timid laugh. “But it’s okay, I get it, I’m not exactly
mister exciting in the flesh.”

I got up and went over to the couch, with Sarah on my heels the entire way. She had brought out a
pillow and blanket for me before she found me awake and writing in the kitchen, which was a sweet
gesture. But the effect it had on me was quite the opposite, serving to fuel my paranoia even further.
The back and forth between her words and actions, her being kind one moment and cold the next, it
felt like a deliberate attempt to confuse me. Was she playing some sort of mind games? Was she even
aware of doing it? Was I losing it and seeing signs where there were none?

‘It’s probably the last one,’ I decided as I unfurled the blanket and made myself comfortable on the
couch. ‘I’m tired and I’m not thinking straight.’

“I’ll try to get some more sleep too, good night,” Sarah said before she headed for her room.

“Good night.”

When her door closed, I pulled out my phone and set an unlock password just in case. Then I set it to
record audio, and left it on the cracked table as I drifted off. Sleep came fast, and it was a deep,
dreamless blip that seemed to go by instantly. I woke up only a few hours later, to the light of the
morning sun reflecting off the table into my closed eyes.

Sarah was already up and about, preparing breakfast in the kitchen judging by the sounds and smells
reaching me.

“Morning,” I mumbled as I entered.

“Up already?” Sarah asked, turning away from a sizzling frying pan to face me. “You barely got any
sleep.”

“I’m fine, don’t worry.”

I took a seat at the table, and she served me eggs and bacon. As I ate, she took my phone and called
Amy to invite her over for lunch. Amy accepted right away, so they ended the call after a bit more
small talk that I couldn’t focus on.

“You didn’t mention me,” I jabbed as she handed me the phone back. “I thought this was supposed to
be a date.”

Sarah smirked.

“All in due time,” she said. “You can ask her out yourself if you two hit it off. And by the way, can
you go out for groceries before she comes? You didn’t exactly keep the fridge stocked, we barely
have anything.”

I grunted, but she wasn’t wrong. Besides some beer, and the eggs and bacon that we ate, the thing was
barren. So I got ready to run an errand to the closest shop while she cleaned up.
“And hurry up, you’ll have to take a shower too.”

I left the house post haste, plugging in my earphones and starting the recording from last night. It was
only my light snoring for the most part, so I put it on fast forward. Nothing in it jumped out to me, no
skittering or talking, so I paused it when I reached the store. It’s a small family owned business, so
besides the old lady manning the register and myself there were few other souls in sight. I got my
stuff, had some small talk with her while I paid, and I was off again. By the time I made it back home,
I was about half way into the recording with nothing to show for it.

‘Maybe I’m just losing my mind,’ a stray thought shot through my head. ‘I mean, monster hunters and
mimics and all that?’

I put the groceries away and went to take that shower. The water was scalding, but I pushed my body
under it and allowed it to melt my worries away. I’d solve the case and everything would be fine and
dandy, no doubt about it. If Markus trusted me, if he saw something in me, I couldn’t sell myself
short.

Amy arrived sooner than I expected, right as I was drying off and getting dressed. I came into the
livingroom to find her and Sarah at the table.

“Amy, this is Clancy, my younger brother. Clancy, this is Amy, my best friend,” Sarah did the
introductions.

“Nice to meet you,” Amy said, getting up to shake my hand.

She was a few years my senior, but she was cute, I’ll admit. Definitely out of my league though, so I
can’t imagine how Sarah thought she’d date me.

“Same,” I answered.

“I’ll go make us coffee and some snacks,” Sarah said. “Be right back.”

As she passed me, she elbowed me in the ribs and winked. I let out a chuckle and sat down opposite
of Amy.

“Sooo…” she mumbled when Sarah was gone.

“Uhhh...yeah…”

Sarah was right, we were like two fish out of water. Two very awkward fish that didn’t know how to
get a conversation going, which were bad news for me. After all, I couldn’t steer a non-existent
conversation into the desired direction, so I needed to do something about it. Dating be damned, I
needed Amy’s help first and foremost.

“Did Sarah tell you about what’s been going on in her life lately?” I asked, getting straight to the
point.
A bit blunt on my part, I know, but we had little time until she returned. Amy raised an eyebrow at my
directness.

“She said she’s having some...mental problems, yeah,” Amy answered. “But…”

“She showed you the recordings, right?”

At that, Amy frowned.

“Did she show them to you as well?”

“No, a detective did,” I answered.

“A detective?” She asked, her words filled with confusion.

“Yeah. Look, what I’m about to say will sound crazy, but listen until the end. We might need your
help.”

“Go ahead,” Amy said and waved a hand through the air.

“Okay, so Sarah made those recordings because she heard a voice in the basement, right?”

“Look,” Amy interrupted me despite what I asked of her. “That was Sarah. It wasn’t some monster or
ghost, she made those voices herself.”

“But…”

“I caught her in the act, okay?” Amy insisted, and the look in her eyes turned sharp. “She came over
to my place for help when she couldn’t take it anymore, and I heard her myself. She sleepwalked and
talked in different voices, having conversations back and forth with herself. It’s not some monster,
your sister had a mental breakdown and made up the whole thing.”

“We found a dead body in the basement,” I retorted. Which shook Amy, I could see as much by how
her expression changed. “Sarah didn’t show you all of the recordings, she made 17 in total. In the last
one, she set fire to whatever was in the basement.”

“She what?!” Amy whispered aggressively.

“Yeah. We found the body and we thought it was her,” I continued. “We buried it, she’s legally dead
and six feet under.”

The look in Amy’s eyes turned into pure terror. She glared past me at the kitchen, where Sarah
merrily went about preparing us lunch.

“She didn’t tell me about that, what the hell? Did she kill someone?”

“Not someone,” I pressed on. “Some*thing*. Me and the detective believe it *was* a monster. A
mimic of sorts. And it might have taken Sarah’s place.”
“Stop with that bullshit already, it *wasn’t* a monster,” Amy insisted. “Worst case scenario, your
sister committed murder.”

“The door was locked at all times. There’s no other way in or out of the basement. Police officers
checked it *twice* and didn’t find anyone, and Sarah locked the door as soon as they were out. How
the hell did someone get in there?”

“You weren’t there to see it, were you?” Amy questioned. “All you have to go by are the recordings,
and Sarah is *metally unstable*. Unless you saw it with your own eyes, how do you know that she
latched the locks? That she didn’t lie on the recording?”

‘Fuck me,’ I thought. ‘That’s a good point.’

“Well I…” I mumbled, the wind in my sails good as gone.

“Coffee’s done, what are you two mumbling about?” Sarah asked from the kitchen.

“Nothing!” Amy answered.

