This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/emorybored on 2024-10-31 22:24:40+00:00.
Hey, y’all. Just wanna say sorry real quick before we get started for the insane delay on the update; my life is in shambles (it’s not) and everything is falling apart (I had to move) and I thought my days on the internet were over for good (I lost my computer charger). But never fear, I beat the odds (finished moving and Matt ordered me a new charger ‘cause I use my laptop for work) and I am in the proverbial saddle once again.
So, anyway. Back to it.
We found “me” first. (If you don’t know what the fuck that means, see our previous installment for context—this is a part two.)
It was the scent that did it. That cloyingly sweet, rotting smell I’d picked up on when I first headed down into the cabin space. I hadn’t noticed it coming off of Wiley’s doppelganger on deck, I assume, because we’d been out in open air, but here, now, I was choking on it.
I don’t know that anything could have prepared me for the sensation of perceiving myself from the outside when Wiley and I rounded the corner. The compulsion to mirror the movements of this tangible, corporeal visage of myself was so incredibly compelling I had to fight not to look away.
The way its lips stretched over its teeth as it bared them to offer us a sickly, unsettling grin was almost helpful in its disconcerting nature—the less human it appeared, the better. “What’s the matter?” it asked, in a near-perfect iteration of my voice. “Aren’t you having fun?”
“What the fuck are you?” Wiley spat, fists tightening at their sides.
The thing lifted its hand to its chest in mock offense, bottom lip jutting out into a pout. “Wiley, that hurts. I’m your friend! You know me.”
“You’re not my fucking friend.” Wiley stepped ahead of me, nearly toe-to-toe with my doppelganger, and shoved against its chest, hard.
It didn’t budge.
I cartoon-character-tug-the-collar gulped.
Trying to recall the following sequence of events in enough detail to adequately recount them here is a beast. I’m not sure how my brain decides what’s traumatic enough to protect me from in the moment and what isn’t, but evidently this encounter in particular was too much to process, because the next thing I remember is Wiley dropping their candle as they were flung in the opposite direction of me, landing hard enough that their impact echoed throughout at least the immediate vicinity.
“I’m okay,” they said, after a beat. I don’t remember calling out to them, but it very well may have been in response to me. “Get that fucking thing.”
I just…I don’t know. I charged it.
I’m not sure, in hindsight, what I thought that was going to accomplish. I’d just watched Wiley attempt to knock it down and end up the human embodiment of a paper airplane, so the delusion that my outcome would differ wildly enough to make full-body tackling it worth the effort, and, additionally, terror, was fully devoid of sources to cite.
But it worked.
I won’t pretend not to have forcibly suppressed a small swell of vindication welling in my chest when I took note that the mimic’s smug stoicism had slipped precisely far enough to give away that it was utterly shocked.
There was something unsettling in the exchange, too—something about the understanding that not even it fully grasped the mechanics of what was taking place—but I ignored the unease in favor of focusing on the fact that I’d managed to best it, even by a one percent margin.
This, of course, did not indicate to me that the situation would be smooth sailing (pun intended) from that point forward. Motherfucker was strong. I was flipped onto my back in a fraction of a second, knees practically pinned to my chest, shoulders held flat against the ground.
“Actually going to have some fun now, are we?” It snarled happily, face inches from my own. Its breath was hot and putrid and sour, and I turned my head to the side, desperate to draw in a lungful of clean air. “I love a good dance.”
I’ve gotta give that to it: in a way, it did feel like a dance. There wasn’t anything but the existence of the two of us in the space, and the push-pull of each movement was calculated in a way that no one but a practiced pair could conceivably achieve.
It’s a fascinating mental exercise, vying for purchase against yourself. I, of course, don’t have any real grasp on the impossible dynamism of existing as a creature that imitates a person, but I can tell you that it was uncannily perceptive of every individual one of my movements, as I was of its.
