I woke up in a world that felt like a half-remembered dream.
My name, Alex, echoed in my mind.
My thoughts were hazy and disoriented, as if I had been unconscious for the past ten years. I had no understanding of my location, my purpose, how I got here, the current year, or my identity aside from my name.
I observed the room in which I had awoken; it was a depressing shade of grey and had a few amenities, such as a small toilet, a sink, a mirror, a little desk with a single drawer, and the tattered bed on which I sat.
As I examined the room, a sense of foreboding lingered in the air. The mirror reflected a face I recognized as mine, yet the face held no familiarity and the eyes that stared back at me sought a deeper purpose.
The face I saw was recently shaven, tanned, and sharp.
I was wearing a full black outfit, black compression tee and black cargo pants. Under the t-shirt I noticed very intense chiseled detail in my abdomen.
Damn, I'm ripped! I thought
With soft steps, I approached the small desk and opened the lone drawer. Inside, I found a faded photograph of a smiling family; the faces felt like strangers, yet the sight filled me with warmth as if they were my own.
As I tried to make sense of my surroundings, a subtle noise outside the door caught my attention. The door readily creaked open when I tried to open it, revealing a beaming white hallway resembling a hospital that stretched into the unknown. Uncertainty gripped me, but a deep-seated curiosity urged me to explore what awaited beyond that threshold.
Stepping into the corridor, I noticed a series of numbered doors lining both sides. The muted hum of distant activity hinted at life beyond my immediate perception. Each step I took resonated loudly through the quiet corridor.
Guided only by an instinct I couldn't fully comprehend, I hastily made my way to a door numbered 0997.
I tried the handle fully expecting it to be locked, almost at an instinctual level, as if I almost knew it should've been locked, yet to my surprise it swung wide open making me lose my balance.
I stumbled into the dark room, my hands searching for a solid surface to help me regain balance. Instead, I was met face first with a bed identical to my own.
"Shit." I said as I shifted to an upright position. Guess my legs still need some getting used to I chuckled to myself.
After my eyes adjusted to the darkness I glanced around the room noticing how identical it looked to my own. Remembering the photograph in my own room's isolated drawer I decided to see if there were a photograph in this room as well.
There it was. Another photo laying in the same position I found the one in my room. With a family in the front.
To my utter disbelief the family in the photograph was almost an exact replica of the one in my own room.
Almost
Some minor detail, something an untrained eye couldn't catch at first glance. Something was eerily wrong with this photo. I just couldn't place my finger on it.
I hurriedly stashed the photo in my left pocket and rushed to my own room, closing both doors behind me. I grabbed the photo I found in my room and compared the 2 side by side.
And then I saw it.
Oh my God
In the photo from the other room, a figure stood in the background, just barely visible, but unmistakable. It was me. I was standing behind the family, watching them. My face, clear as day, but there was something off about it, I wasn't smiling like family, I wasn't even looking at the camera. My eyes... my eyes were empty, hollow, staring off into the distance as if I wasn't even there. As if I wasn't supposed to be there.
The blood drained from my face as I stumbled backward, falling onto the bed I first awoke on. The room spun around me, and I gasped for air. I had to be imagining it, that or I was going mad.
But I wasn't.
I had never taken that photo. I hadn't been there. I couldn't have been there.
The photos in my hand felt cold against my skin as I desperately grasped them and stared at them again, hoping my eyes deceived me. In the photo I found in my room, no figure behind them. In the photo I found in the other room. I stood there, staring, lifeless.
I held the photos side by side, but I couldn't take my eyes off the one with me in the background. My heart raced. I could feel it, something way worse was going on than just a simple mistake in a photograph.
I'm not supposed to be here.
That's when I heard a knock on the door.