“Sounds like quite the intense nothing,” Sarah quipped. “Can you come over and give me a hand
before you two jump on each other?”

Amy got up, but she stopped next to me and placed a hand on my arm.

“Drop it about the recordings, okay? We’ll talk more later when Sarah’s not around, but don’t
mention them around her. It took me two weeks to calm her down. There’s no monster, your sister is
sick and needs professional help.”

I didn’t say anything else, realizing that it would be in vain. Amy seemed like she’d already made up
her mind on the matter, so she wouldn’t be of much help. I was back to square one, more or less. But
what little information she did share could’ve been useful, I just needed to figure out how it fit into
the bigger picture and the theories that were developing. Did Sarah talk in different voices at Amy’s
place because she was the mimic, or was she truly having mental problems? But even if that was the
case, it couldn’t explain how she reproduced Dad’s voice, or my own, so flawlessly.

No, the mimic was real. That much I knew for sure, I’d heard the recordings with my own ears. The
only question I needed to answer was if it was dead or not, and all of the mounting evidence pointed
towards *not*.

The two returned from the kitchen with coffee and the promised snacks, and Sarah looked at me with
a wide grin. Amy, in the meantime, gave me the best stink eye I’ve received to date. Sarah started
telling her of the few shared memories we had, but I could see that neither one of us focused on the
story she spun.

“I’ll go out to have a smoke,” I interrupted Sarah.

“You can smoke indoors, it’s fine,” she reassured me.

“Nah, I need some fresh air anyways.”

Sarah protested some more, but I got up and headed for the back porch. It was farther away, so they
wouldn’t hear or see me there. I lit up a cigarette as soon as I was out and retrieved my phone,
intending to call Markus and update him. But I paused when I saw last night’s recording still on the
screen. Something about it wasn’t right.

I slept for about four hours at most, but the recording was only two hours long. The phone was on the
table, so I couldn’t have turned it off by accident in my sleep, and I forgot to turn it off when I woke
up. Cliche as it will sound, I felt the blood in my veins freeze as I skipped through it until I reached
the end.

A door opened in the background, and footsteps slowly approached the microphone. They circled the
room a few times, stopping near me as I still snored softly in the background. Nothing happened for a
few minutes, then the phone was picked up off the table, presumably by Sarah. Her breathing was
audible for a few moments, and the recording stopped abruptly.

I peeked inside, feeling the terror and paranoia in me mounting, but I couldn’t see the two of them. I
only heard them talking and laughing. Markus needed to know about this, and I needed guidance on
how to proceed, but he wouldn’t pick up. So I opened the texting app and navigated to our
conversation, yet to my utter stupefaction, I found it blank.

PART III

I backed away from the house slowly, deciding not to wait around and see what would follow. Sarah’s
backyard wasn’t big, and it was separated from her neighbor’s by a measly picket fence. Easy to jump
over for a hasty getaway, since I wasn’t about to go through the house and risk being seen. Luckily
her neighbor didn’t have any dogs, and didn't even appear to be at home actually, so I ran through
their yard and emerged on another street.

With no destination in mind, I wandered the town for a while as I planned my next move. First things
first, I needed to contact Markus, but he wouldn’t answer his phone. I tried calling him over twenty
times, only to be met by his voicemail.

*“You’ve called detective Markus. If I didn’t answer, I’m either busy with work, I’m sleeping, or I’m
dead. Leave a message after the beep and I’ll call you back either when I’m done with work, when I
wake up, or when I’m resurrected.”*

*Beep*

*“Hey Markus, it’s me, Clancy. Sarah’s onto us, she’s 100% the mimic. I ran away, call me back as
soon as you can.”*

And just to be sure, I sent him a text as well.

*‘Sarah’s onto us, call me back ASAP.’*

With that taken care of, I needed to decide where to hide. I still lived with my parents, and their house
was obviously out of the question. It would’ve been the first place Sarah checked for me. Without a
place of my own, and with few friends that also still lived with their parents or in college dorms, my
options were down to nothing.

‘No choice, gotta take my chances at home,’ I decided.

I did tell her that Dad was away, so maybe my lie would buy me a bit of time. It was also across town,
so at the very least it would put some distance between me and her. I reached it half an hour later on
foot and tried to call Dad, but he wouldn’t pick up either. Straight to voicemail. Same with Mom,
who’d usually answer her phone even at work. I banged on their door, I tried calling both of their
phones again and again, all to no avail.

‘Fine, I’ll let myself in then.’

We had one of those fake, hollowed out garden rocks where we kept an extra set of keys. But lifting it
up, I found the spares missing.

“What the hell?” I wondered out loud.

We *never* misplaced those keys, Dad was very insistent about it. I felt another pang of panic, and
my thoughts instantly went to Sarah. Did she anticipate this scenario? Did she steal the keys? No, that
couldn’t be, I had her under watch ever since she came back.

“Unless…”

The recording she’d stopped, was it for this? So she could leave her house, run across town, and take
the keys? She definitely would’ve had enough time until I woke up. But no, that made no sense. If
she’d done that, if she’d have gotten so close to Dad, she would have made her presence known to
him.

“Amy, maybe?”

That didn’t make much sense either, I couldn’t just assume guilt all willy nilly. Amy was probably a
victim of the charade, not an accomplice.

‘No, I have to dial back on the paranoia. Someone simply used them and forgot to put them back.’

My phone started ringing, but it was an unknown number. I was tempted to answer, thinking it
might’ve been Markus, but I didn’t. It rang until it was directed to voicemail, so I waited with bated
breath to see if the person would leave a message. No dice.

*‘Hey, it’s Amy. Where are you? Sarah’s worried.’* A text popped up on my screen soon after.

“Speak of the Devil,” I mumbled to no one in particular.

I didn’t respond to them, of course, and fortunately they didn’t try again. So I waited on the porch for
either Mom or Dad to come home and let me in, trying to decide what lies to spin for them. A few
minutes turned into half an hour, then into an hour, then into two, but neither one arrived. I checked
my phone: five PM.

‘Any minute now.’

I kept trying to reach Markus in the meantime, I think I made fifty calls at the very least. But none of
them went through. Six PM came and went, then seven, and my parents showed no signs of returning.
That, of course, only served to exacerbate my distress. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

With eight PM around the corner and no one answering their God damned phones, I decided to break
into my own house. I smashed one of the small windows on the front door with the fake rock,
unlocked it from inside, and made my way in. Half of me expected to find my parents waiting in the
dark, or worse yet as two day old corpses, but the house was empty.

