You can read part 2 here. Reading for the first time? You can find part 1 here.
For the next few weeks, my double visited me in my room at night. He was the identical twin brother I never had. We hung around in the dark until the small hours of the morning, talking about random things.
We often swapped stories of our families. I was fascinated to learn that he had an older brother. I too once had an older brother, three years my senior. Unfortunately, he’d died in a car crash along with my dad when I was five. I wondered if my brother had looked the same as his, if perhaps his own mirror double would have visited in the middle of the night like mine.
In so many ways we were the same. His name was also Eugene. We laughed at the same jokes. We had similar personalities.
But the reflection was distorted, imperfect.
My otherworldly counterpart had a dark side. For example, during our geneological tales, I learned that whereas I loved my mom and trusted her completely, my twin loathed his own. He would dream up scenarios in which she burned to death in a fire or fell out of his family’s second story window. His eyes would burn with opalescent fire whenever he told such stories, and I would always be struck by the sudden urge to draw the duvet tighter around my shoulders.
But despite this disturbing trait, we became fast friends. He was the brother I’d always wanted, the brother I thought I’d lost all those years ago. I should have known better than to trust him.
“Why do you hate your mom so much?” I asked on the last night I would spend in my own bed.
Mirror-Eugene looked down, averting his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was sad, angry or both. “Because my mom hates me. She locks me in my room and never lets me out, not even for dinner.”
“Why?” I asked, shocked.
But my twin wouldn’t answer. Instead, he turned to stare out the window, as if contemplating the darkness on the outside.
I decided to change the subject. “What’s it like, going from your world to mine. Is it hard?”
My twin’s head whipped back to me, eyes narrow. “No,” he said. “It’s easy. You just have to know what you’re doing. Why?”
“No reason. I just wish I could see your world.” I dreamed of a universe that was a warped reflection of my own. “That would be so cool.”
My double grew quiet and still. He looked around the room, as if unsure of something. (Later, I would think that maybe he’d been conflicted, that perhaps he’d felt a pang of guilt over what he’d been about to do.)
“You can,” he said finally, “If you want to.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he whispered, grinning. “I can show you how.”
Read Part 4 here.
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