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I do not tend to dream. (This is a lie.)
It is the same dream again.
There is nothing but darkness waiting for Herbert when his eyelids flutter open.
He doesn’t think of it as strange. He doesn’t think of it as anything, though there is exhaustion in him that leaves his mind foggy and his limbs heavy. There is the nettlesome sense of wrongness, of this is not as it should be, of I am not as I should be, but he doesn’t think of it. Why would he?
He doesn’t want this. But he doesn’t think of that. Why would he?
When he clambers from the bed, his feet find the ground much later than they should. It isn’t as though he’s gotten shorter, or that the bedframe has grown taller, because that would be ridiculous. When he looks down, there is only pitch-dark where the floor should be. But the unmistakable sense of the floorboards is beneath the soles of his feet, so he does not think about it. Of course not.
He is a curious man, of course, but the idea of questioning anything is smothered by a little voice that hisses this is how it is, of course and this is how it always will be. His hands twitch, though he steadies them. A little giggle comes from his mouth, though he silences it. His throat simply aches from dehydration. Of course.
The door creaks open before him. There is no thought in him that wonders why it is a simple pine-wood door and not the sleek, flat aluminium of his living quarters. There is no question in his mind about why this room is entirely different from what he has slept in for the past year, or why it is a child’s bed behind him, or why there is an old dove plush on the dresser beside him, or why, even, the small fiddle tucked away in the corner fills him with such sorrow. There is no one here, but every belonging has been left behind. It is as if they all ran into the void outside and never came back.
YOUR FLESH ACHES DOESN’T IT
There is no one here, of course — no one, that is, aside from the silhouette — the Doppelgänger — at the end of the hallway.
It is his Doppelgänger. He knows this instinctively. And it is smiling, because it must be. It says nothing, but it watches. It watches, and it waits, looming in the shadows. It twitches, its giggling muffled. And it waits.
And still Herbert creeps down the hallway, feet moving instinctively. He – or his muscle memory, at least – knows this place. Intimately. But he can’t quite recall from where. It’s a cold house, not altogether too humble, though he knows there was life in it once. But it is dark and dusty now. Whatever spark of hope it once possessed has been snuffed out a long time ago. There is only a whispering little sound, a hissing voice he cannot make out, although it reminds him vaguely of something whispering are you going mad?
(There is the sound and weight of sharp, heavy breathing behind his ear. It is not his own.)
There are framed objects on the walls, varying from portraits of people with faces he can’t recognize, to certificates with writing he can’t decipher, to taxidermied animals with features he cannot describe. Something swells in him at the sight – pride, longing, reverence, grief, all in equal part. But he cannot recognize any of it. It is only in his implicit memory that this house, swarming with cobwebs and fractures, means anything to him.
THE MIRROR IS BEAUTIFUL THE MIRROR IS LIGHT
And yet sadness, strangely enough, comes to him. A noise of regret croaks through his lips of its own accord. An unbidden prayer, clutched to his rotten heart; a baruch atah Adonai Elohenu, melekh ha’olam dayan ha’emet, far too little, far too late.
Be quiet, the little voice hisses, and so he clenches his mouth shut. He does not know why, not really, but there is a desperate instinct to let them sleep. He cannot bring himself to do anything but oblige.
(Is the Doppelgänger closer than before?)
Further down the hall he goes, near-silently. The bathroom is only a few doors down, he thinks to himself, and he trusts himself just enough that he supposes it must be true.
There it is. He knows it must be here. He does not look up; he keeps his eyes trained on the grimy counter, on the clumps of hair shoved down the drain. One of his mother’s favorite dresses (as he knows intuitively) is slung over the side of the tub, half of it submerged in the water so murky it is nearly black. The beautiful baby-blue floral print has been marred by the ugliness of the dark, muddy stains.
The room is lit, barely, by the faint glow of oil lamps. Herbert can see the lines and calluses creeping up his trembling hands. There is dried blood worming through the cracks in his fingernails, embedding itself in the spiral-prints on the pads of his fingers.
YOU WISH THERE WAS MORE OF IT DON’T YOU
Hesitantly, he looks up.
There is a face there, of course, just as he had expected there to be. But it is only partially his own. The right side is olive-skinned. Tall, proud cheekbones. A thin layer of stubble. Keen bluish eyes. He’s nearly certain that’s him. Should be, at least, as far as his foggy mind can assume. There are lines of wear and exhaustion across the skin, shallow crevices. His hair is tousled not-so-handsomely. His eyeglasses are crooked. His eyeglasses – did he wake with those on? But this – this is not what’s wrong. No. It’s the other side.
A mottled, pale purple-gray inches its way towards the crest of his brow in blotches. The rot, as it is, has already swallowed up his left ear, his left cheek, his left eye…
The mirror has splintered already. His voice is trapped in his throat. And the bathtub – the water has begun to overflow. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. The tiled floor is grimier than it was moments ago. The mirror – blood and saliva and pus coat it in thick smears. The rot has crawled further across his face, burying itself deeper and deeper into the layers of cheek-flesh.
“DO NOT RUN,” says the hissing voice that is almost certainly his, low and dark at the back of his mind. It has seen him. He cannot hide. “ONCE, TWICE, THRICE…” It stops. Laughs. “GO BACK TO SLEEP, HERBERT. EVERYTHING IS AS IT SHOULD BE. THEY ARE SLEEPING. SO QUIETLY, SO GENTLY. AND SO TOO SHALL YOU BE.”
Herbert thinks, for once, that that cannot be true, but he has no way in which to protest. He slumps over on the tile, shivering in the cold air – the window wasn’t open before, was it? – sensing the flecks of snow coating his hair. And he laughs.
It feels beautiful to laugh. Lying next to the ragged remains of what was once his mother’s favorite dress. He is afraid – so, so very, very afraid – but more of him is fascinated than anything else. It’s cold, and it aches, but he wants to rest. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
He should not want this.
A scream builds in his throat. Eyes glimmer in the darkness of the creaking doorframe. The Doppelgänger laughs too.
DON’T YOU FEEL MY HAND ON YOUR SHOULDER
Herbert’s laughter turns to a horrid wail, but the Doppelgänger only cackles even harder. The darkness stretches and bends and the house falls into ash, into dust, into empty spaces beyond him, into something he can never, ever have again.
“חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ וְאֵלֶיךָ תְּשׁוּקָתֹו,” the voice says.
And Herbert wakes.
I am myself. (This is a lie.)