The rest of the evening was spent in silence and dread, with me looking out the window every other
minute expecting Sarah and Amy to come knocking. Which they didn’t. I locked up everything I
could, and I went to the garage to get something to patch up the broken window. It was a nice
diversion from my worries, I always found that keeping busy helped me. As I was nailing a plank
over the gap, my phone dinged.

*’Can’t call, driving back right now. I handed the case to another hunter. Hold out until tomorrow.’*

‘Thank God,’ I thought, feeling a wave of relief washing over me as I read the text.

Markus would come to my rescue, and he’d know exactly what to do to sort out the mess. He’d fix
everything, and I could go on with my life. For a few moments, I nearly melted away. But let me
assure you, the calmness I felt was short lived. I tried to call my parents again, to see why they
weren’t home yet despite the late hour, and I heard faint ringtones coming from upstairs.

I followed the sound with shaking steps, hearing it grow louder as I approached the door of their
bedroom. It came from inside, and I paused with my hand on the door’s handle for what felt like a
short eternity. I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it, to throw it open and face the potential
horrors inside. Images of the two of them dead, sprawled on their bed as their flesh rotted away,
invaded my mind. I shook from my very core.

‘Come on,’ I urged my body. ‘Move, please.’

I closed my eyes and, with my breath hitching in my throat, I turned the handle. The door was
unlocked, and it opened with loud squeals that resounded throughout the house. I braced myself for
the putrid smell I expected would follow, but it didn’t come. Stale air with an undertone of cheap
laundry detergent wafted out instead, calming my shot nerves.

I opened my eyes, finding the room empty. After thanking every deity I could think of for sparing me
of gruesome sights, I went inside and started searching. Their phones were on the nightstand besides
the bed, displaying all of my missed calls. Sarah got them after all, she was just smart enough to not
leave the bodies here.
I couldn’t sleep much that night, so instead I got a crowbar from the garage and made rounds around
the house. I double and triple checked all of the doors and windows to make sure they were locked,
then I hunkered down and waited. The coffee machine worked overtime as I pumped my veins full of
caffeine and nicotine in an effort to stave off my exhaustion. After nearly two weeks of improper
sleep, I was starting to feel the effects.

“It will all be okay, it won’t last much longer,” I tried to reassure myself. “I only need to hold out for
tonight and tomorrow, then Markus will save my sorry ass and I’ll be able to sleep for three days
straight.”

That’s how I spent most of that night, wide awake in the dark kitchen with the crowbar by my side. I
wrote the previous post to keep myself busy, and I jumped at every little sound that came from
outside. Midnight came and passed, and I found myself dozing off into short bursts of microsleep.

“Come on,” I urged myself. “Stay awake, damn it.”

My head lulled down towards the counter, and when I realized I wouldn’t last, I got a hold of the
crowbar. I smashed it down on my own toes, and the pain jolted me awake real quick. With a now
hurting foot and a clearer mind, I got up and walked around the house again. My hope was that, if I
kept on the move, I’d have less trouble remaining alert.

More sounds came from outside, in the form of passing cars or wandering animals, but I checked
them regardless. I ran around between the windows, parting the drapes only enough to see without
being seen myself. To my relief, none of the cars that passed were the same, so for the meantime I
wasn’t being stalked.

By sunrise, around seven AM or so, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I was a wreck in every sense of
the word, and fatigue did me in. I’m not sure when or how it happened, but I think I just fell off my
feet and went to sleep on the floor because I don’t remember ever laying down. It was fitful, and all
around too short.

The phone’s ringing woke me up a couple of hours later, at around nine AM. I jolted to my feet, with
my heart pounding so hard that I was afraid it would break free from my chest. You probably know
the sensation, that distinct panic of being woken suddenly by loud sounds. At any rate, I checked the
phone and saw Amy’s number. I half wanted to just throw the damn thing against a wall and break it,
but I stopped myself when I realized it was my only lifeline to Markus.

The call went to voicemail, and I received a text soon after.

*‘Where are you, Clancy?’*

A steady buzzing burrowed into my brain, nestling between my thoughts. My temples ached from the
lack of sleep, and when I tried to rub the hurt away it spread to the rest of my scalp.

*‘You said you wanted to talk without Sarah around, so let’s meet somewhere. Just the two of us.’*
Another text from Amy, and one that felt distinctly like a trap. I didn’t want to respond and risk
falling for it, but I reminded myself that Amy could’ve been a victim as well. Maybe I still had time to
change her mind and get her on my side.

*‘Where?’* I shot a text back.

*‘Wherever you want, name a place.’*

That set me a bit at ease. If it was really a trap, she wouldn’t have offered to let me pick the location. I
texted her the name of a small diner that served a killer breakfast, and told her to be there in an hour.
It gave me enough time to shower and change, and I took it freezing this time. The cold water helped
sober me up, even if it couldn’t get rid of the throbbing in my brain. I felt a bit more rejuvenated when
I was done, so I hit the road, making a small detour to buy a pack of cigarettes.

It was that same small shop I mentioned last time, as it was half-way between our houses and close to
the diner. Only this time, it was empty save for the old cashier. A feeling of deep dread shot into me
the moment I stepped foot inside.

‘You’re being paranoid again,’ I told myself as I calmed down. ‘Get a grip, it’s the lack of sleep.’

The lady bid me good morning, and we made small talk as I paid for the cigarettes. I went to pull out
my wallet and rifle through it for change, but the moment I took my eyes off of her, I felt her staring
at me. The same sensation I got from Sarah, setting in so fast and intense that it made me jump back.

“Are you okay, dear?” The old woman asked as I bent down to pick up the wallet.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s just…I’m tired, Ma’am.”

“Good grief, you sure look the part. You’re so young, you should take better care of yourself,” she
scolded. Not in a belittling way, but more in that *grandma worried for her grandkids* way.

“I will,” I reassured her. “I’m just going through a rough patch, that's all.”

I got out a few bills and coins, placed them on the counter in front of her, and turned to leave.

“Have a good day, sweety.”

My ears likely played tricks on me, but I could swear in that moment that her voice cracked just a
little. It sent a chill crawling down my spine and put a spring in my step, sending me into high alert as
I power walked away.

‘You’re *imagining* things,’ I insisted. ‘You’re tired, you’re not thinking straight. Get a grip.’

I tried my best to do just that as I headed for the diner, but I failed miserably. The encounter stuck
with me, rippling through my mind and leaving behind more paranoia in its wake. Was Sarah the only
mimic? Were there more of them? Why was everyone looking at me as I walked, shooting me glances
from the corners of their eyes? Was I acting strange, giving them a reason to, or were they onto me as
well? I slapped myself when I realized just how absurd I sounded, and it helped set me straight, even
if just a bit. I didn’t have any proof of more mimics, no reason whatsoever to believe that it could
multiply and spread.