When I rocked further onto my back, planting my feet against its sternum, its hands were already there, lithe fingers encircling my ankles. When it made its move to pull me fully prone, I grabbed onto its biceps, refusing to allow its motion any independence from mine. It used my own leverage to its center of gravity against me, folding me essentially in half, knees next to my ears as it weighed me down. Back and forth and back and forth we went, until, finally, I slipped out of its grapple a fraction of a second too fast for it to have already planned a step further. I hadn’t yet, either, which was likely why I took so little care not to hurt myself in the process of slamming my forehead full-force into its nose.
Shit sucked. I mean, it sucked worse for the doppelganger, ultimately. I wasn’t the one fountaining blood from the center of my face like a spigot, so I guess I got off alright, all things considered. But I’m not gonna pretend it didn’t daze me for a minute.
When I was back to seeing more darkness than stars, however, I could make out its form in front of me, both hands covering its face, and I figured that was my opportunity.
I still had the bike chain clenched in my fist, and I considered, briefly, wrapping it around my knuckles and driving it into the thing’s already busted cartilage, but I knew that wasn’t its intended use. So instead, I placed one end in either palm, clambered to my feet, and bent behind the mimic, wrapping the chain around its neck.
Its hands sprung downward, slicking the metal with blood as it dug fruitlessly at its own skin, nails desperate to separate the chain from its larynx. I knew, though, as I tightened my grip, that the fight was over. It wouldn’t recover—not from this. It wasn’t supposed to.
Wiley pulled me out of it. I don’t know how long it had been, but when awareness returned to me, the doppelganger was entirely limp before me, lifeless form held up by nothing but my own tension.
“Adam,” Wiley said, far closer now than they’d been at the beginning of the altercation. “It’s done.”
I looked up at them, one of the remarkably still-lit candles casting a soft glow across their face, and then, for the briefest moment, let my eyes fall closed.
“I’m sorry,” they offered quietly.
“Thanks,” I said, knocking a knuckle against the back of one of their gloved hands. “I’m sorry, too.”
They helped me up, and I let the chain fall to the ground, landing with a sifting, tinny clatter next to “my” body. I didn’t look back as we continued down the hall.
The candle we’d lost in the fray hadn’t been doing much in the way of visual aid anyway, but its absence didn’t go entirely without note. Wiley and I remained next to one another rather than walking in file, squinting through the darkness and relying heavily on our proximity to the walls in the narrow space to guide us.
Eventually, we advanced to a larger, open area, wherein there was a faint but persistent sound akin to that of water hitting the bottom of a tub somewhere to our right.
We both, on instinct, turned to head toward it, and were met roughly five steps in with the sensation of shallow splashing underfoot.
After exchanging a look with me, Wiley lowered the candle to the ground.
Not only did we receive confirmation that it was, indeed, wet, but additionally, we gleaned the knowledge that the water was not stagnant. It was spreading, centimeter by centimeter, until, after a brief moment, our shoes were surrounded.
I didn’t have it in me to be anything but horrifically, sickeningly amused.
Wiley, in a similar state of exhausted delirium, evidently didn’t either. “It’s gonna fucking sink, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” I laughed, pushing my damp hair back from my forehead. “Jesus Christ, what are our lives?”
“Almost over,” Wiley snorted in response. “We could…I don’t know, try to figure out where it’s coming from, I guess? See if we can…stop it somehow?”
“I mean, I guess we could try to plug it or something, maybe?”
“Wait, wait,” Wiley said, “maybe this is what the thing meant. The riddle or whatever. Maybe once we take out the…the other one, this’ll stop. But then—does that mean the whole pool won’t go away? Like, will we still be stuck here?”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay, yeah. Maybe. One catastrophe at a time. Let’s just—let’s find your…the other one, take it out, and then we’ll—”
Good news, gang! We didn’t even have to look for it. Bet you’ll never guess why.
Before you ask how many concussions this job has given me, I’ll just go ahead and confirm that they’ve done enough damage that I truly do not know. A lot. It’s a lot.
The doppelganger fully bodied me, and I hit the floor so hard I swear to god I heard my skeleton rattle inside me. The pulsating pressure in my head was instantaneous. Everything spun, and already being on mobile ground made it so difficult to reorient myself that all I...
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