My sister and I have always had the whole ‘twin-tuition’ thing going on. Our parents joked that we spoke our own secret language—one without syllables or sentences. We just understood each other, y’know?
Not gonna lie, our ‘link’ came in super useful. Like during a pop quiz, Alex would pretend to stretch her neck and glance in my direction, and the look on her face would tell me: what did you get for number 4?
And then I’d raise an eyebrow. I put ‘B’, but I’m not 100% sure.
This other time, when we were out with a group of friends at the bowling alley, she scratched her nose, which was her way of saying: Allie, that Tyler guy in your lane is super cute, ask him out!
Then I curled my bottom lip. No way, his man bun smells like cheese!
There were times I hated being a twin, like when we had to put up with dirty jokes or got treated like one person. I mean, okay, we looked identical, but there were SOME differences; arts and crafts were my jam whereas she was always the sporty one. Overall, though, I loved having her as a sister. And I loved our special bond.
But today, that bond just sort of…vanished.
It started with a premonition. We both got those anytime something bad happened. Like once, out of nowhere, Alex ran into the lounge and told our parents, “Allie just hurt herself.” And at that exact moment, more than six miles away, I’d stepped into a ditch and rolled my ankle. This other time, a voice in the back of my mind told me Alex needed me, and I called her before her asshole ex could even finish dumping her.
But this latest premonition was worse than all those others combined. It started with the taste of bile in the back of my throat, then images of hands closing around Alex’s neck swirled through my mind. I watched her face turn lobster red as her eyeballs rotated outward. I could almost hear her choked screams.
When she didn’t answer her phone, there was this overwhelming, almost dizzying need to hold her—to make sure she was safe—so I raced home, charged up the stairs, and burst into our room.
Alex, who was crouched alongside our bunk beds, casually stood and said, “Hey.”
That confused me. I threw my arms around her and said, “Please, please tell me you’re okay?”
She screwed up her face and shrugged me off, in a very unAlex-like way. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I kept my eyes fixated on her, my body still rigid and shaking. “I got this feeling like you were in trouble.”
“Nope. False alarm.”
I surveyed the room. In the corner, Alex’s soccer uniform was hanging off the dresser, and pushed up against the far wall, my crafts table was still a scattered mess of paint brushes, coloring pencils, and spools of thread.
Okay, nothing sus. But those horrible images wouldn’t leave my mind. A glimpse of Alex trapped someplace dark came to me.
Now I was even more confused…
“Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked. She threw me a look, and suddenly her face had a sour expression that I’d never, ever seen before.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Her voice had gone odd, too. It sounded angry and flat—like she was hiding something.
Okay, seriously weird. Maybe our twin-tuition was on the fritz? Or maybe something happened she was too embarrassed to tell me about? That would sure explain her being such a grouch…
Later, we sat down to dinner with our parents. Dad was cooking, and as the scent of his signature beef casserole wafted up, Alex and I locked eyes from across the table.
I thought, oh great, last time he made casserole I was up half the night barfing.
All I got was a hiss of radio static.
I bit my bottom lip. Is everything okay? Are you mad at me?
Silence.
Hello? Earth to Alex?
“So girls, how was school?” mom asked.
Alex said, “Great,” then bragged about the game-winning goal she scored at her soccer game. And as she did, imaginary spiders scurried along my spine, because everything she said or did, right down to the way she held her fork, looked wrong.
She ate dad’s casserole without complaining and had chocolate ice cream for dessert, instead of vanilla with chocolate sauce, like always. In the lounge, as we sat side-by-side working on our homework, I deliberately brushed my arm against hers and felt this horrible gust of energy, one that would have flung me to the ground if I hadn’t dug my fingers into the table, clinging on for support.
By bedtime, I’d grown deeply suspicious.
After brushing my teeth, I shuffled into our room, where my head started screaming: danger. The word was deafening, especially close to Alex. I whirled around a few times.
“What are you doing?” she asked, already tucked into the bottom bunk.
“Nothing.”