A few minutes later, I reached the diner. It’s a dingy little place, dirty and sticky most of the time, but
I always found that places like these served the best damn food. Some tables were set outside, Covid
restrictions and all that, and I saw Amy on her phone at one of them. She wasn’t talking to anyone,
just browsing the internet by the looks of it.

“Hey,” I greeted, approaching her and sitting down.

“Morning,” she answered, locking the phone and placing it on the table face down. “How’s it going?”

“Not doing hot, I won’t lie,” I admitted.

“No shit,” Amy said with a giggle. “I mean, no offense, but you look like total crap.”

I let out an awkward laugh as I rubbed the back of my head, because ouch, offense taken.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not usually like this, but the last couple of weeks were…stressful.”

“I imagine.”

“So, where’s Sarah?”

“At home, sleeping. She was awake almost all night worrying over where you went, so she’s tired
out,” Amy answered, with a bit of anger in her voice.

“Did you tell her we’re meeting up?” I asked.

“No,” Amy answered. “You said you didn’t want her to know, and I figured we’d have enough time
to talk. Knowing her, she’ll be out cold until around noon.”

“Okay. Thank you for giving me another chance.”

“Here to help,” Amy said, and her frown melted into a shy smile. “Sarah’s a good friend, so if she
worries over you, I’ll worry over you.”

The conversation veered off after that, but I decided to let it. I needed to distract myself, to think of
something else, even if only for a short while. We talked about our personal lives, like our jobs and
studies and whatnot, but I was careful not to share too many details. The waiter came and took our
orders, returning with our food and drinks in what felt like a blink.

"...and then a teacher caught us, and I got suspended for a week," Amy finished telling me about some
of her highschool misadventures. "But you should've seen Clara's face, it was totally worth it.
Probably took her a month to clean that shit off her windshield."

"I bet she didn't mess around with you guys after that," I said with a laugh.
"You bet she didn't, she avoided us like the plague."

"Never really had problems with bullies myself, I was friends with the jocks and they kept me safe.
But I did get into trouble when a teacher caught us smoking behind the gym."

"So you started early, huh?" Amy asked.

"Yeah. I was a stupid teen that wanted to be cool, but I regret it to this day," I admitted.

"So quit."

"Oh, sure, cause it's that easy to curb an addiction," I quipped. "I mean, how didn't I think of that idea
myself, it's genius."

We laughed it off, and Amy seemed to dig my humor as far as I could tell. She was a bit awkward
still, but she was nice overall. I could get used to that, to having her around more often, to maybe date
her. To be happy, you know? But the worries resurfaced, souring my mood. They reminded me that
Sarah was still out there. That I couldn't let my guard down and rest until I took care of things.

So I didn't waste any more time and went on the offensive.

"So, about Sarah."

Amy's smile died a fast, pathetic death, and she let out a long sigh.

"What about her?"

"I want to discuss her, to *convince* you."

"You can't convince me, monsters aren't real. Just listen to yourself for a second, come on."

"No, I have proof this time. Here," I said and pulled out my phone.

I fumbled with it for a few seconds, pulling up the recording. Amy watched me with distrust and pity,
as if she was facing a mad man.

"Look. I set up the phone to record audio and…"

"There we go again," Amy let out in a tired voice. "More recordings."

"No, just...listen to it, okay?" I mumbled, skipping through to the end. "I set it up, and Sarah turned it
off while I slept."

It played, and Amy actually listened. She was surprised by what went down, but I could see that she
wasn't convinced.

"If anything, that's only more proof that she has mental problems. And no offense, I strongly suspect
you do as well. Maybe it runs in your family, and if that's the case, you *both* need help."
"No, it's not that she stopped it, that's not the point," I defended. "The phone was face down on the
table, what reason would she have to suspect I'm recording? She either did because she's done it as
well when she faced the mimic, or she *is* the mimic and she learned from her encounter with the
real Sarah."

"Or she's crazy!" Amy raised her voice. "She has the same delusions you do, she's *just* as paranoid
as you!"

"She also deleted the texts, the...the conversations I had with Markus! The detective!" I burst out.

I felt like I was on the brink of convincing her, of winning her over. That she only needed the slightest
push in the right direction, and I'd have myself an ally.

"So…" she started, but I cut over her.

"And what about the body?! The one we buried!"

"There wasn't a body, Clancy," Amy said.

I went completely silent at that, I was dumbfounded. You could've heard a pin drop if you were there.
Our respective outbursts had garnered us the stares of the other patrons, and I felt their eyes on me.

"What?" I asked in a hushed voice as I looked around.

"That's why I wanted to meet up with you and talk," Amy explained. "A murder is a pretty heavy
accusation to throw around, so after you ran off, I called 911. The words *possible murder* mobilized
them real fast, two officers were at the door in less than five minutes."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, but I knew that I fucked up. Markus explicitly asked me to keep
an eye on Sarah, to keep her isolated, and I failed. The other patrons returned to their own business,
but a couple of them at different tables still shot me glances every so often. Those same cold,
calculated glances that Sarah shot me, sending my paranoia into overdrive.

'Control yourself,' I reminded myself. 'You made a scene, people are bound to be curious. They're not
mimics, they're just worried.'

"The two cops recognized the house right away," Amy kept talking, and I had to try very hard to focus
on her words. "They were the same ones that checked up on Sarah before, when she was having her
breakdown, so they thought that she finally went off the rails hard enough to kill someone. But I
explained the situation to them, I brought up your accusations, and they assured me that something
like that never happened."

"No," I stammered. "No, no, nonono, that's wrong. That's wrong! I was there! There when the body
was pulled out on a stretcher, there at the funeral, there for all of it! She died, *someone* died, I
swear on my life!"
I was so fired up, so absorbed by my rant, that I didn't notice getting up from the chair and leaning on
the table. Amy pulled back from me, with fear evident in her eyes, but to her credit she composed
herself fast.

"It's worse than I thought," she answered. "Clancy, you had a mental breakdown as well, okay? It
wasn't real, none of it was real."

Some of the other patrons moved to get up as soon as she did, likely expecting a scuffle. Amy walked
around the table slowly, lifting her hands up as if to say she wasn't a threat.

"Look," she continued. "I know that it's hard to hear, that it's hard to come to terms with the fact that
your own mind has been lying to you, but it's the truth. I'm not here to accuse you of anything, I'm not
here to get you in trouble, I'm here to help. Okay? Will you let me help you?"

"I…"

"We don't need to call the cops or anything, just...come back with me to Sarah's place. We'll talk it
out, we'll give you space and let you calm down, we'll do this on your terms. Okay? You’ll be in
control at all times, and when you’ll feel ready, I’ll help you look for professional help."

