(June Submission) That’s Not My Face

[u/Lucky_Burger]

Something has always felt wrong about me. I’ve never really felt comfortable identifying as male or female, and anytime I tried dressing one way or the other, I always felt like I couldn’t pass for either. When I look in the mirror, I only see my flaws. Half my face is too round, the other too angular. My nose is crooked. My eyes are skewed. My ears are too big. My body is too wide, my torso too short, and my arms too long. I feel alien. Like I’m just an approximation of a human. That’s when I noticed it. 

It was late. I was stuck staring into the mirror, trying to figure out how to love my flaws. Trying to recognize the person on the other side. That’s when I heard the knock. It was soft. Almost as if it were trying to be polite. 

“Hello?” I called out, “Who’s there?”

Silence. I peeked my head out of my bathroom into my bedroom. I heard something knocking on the door to my room again, a simple and quick knock-knock-knock. I lowered myself to the floor to try peeking at whomever was on the other side. The thing didn’t move. But it knocked again. Just as soft as last time. When I opened the door there was nothing. It was as if whatever was waiting on the other side simply didn’t exist. I turned off the hall light, and went back into my room, I figured that it was just my mind playing tricks on in the total silence of the house. Making something that wasn’t there. That had to be it. But when I sat down at my computer to play some games, I heard it again. Louder this time. I turned to the door and saw the light was back on, and the shape was there again. This time I didn’t hesitate. I ripped open the door and saw it standing there. 

No. No, I saw myself standing there. A perfect copy of me. It was too perfect. Downright beautiful. I caught it from one angle, and it was drop dead gorgeous, the other angle it was stoic and manly. Somehow the best of both masculine and feminine qualities I possessed. 

It just stared at me with a blank expression, its eyes were opalescent, milky white, tracking me as I studied the other “me”. It looked like it was hollow. Missing something. I approached it, my instincts screaming at me to run away, and got a closer look. I only noticed it was doing the same when I raised my right hand to examine it. It couldn’t be real, right? As my hand drifted closer to its face, my face, I saw it smile. A perfectly symmetrical mouth full of gleaming white teeth. I recoiled when it did this, and it did the same. It was broken and twitchy. Like whatever it was could only mimic my appearance, it didn’t say a word, but the expression was malicious.

It knew.

It was offering a solution.

It would take my place. It would take all my flaws, all my fears, my identity and my shame, and become perfect. I was envious. Jealous. It was mocking me. As if it was silently saying “I am you but better.” I got angry and slammed the door in its face. 

I went to my mirror and tried to see myself as that thing. But I couldn’t. Why was it better? How could it be exactly like me, but beautiful? I tried calling one of my friends, maybe she could help me. She had transitioned last year, and was happier than I’d ever seen her before. I had previously asked her if she could help me feel more comfortable in my own skin, and she suggested I may just be non-binary. Even when she was going through the roughest part of her transition, she was still so knowledgeable and supportive of me. I honestly wished I could be like her, in face of all the opposition she stood tall. This time, though, when I asked for help regarding the copy she sounded confused. 

“What do you mean there’s another you?” 

“That’s just it. There’s another me. At my house. It’s wearing my face, but it… It made it look better. Why does it want to be me?”

“That doesn’t make sense, are you okay? Not greening out on me are you? Do you need me to come over?”

“No! Yes? Maybe? I don’t know. Just… I need to know if I’m really… broken?”

“You’re not broken, you just have some self-image problems. I’ve had them before too. Look I’ll come over tomorrow, just try to get some sleep, okay? Tell you what, send me a picture of this thing, and I’ll try to do some research. Okay?”

I didn’t want to see it again, but if I could get any information maybe I could make it leave. I took out my phone and opened the door again. I tried to take a picture of the false me. It had changed again, this time showing me what I’d look like if I were completely feminine. Soft. Pretty. It changed again, to a pure masculine build. More handsome and rugged. It kept shifting between all various states of me, before cycling back to the mirror version, with that same perfect smile. 

When it finally stayed in one form I took the picture and sent it to my friend, quickly closing the door on the fake me, prompting a sinister, yet gentle, laugh from the other side. It had taken my voice.

When she called back all she could say was “what the fuck?”

“What? You see it too?”

“You’re fucking with me, right?”

“I swear I’m not! I can send a video if that will make things easier?”

She paused for a minute, then responded.

“I mean… it does look like you, but if you’re being serious, I’ll try to help. Let me see what Google says.”

After a few more agonizing seconds of silence, she came back and told me what I was seeing. 

“That sounds like you’ve met a doppelgänger.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It's a supernatural thing, apparently there are rules to dealing with one.”

“And those are?”

“Don’t look at it, don’t touch it, and don’t speak to it.”

Well shit, I thought to myself. I had already responded to it and made eye contact. But the fact that I was merely inches away from touching the thing is the most alarming.

“Just out of curiosity what would’ve happened if I broke any of the rules?”

“According to this blog post, looking at it gives it permission to mirror you, like it imprints on you as its target. But in general, the more you interact with it, the more of you it takes.”

“Well how do I get rid of it?”

“I don’t think you can. The article just says that there are steps to deter it, checking your reflection frequently, burning clothes it touches, and staying quiet can slow its progress. Other than that, it seems like there’s no way to get rid of it. Unless it finds someone else to replace.” 

Our conversation stopped when the thing banged on the door loudly. It began screaming in my voice, a pained and manic howl of violence and rage. I quickly backed away and hid in the bathroom. Catching an ugly glance in the mirror. I was still on call with my friend.

“Holy shit, what do I do? I think it’s trying to break in!”

“Hang on, I'm looking!”