“Then turn out the light already. I’m tired.”
Climbing the ladder, I felt an uncomfortable tingle. Someone walking over my grave, mom would say.
Okay, this feeling of dread would keep me up all night, so I closed my eyes, pushed my fingers into my temples, and concentrated on sending positive vibes to Alex.
But my subconscious had other ideas. It carried me around our room, toward the bed, settling at the dark space under the bottom bunk.
I saw horror. Suffering, pain, death. Invisible hands clutched my throat and kept me from breathing. The force squeezed the life out of me, trying to drag me into the blackness until I jumped up and screamed.
Down below, Alex flicked on her lamp and said, “What the hell’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I answered quickly. “I saw a spider.”
She groaned and switched the light off while I sat there drenched with sweat.
Okay, my intuition pointed me under the bed, but what could possibly be down there?
I waited twenty minutes then peeked over the rail. Alex lay fast asleep. I gently eased myself down the ladder until my bare foot touched the carpet, and then I hunched over and prepared to wrap my fingers around the edge of her blanket. I felt suddenly faint and took a deep breath, now completely paralyzed.
Just then, Alex’s hand clamped around mine so fast I actually flinched. “What are you doing?” She said seriously. The energy flowing into my forearm was like an electrical shock or a nervous heartbeat. It broke my paralysis and told me danger was close by.
I put a hand on my belly and faked a painful groan. “My stomach. Dad’s casserole. Y’know?”
Okay, that seemed to cool her down, even though I got the impression she didn’t believe me.
In the bathroom, I flushed the toilet and pretended to wash my hands, then wandered back to our room, where Alex stared a hole through me.
Another attempt to look under the bed would only agitate her, but one way or another, I was determined to find out what had me so badly rattled, so I walked over to the desk and shuffled books around inside my backpack.
“What are you doing now?” she asked, stubbornly.
“I forgot to put my homework away.”
Facing the wall, I casually grabbed a spool of thread and my phone, stashed them under my pajama top, climbed into the top bunk, and stayed awake until after midnight.
Once I heard Alex snore, I wrapped the thread around my phone, pulled up the camera app, switched to night-mode, hit record, and carefully fed the thread over the rail. That wouldn’t wake her up.
The phone hovered at the gap between the floor and frame. There was only one problem: the camera faced the wrong direction. With a little shimmying, I made the phone spin several times, then reeled it up, pulled the sheets over my head, and hit play.
The camera moved past a sleeping Alex, until it hovered inches above the carpet, pointed toward the dresser. A few seconds later, the footage rotated three-hundred and sixty degrees, and I caught a glimpse of an eye, horribly white.
The camera swung again, slower this time, and when I saw what was down there, it took all my self-control not to scream.
It was Alex. She lay perfectly still, one eye rolled back in her skull, tongue trailing sideways from her mouth, her neck and cheeks all crusty with dried blood.
The thing sleeping under me wasn’t my sister—it was an imposter. The imitation was almost perfect, but not good enough to fool my twin-tuition.
My gut filled with a sense of dread and my face turned numb. My sister, my whole world, the person I loved most, was gone. Dead. Tears slid down my cheeks as a moist sickness rose in my throat. I couldn’t stop picturing her lifeless face.
My first instinct was to rush into my parents’ room and show them the footage; if ‘Alex’ tried to stop me, I’d tell her I needed to vomit again.
But the video was still playing, and the worst had yet to come…
As I reeled the phone up, it recorded the bottom bunk, and that thing was now wide awake, eyes red against the green and blacks of the darkened room. The creature grinned, and suddenly didn’t look like my sister, because the creases and wrinkles of its face were too severe.
At the last second, the creature stared into the camera, pushed a single finger against its lips, and made a ‘quiet’ gesture.
The video ended with me hitting stop.
Now I’m lying beneath my sheets unable to think straight. My parents are on the other side of the house, they won’t answer their phones, and I just know that thing won’t let me leave the room.
I’m trapped. I don’t know what to do. And I want my sister back.