“I’m…I…my parents. Dad and Mom,” I tried a final tactic. “They’re gone too. Please, you *have* to
believe me, Sarah is the mimic and she murdered them.”

“Your parents are away on a vacation, Clancy,” Amy rebuked me. “To the Grand Canyon.”

“No, that’s the lie I told Sarah to keep her away from them!” I answered, certain that I finally had her.
“I told her they left their phones at home, and lo and behold, I find their phones at home. But they
*didn’t go* anywhere, it was a *lie*.”

“They’ve been planning this vacation for months, even *I’ve* heard about it. Sarah wouldn’t shut up
about them, she wanted to go too but couldn’t get time off work.”

“No, no, nonono, this is wrong. It’s all wrong!”

“I know it feels wrong, but please, believe me Clancy.”

She reached out for me, but I recoiled. It couldn’t be, it was all wrong, it was! I swear! It was my own
lie, spat back at me as a truth. I felt trapped, suffocated, like the world itself shrunk around me and
pinned me into place. It was all wrong.

Amy took another step towards me, and I could see the other patrons getting on the move as well.
They’d catch me. They’d catch me, and they’d lock me up in a looney bin, or worse yet they’d take
me back to Sarah. I couldn’t allow it, but in that moment I felt entirely powerless to stop it.

‘Run,’ I thought. ‘God fucking damn it, run!’

Without another word, I turned and bolted down the street.

“Clancy, wait!”

I ran, faster than I’ve ever run in my entire life. My lungs were burning up, and my feet were full of
lead pulling me down, but I ran. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t hesitate even for a moment, not when it felt
like the entire world was chasing after me. Why? What did I do to deserve this, *any* of this? I was
paranoid, sure, but who wouldn’t be in my situation? What I wasn’t, though, was crazy. I was sane,
for fuck’s sake, it was them fucking with me, making me doubt my own memories.

More calls came as I ran home, but I didn’t even bother to check the phone. I couldn’t stop. When I
finally arrived and locked myself inside, I saw they were all from Amy, predictably enough. She made
about ten calls, and sent a few texts as well.

*’Please, Clancy, come back.’*

*’I don’t mean you any harm, I swear, I just want to help you.’*

*’Think about your parents, think about Sarah, hell think about yourself.’*

“No,” I told myself. “I need to wait for Markus. I need to last for just a little while longer. He’ll be
here any minute now, and he’ll sort this shit out.”

I looked out one of the windows to see if anyone had followed me, but they hadn’t. Still, that didn’t
mean I could stay put until Markus returned. I was too easy to find, I was a sitting duck, I needed to
either hide or get on the move. No place to tuck myself into came to mind, so I’d have to do the latter.

I changed my clothes, dressing in some of Dad’s old tracksuits and jackets. They were baggier, and
did a better job in concealing my face. As I did that, I tried to decide where to go and what to do. I
couldn’t wander the streets aimlessly, I had to stay among people. To blend in the crowd, and
hopefully have a shot at calling out for help if I was found. But our town wasn’t very big, we didn’t
have malls or busy districts.

“Some bar, then,” I decided.

We had a few of those, and they were rarely empty. So I left the house and headed for the farthest bar
I could think of, hoping it would be the last one Sarah and Amy would check. I kept my head down on
the way there, trying my damn hardest not to attract attention. When I made it half an hour later, I let
out a sigh of relief.

I went in, found a table in the back of the room, and made myself comfortable. It was one of those
sports bars, always displaying some match or another, I don’t know. I’m not big into sports, and my
mind was in an entirely different place the whole time I was there. The waitress came over after a few
minutes, but I didn’t notice her until she cleared her throat to get my attention.

“Ahem.”

“Oh,” I jumped back. “Sorry, I…I had a crappy day and was distracted.”

“That’s okay. Will you have anything?”

“Uh, sure. Bring me a beer, please.”

“Any…preferences?” She asked.

“Whichever one you have, really doesn’t matter. And keep the tab open, I’m waiting for someone so
I’ll be here for a while.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

She wandered off to serve the other patrons, so I got busy with my phone. It finally hit me that it had
no password, even though I distinctly remember I had set one up. Another thing that Sarah did to
mess with me? Was my memory really failing? I decided it didn’t matter at that moment, so I set a
new one and texted Markus.

*’They’re trying to get me, I’m on the run. Call me when you get in town and we’ll meet up.’

The waitress returned a few minutes later with a mug of beer, then she was off again. I sipped from it
occasionally, but my focus was on my phone, watching seconds turning into minutes with bated
breath. The finish line was within reach, and I couldn’t wait for the terror and paranoia to be over. I
was tired.

More episodes of microsleep came and went, but no one seemed to notice or even care. But they left
me worried, as they caused my attention to falter. About an hour later, around lunch, Markus finally
texted me back. Seeing the notification pop up on the screen got my heart pounding faster, chasing
away the fatigue for the meantime.

*’I’m almost there, will probably arrive near sundown.’*

I felt relief washing over me, as sundown wasn’t far off. Winter and all that. I only needed to last for
four or five hours more at most, and I was confident enough that I could do that. I didn’t feel watched
here, didn’t feel observed, so it was safe. All I needed to do was to stay awake, to keep the beers
coming, and I wouldn’t be kicked out of the bar. So long as I sipped them slow enough to not get
drunk, I’d be fine.

Amy tried to contact me again, more calls and texts spread out over the remainder of the day, but I
didn’t answer. I won’t transcribe the texts cause they were just more of the same, variations of *where
are you* and *come back, Sarah’s worried.*

Time flew by, and before I noticed, it was getting dark outside. The sun touched the horizon, draping
the world in shades of orange and red. My phone rang again, and to my utter delight, it was Markus.

“Bring me the tab, please!” I yelled to the waitress before I answered. “Hey.”

“How’s it going? How are you?” Markus asked right away.

“Tired and paranoid as all hell, but I’ll manage.”

“Good, cause I might need you to pull an all-nighter and help me out.”

The waitress brought me the tab, and I did a double take seeing the price. Twenty five bucks for a few
beers?

“Will do, can’t wait for this to be over with,” I answered, pulling out thirty bucks and handing them to
her. “Keep the change.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, don’t worry.” I got up from the table and walked towards the exit, re-energized by the hope
coursing through me. “Where do you want to meet up?”

“Pick a place and I’ll be right over, I’m entering your town now.”

“Okay, let’s…”

“Wait a sec, a cop car just got on the road behind me. I think they want to pull me over.”

“Fuck, were you speeding? We don’t have time for a ticket right now,” I grunted.

“I wasn’t, it’s…”

Markus was cut off by a loud crash. It sounded like metal bending and glass shattering, almost
deafening even through the phone’s speakers.