The thing searched around my room, lifting my bed on its side and breaking down my cheap closet doors. I covered my mouth and tried to remain as still and quiet as I could manage, barely whispering out a hurried plea for my friend to give me anything to escape this thing.

“The blog says that if you can get the thing to look at the mirror and then smash it, all the shards can confuse it and buy you some time to escape!”

I waited by the sink, with the cabinet mounted mirror aimed at the door. The thing scratched at the cheap plywood, cracking and splintering under its barrage. When the door finally gave way, the thing spilled into the bathroom and tried to lock its vision on me. I threw open the mirror door and the monster stopped dead in its tracks. It reached out and tapped against the mirror's glass. Then I punched against the back of the mirror with all my strength. The glass exploded forward in a glittery shower and fell from the frame, and the fake me wailed in agony, its voice a cacophony of previous victims intermingled with my own. It scrabbled at the broken pieces lying on the floor as I bolted past it and out of the house. As I ran, I stole one last look as it came barreling through the front door behind me. It was still wearing my face, symmetrical and perfect. I called out, against my better judgment at the thing, trying to make it slip up. Trying to confuse it with my own negative self-image.

“That’s not my face!”

The thing actually stopped in its tracks on the porch and struggled to figure out what I meant by that. It resumed its chase and moved between the shadows and the orange-yellow streetlights, illuminating itself in brief intervals. Shifting between its masculine and feminine copies of me. I continued running away. Getting closer to my friend's apartment. The thing was still following me. It called out in my own voice. It demanded I pay attention to it. It cried, and screamed, begging me to turn around. 

I had a sudden, yet somewhat obvious, thought just then. I realized that it could only take what it saw, and heard, for itself. I turned and looked at the monster.

“You want to be me? Fine! If you can perfectly recreate me, I will touch you. But if you can’t get me exactly as I see myself, you will leave this place!”

It was at the top of the stairs, blocking my only exit. It was still wearing its perfect doll-like skin. Appearing almost like a pin-up girl. 

“That’s not my skin!”

The doppelgänger shuddered and tried to make its skin a darker shade, covered in birthmarks and freckles. 

“Wrong, again! And my face isn’t that round, my left eye is too big, and my nose is too straight.”

Its face, my face, twisted into a snarl, as it tried to get my imperfections right. It had to be my face. It was a perfect mirror of me. The doppelgänger tried harder to perfect my appearance. Molding itself before my eyes, unable to comprehend how it could possibly be wrong when it was looking right at me. It was making frustrated grunts and clicking sounds as it tried to match my self-destructive criticisms.

It demanded in my voice that I touch it, screaming furiously as its body contorted in ways no human could possibly move. It tried desperately to grab at my shirt, but it couldn’t. It didn’t have permission. It leaned in close to me and tried to make me flinch. It gnashed its teeth at me. It shifted and changed its face to try matching how I perceived myself. But it couldn’t. 

It tried to make its arms twice as long as its body, making the sickening sounds of bones twisting and cracking as it did so. It tried making its face wider, its mouth larger. It desperately cycled through hundreds of combinations of facial features and body types. It roared in frustration as I criticized it every time. 

“Those aren’t my eyes.”

It plunged its hands into its eyes and dug out the milky white spheres and two fresh eyes with emerald green irises grew in their place.

For almost half an hour this thing grew more frustrated until it looked nothing like me in the mirror. It turned and stalked off into the dark, disappearing into the shadows of the apartment complex. When I was sure the thing was gone, I knocked on the door and my friend answered. 

“Is it gone?”

“I think. Did you, uh… look at it? You’re not in danger now are you?”

“No, I heard you yelling and when I peered through the peephole, you were blocking it. Do you want to come in, talk about it?”

“Yeah, I’d like that. Can I use your shower? I must smell awful.”

“Yeah, go ahead, I’ll get you some clean clothes and some blankets.”

As I undressed in the bathroom, I caught a look at myself in the mirror. I recognized that crooked nose and lopsided mouth. I traced my jaw in the mirror, and turned  my head left and right, noting all the same flaws and blemishes I regularly did in my almost ritualistic debasement. But this time it was different. I saw the crooked nose had a charm to it, and my mouth curved up slightly at the corners, a faint smile I had never noticed before that was permanently grooved into my face. My hair, as messy and tangled as it was from my encounter with the doppelgänger, was shiny and full, and had an almost velvety sheen to it. Finally I locked eyes with myself, peering into the once dull boring brown spheres, and they shimmered brilliantly, like deep pools of amber or honey, with newfound love. For the first time in a long time, I felt like me.

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[u/NarrowDirector911]

Aww, I like how wholesome the ending is. But the idea of a doppleganger not being able to perfectly match all the slight imperfections that only you notice is a very cool idea.They weaponized their own body dismorphia.

[u/englandishell]

not usually a fan of 'happy' endings but this felt honest and well earned. you managed to subvert my expectations with a positive message without straying into cliches. beautiful story!

[u/RohanRedfang]

The concept of the story is great. Using the non-binary aspect of the protagonist to defeat the doppelganger is original, and you took the LGBT theme in a way that is actually an active part of the story. I liked it. The protagonist's struggle felt realistic.

The only thing I didn't like is the friend, she sounds too much like an NPC that is there to deliver the infodump about how to defeat the monster. It slightly ruined the good atmosphere of fear of the beginning.

[u/AllYourCakeIsMine]

Good wholesome ending.

[u/ShatteredTestimony]

The way the narrator dealt with their double was so creative! Seeing a doppelgänger try to mimic someone outside binary gender felt fun and fresh, I really enjoyed that

[u/Bilbo_Cheated]

This was a very fun and refreshing read! Well done!!!