“The fuck?! They rammed me!” Markus yelled.

“Fuck, get away!”

“I’m trying, but they’re after me! They want to run me off the road!”

Another crash, this one even louder. Markus cursed in the background, and the sound of tires
screaming on the asphalt followed.

“I don’t know what’s going on, I’ll call you back.”

“No, wait…”

The call ended abruptly, leaving me stunned. What the hell was going on? I left the bar, lit up a
cigarette, and paced back and forth in the street as stress consumed me. Markus was so close, he was
right fucking here. He wouldn’t fail, he *couldn’t* fail. No. He’d get away, and he’d reach me, and it
would all be fine.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine, he’s a god damned monster hunter.”

A couple more minutes passed, with no sign from him. I finished the cigarette fast, but I lit up another
one right away. I needed to distract myself, to keep calm, to not let the paranoia sink in. It couldn’t get
its teeth into me again, I wouldn’t allow it. I refreshed the texting app constantly, waiting, feeling my
breathing speeding up. A *ding* came, and with it, a notification and another text.

Reading it felt like a gut punch. The floodgates broke, and the tide of terror I struggled to keep at bay
flooded me. I went lightheaded and dizzy, shaking on my feet, as if the world around me spun out of
control. Four words, four god damned words and an incomplete text.

*’Run, there’s more of…’*

FINAL PART

I tried to call Markus a few more times after I received his last text, but just as I suspected, he didn’t
answer. He was either captured or killed, leaving me on my own. The calls still went to voicemail,
however, so his phone was still active. Whoever ran him off the road likely took it, and I could use
that to my advantage to buy some time.

*’Will do, I’ll leave town right away. I’ll be walking along the main road in case you can follow
me.’*

Hopefully that was a convincing enough red herring, sending them on a wild goose chase that would
give me an hour or two to sleep. I desperately needed some of that, to clear my mind so I could think
straight. Making any decisions, forming any plans in my current condition, it was a bad idea. I was
aware of that much.

Keeping that in the forefront of my mind, I made my way home. Many people passed me in the
streets, and I felt their eyes on me when I wasn't looking their way, but I remained calm. Sort of. I
reminded myself that it was paranoia, that I was slowly going mad from fatigue and stress, that not all
of it was real. Some of it, maybe, but certainly not all. I needed to remain rational to the best of my
abilities.

I got home without incident. No one followed me, and I found the house still empty and locked up
like I'd left it. The current plan was to sleep a bit, then head out of town into the wilderness. I'd set up
camp somewhere remote, far away from everyone and everything, and use that time to rest.

Dad had some bare bones camping gear that he used to go fishing, so I could use that. Although it
wasn’t much, it would’ve been useful. I found it all stacked away in the garage, so I threw together a
hasty bug out bag to have it ready. A small fishing tent, a flashlight, some matches and cans of food,
but no weapons since we didn’t have any.

‘A firearm would’ve been really useful, but this will have to do,’ I thought as I retrieved the crowbar.

I didn’t plan to use it to hunt or anything, just to defend myself until I made it out of town. With the
preparations complete, I barricaded my bedroom by dragging a heavy drawer in front of the door. The
window I left unlocked, just in case I needed to make a run for it. My room was up on the first floor,
but the jump down wouldn’t be too bad.
Being in an actual bed after the last few days was absolute bliss, I can't describe it. I fell asleep so fast
that I almost didn't get to set an alarm to wake me up around midnight. It went by fast, however, and
this time I finally had some dreams. Nightmares.

I can't remember much of them, only bits and pieces. Something crawling into bed next to me.
Speaking in my mind, trying to undo the seams of my very soul so it could take a peek inside. Getting
angry when I resisted. Growing more aggressive, tugging at the corners of my brain the more I fought
back.

I woke up screaming, kicking and punching blindly. My fist connected with something meaty, and I
heard a familiar voice letting out a yelp.

"What the hell?!"

Opening my eyes, I found Dad on his ass next to the bed. His lip was split wide open, and Mom was
by his side on her knees.

"I'm…" I started, but the words got caught in my throat.

"That was a pretty intense nightmare you had there," Dad said with a smile, rubbing away the gushing
blood with his sleeve. "I think I'll need stitches."

Looking around the room, I saw that the dresser I had dragged in front of the door was back in its
place. The door and the window were wide open, creating a draft that pulled the cold December air
inside. The instinct to just bolt it right then and there kicked in, but I subdued it.

"Where have you guys been?" I asked them.

I decided to question them, because maybe, just maybe, the last few days were indeed a hallucination.

"To the Grand Canyon," Mom answered and helped Dad to his feet. "You know, on the vacation we
planned for what, two months now?"

Dad went to the bathroom to patch up his busted lip, leaving me and Mom alone. He looked back at
me for a split second before he closed the door, his gaze filled with anger and hatred.

“Sarah’s friend, Amy was her name?” Mom continued. “Anyway, she called the reception of the hotel
we were at and told us everything. So we rushed home to be here for you.”

“Okay, thank you guys. Let’s…let’s go check up on Dad, maybe he needs help.”

Mom eyed me with suspicion, but she got up.

“And don’t forget to apologize to him, you clocked him pretty hard,” she added.

“Will do.”
Something skittered in the closet, attracting my attention. I looked over, seeing the darkness inside
shifting between the slits of the sliding doors. A pitch black figure, humanoid in shape, peered back at
me with dimly glowing eyes.

“Can we order pizza? I’m starving,” I said, walking past Mom to open the door for her.

“Sure thing, and maybe an ambulance for your father as well.”

“He’s a big guy, he’ll manage.”

She walked past me and into the corridor, so I pushed her away and shut the door. The bag was next
to the bed along with the crowbar, and I grabbed them before I jumped out of the window. I landed
outside in the grass with a heavy *thud*. Frantic footsteps came from inside the house.

“Clancy, come back!” Mom yelled.

I burst into a sprint, jumping through a neighbor’s yard and coming out on the next street over. The
town had many roads leaving it, none of them closeby, but I didn’t plan to use them anyway. I ran
through yards and jumped over fences, making a beeline to the closest edge of town. A forested area
that I could use to my advantage, cars couldn’t fit in there and I’d be harder to find among the trees.

My phone rang again and again, but I didn’t stop. I pulled it out and checked it between the hasty
strides I took, finding it was Mom. Of course. And it was also only ten PM or so, which meant I got
two hours of sleep less than I’d bargained for.

‘Doesn’t matter, I’ll get all of the sleep in the world once I’m safe.’

Something chased after me, slinking from one shadow to the next in the blink of an eye. I heard the
*tip-tap* of its claws on the rooftops behind, but whenever I whipped my head back to check, I
couldn’t spot it.

‘It’s the one that wants to take my place,’ I concluded.

That threw a wrench in my plan. If it would chase me into the wilderness, I couldn’t get the rest I so
desperately needed. But then again, if I could lead it far enough away, I could take it on one on one.
How strong could it be if it couldn’t open a measly basement door?

My mad dash got me to the town’s edge in about ten minutes, and I could already see the forest from
a few streets away. I jumped through the final yard in my way, with the mimic still on my tail, only to
be met by a cop car swerving onto the street. Its lights and sirens were off, and the front bumper was
in utter ruins, barely hanging on.

I ran across the road and slid down the steep embankment, coming to a stop on the muddy soil
covered with decaying leaves. The cop car pulled up behind me and its doors flew open.

“Stop, sonny!” One of the cops yelled.

“Come back with us, we’re here to help!”

For a brief moment, I regretted that Sarah never recorded the voices of the two officers that went
down into her basement. I was certain that if she had, I would’ve recognized them right now.

“Leave me alone, I haven’t done anything wrong!”

They came down after me as I entered the sea of trees. Something hit one of the trunks right as I
ducked behind it, and I was worried for a moment that it was a bullet. Whipping my head around, I
found one of the officers discarding a spent taser gun instead. Which wasn’t much better, to be honest,
but at the very least it would only incapacitate me.

They ran after me for a few hundred feet, and I couldn’t for the life of me shake them off. I tried
veering away, hiding behind trees, doing everything in my power to break their line of sight. Nothing
worked, they knew exactly where I was at all times. It felt like I was up against bloodhounds, not
humans.

Over the course of a few minutes, they gained on me. I’m just an average Joe in an average physical
shape, and tired to high hell and back to top it off. I couldn’t outrun two trained officers. One of them
got a hold of my backpack and yanked me, throwing me to the ground. I landed face first into the
mush of leaves and dirt.

“Calm down, sonny.”

“No! Fuck, let go!”

I struggled and fought back, but the two of them subdued me. One got on top of me to hold me still,
and the other one pulled my hands behind my back to cuff me. Fight left me as I felt my body shutting
down from overexertion. The cold metal of the cuffs came around my wrists, chilling my skin in two
thin stripes, and they clicked into place.

“You can’t arrest me, I haven’t done anything. I’m innocent,” I tried pleading.

“We’re not arresting you, sonny. Your parents and sister called, they’re worried for you. Said you’re
about to run away.”

“So what? I’m an adult, I can disappear if I want.”

“Not in your current condition, right now you need psychiatric help,” the cop answered.

They pulled me to my feet and got by my sides, getting tight grips on my arms. We slowly walked
back to the car as I tried to plead some more, and I had enough presence of mind to not mention
anything about mimics. Even so, my cries landed on deaf ears.

The thing, the mimic that chased me, was in the forest with us as well. It jumped from branch to
branch, always within earshot but never within sight. I wondered why they didn’t just get it over with,
why they didn’t leave me there to be consumed and replaced. I was incapacitated, I couldn’t fight the
creature. Or maybe they had other plans for me, something more nefarious. Maybe they needed to
completely break me beforehand.
I tried to think as they dragged me around. To form a new plan, something, *anything*. When we
reached the embankment, I got an idea. You see, it was steep and slippery, one wrong step and you’d
eat dirt at the bottom. And that was something I could use.

As we started climbing it, I prepared myself to act. When we reached half-way up, I headbutted one of
the officers and tripped the other. They weren’t expecting it, and just like I hoped they would, they
slipped back down the slope. But one of them got a hold of my backpack, ripping it open and spilling
my supplies everywhere.

I didn’t go down with them, so I jumped up the last stretch and landed on the pavement on my
stomach. Getting to my feet with my hands behind my back was harder than I expected, but I heard
the officers climbing again so I needed to hurry.

‘Screw this.’

As luck would have it, I’m pretty slim and flexible, so I decided to try a maneuver I’ve seen plenty of
times in movies. I pulled my knees up into my chest, got my hands under my ass, and passed my feet
between them one at a time. Which makes it sound very easy and simple, but under pressure and with
two officers nearing me it really wasn’t.

I couldn’t open or break the cuffs, but at the very least I had my hands in front of me again. Their car
was right there, and I realized that the engine was idling. In their haste, they left it running with the
keys still in the ignition. I ran over to it and tried the door, letting out a sigh of relief when it did
indeed open.

“Hey!” One of the officers yelled as I climbed inside.

Now, just because I don’t have a license doesn’t mean I don’t know how to drive. It was stupid and
risky of us, but a friend let me drive his jeep on the backroads a few times for fun. I wasn’t an expert
by any means, but I knew how to throw a car into drive and push a pedal. Good thing it wasn’t a
manual transmission, no way in hell I could’ve used a clutch *and* steer with my hands cuffed.

I sped off, leaving the two cops and the mimic behind. Which yeah, bad idea, I know. It’s bad enough
to steal a normal car, but to steal a cop car is much worse. I’m not sure what the repercussions are, to
be honest, but I imagine it’s not pretty. Still, I could probably plead insanity in a court of law if it ever
comes down to that. Everyone around me insists I’m crazy anyways. In that moment, the only thing
that mattered was to escape.

I drove to the other side of town and rummaged through the car until I found something to pry open
the cuffs. With my hands free, I planned to drive the car out of town and abandon it. There was likely
a tracker in it somewhere. But before I did that, I wanted to do one final thing. To prove to myself that
it was all real, that I wasn’t going completely insane. I didn’t have time to find Markus or his body, I
couldn’t return to Sarah’s house for fear of being caught, but there was one place that I could check:
the cemetery.

A few minutes later, I pulled up at the gates and went inside. It was very creepy at night, to put it
mildly, a sea of headstones standing tall in the darkness. Still, compared to the last few days I’d been
through, this didn’t really phase me. I walked around for a few minutes in search of a particular
headstone, the one we put on Sarah’s grave.

It was in the back of the cemetery, right next to her mother’s. My heart stopped when I reached it and
found it blank. I fell to my knees in front of it and I just…started sobbing.

“You know, it would be so easy to cave in your head right now.”

Sarah’s voice. From behind. I shot up to my feet and spun on my heels, coming face to face with her.
She was alone, hands propped on the handle of a spade that she pushed into the soil in front of herself.

“If I really wanted to kill you or harm you, I could’ve done it while your back was turned. Is that
proof enough that I don’t want to do either?”

“How’d you know I’m here?” I asked, taking a step away from her.

“Because I’ve been through the same thing, because I know how a broken mind thinks,” Sarah
answered. “You want proof, a sign. Something, *anything* to convince you of your delusion.” She
threw the spade at my feet. “So go ahead. Dig. Find your proof, I won’t stop you. But that grave is
*empty*.”

“No it’s not,” I contradicted her. “The stonecutters didn’t get around to marking the grave yet. You
just want to keep me busy so the others can get here and catch me.”

She sighed.

“I should’ve just smacked you over the head with that, I swear. Tell you what, if you’re so sure I’m
the mimic, strike me down. I won’t fight back.”

She fanned out her arms, and even turned her back to me. I lifted the spade, but I couldn’t go through
with it.

“God fucking damn it!” I yelled and threw the spade away. “Why?! Why are you fucking with me?
Why not show your true colors, why not kill me like you did Markus?!”

Sarah put her hands down and turned around.

“Markus?” She asked, and she seemed genuinely dumbfounded.

“Markus! The monster hunter! Stop toying with me, your gaslighting won’t work.”

“Clancy, there was never any Markus or any monster hunter.”

I pulled out my phone to prove her wrong, to shatter her charade. She watched me intently, but she
didn’t make any moves. I browsed everywhere, call and text history, but I couldn’t find Markus’s
number. When that failed me, I pulled out my wallet to search for the business card. It was gone as
well.
At that point I just...I gave up. What else could I do? How could I prove to myself, let alone to anyone
else, that I was sane? I wasn't. That much became evident even to me. Sure, I could blame the
disappearance of Markus’s business card and call logs on my parents, but it didn’t make sense.
Nothing did. Not unless I admitted to the delusions, and to needing help. Amy had been right, the
mental problems likely ran in our family and Sarah’s breakdown jump started my own.

"I…I don't…"

"Here, let me take you home. You can sleep, you can clear your mind, and we can both look for help
starting tomorrow. How's that sound?"

"Sounds...sounds good."

She took the lead, and I followed behind her towards the exit. It felt wrong, it felt so *so* very wrong,
but I didn't have it in me to fight anymore. I was drained. Even if I ran away, how far could I make it?
I stole a damn cop car, they'd look for me relentlessly. At that point I just wanted everything to be
over with.

"The two officers called us when you stole their car," Sarah said as we walked.

"Fuck."

"No, listen. They called us, and we talked, and they agreed not to report you on one condition. We
return their car, and you seek out therapy immediately. They're not assholes, they understand you've
had it rough and they'll give you another chance."

"That's very kind of them, I'll have to make it up to them when I get better."

"You do," Sarah agreed. "And to us as well, you really put us through hell."

"I know, and I'm...I'm sorry."

Sarah smiled. A wide, beaming smile, with no trace of anything except genuine happiness.

"Apology accepted."

"It's getting so bad, though. I still feel watched even now, I still hear the cracks in your voice. In
everyone's voices."

"I hear the cracks in yours as well, so welcome to the mimic club I guess," she quipped. "Next target
is old man Jenkins down the road, I have the whole plan ready. We'll make him believe reptilians are
real."

"Ooof, that's gonna be tricky. I don't even know how to transform yet."

"All in due time," she assured me. "We'll teach you, young mimic."
We left the cemetery, finding Amy and the two officers waiting outside. I apologized profusely while
they laughed and assured me all was fine now. They took their keys back and left, and we got into
Amy's car to do the same.

“We’re going to my house, by the way,” Sarah said as we entered the road. “Dad drove himself and
your mom over when you ran from their house, they thought maybe you’d come to my place.”

The rest of the ride was silent, and when we got there, I did indeed see Dad’s car outside. The two of
them waited in the living room for our return, and they jumped on me as soon as I entered through the
door. They hugged me and cried, and Mom bombarded my cheeks with kisses.

“Give him some room, you guys,” Sarah told them and broke up the group hug. “And you, get some
sleep right away,” she demanded. “You’ll feel much better in the morning.”

It felt so strange, so…surreal. Being back at Sarah’s place, I mean. I wasn’t gone for long, but it felt
like I’d ran away from here an eternity ago. My life had changed so drastically overnight, I’d been
through so much in a matter or mere days. In all honesty, it was as fascinating to think about as it was
terrifying.

“So that’s what started it all,” Dad said with a sad smile, looking over at the basement door laying
open. “A god damned basement of all things. You know,” he continued, turning to look at Sarah, “you
were always afraid of the dark as a kid.”

“Was I?” She asked with a chuckle. “I don’t really remember.”

“I had to check inside your closet and under your bed for boogeymen every night until you turned
ten,” Dad answered with a laugh.

“I guess it is pretty scary,” Sarah mumbled and walked over to the door. “But there’s nothing down
there, take a look.”

I made my way next to her, and she flipped the light switch next to the door. A lightbulb down in the
room came to life, chasing away the shadows and darkness. And indeed, it was a normal room with
nothing strange about it. At least as far as basements go, anyway. The walls and ceiling weren’t
charred, there was no trace of soot, even the concrete at the bottom was spotless.

“To think we both went insane over a bit of darkness,” I said as I peered down the stairs leading to the
bottom. “Right?”

But Sarah didn’t answer me. No one did. The room fell completely silent, and I felt a pair of hands
pushing me from behind. I tumbled down the stairs, landing at the bottom.

“No!”

The door of the basement closed shut. I tried to get up but stumbled, so I skittered up the stairs on all
fours. The *click* of the locks being latched reached me right before the lights went out, and I
crashed into the door.
“I trusted you!” I yelled, and started banging on the door with desperation. “I’m not insane, you’re
mimics, all of you! I knew it!”

I kept banging on the door and pleading, but no one responded. Not a damn word. The bastards
wouldn’t even entertain me with a clear cut answer. I yelled until my throat went raw, I punched and
kicked the door until my hands and feet turned bloody, but I couldn’t break free. They finally got me.

“Please,” I let out in a raspy voice as I slid down the door to my knees. “Is…is anyone there? Sarah?
Open the door.”

Nothing. I waited for hours, but I didn’t hear anything from upstairs. Not a single peep. They just left
me down there, unsure of what was real anymore. I tried to sleep, to get some rest at the very least,
but I can’t even do that. I’m alone in the room, I know as much for a fact, but I feel eyes on me
whenever I lay down.

This is it for me. The end of the line. I can’t keep this up forever, I’m growing too tired and hungry.
When I’ll collapse, they’ll get me, I’m sure of it. I’ll become just another one of those things, or it will
steal my appearance and masquerade as me while they take over the town. I can’t escape, all I can do
is to warn you. Stay away from this place, and whatever you do, don’t believe another word I’ll say. It
might be one of them.

[X](https://www.reddit.com/r/exowrites/)