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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/fake_bruh on 2025-01-19 01:52:50+00:00.

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An excruciatingly long day full of fear and anxiety passed before we heard back from Rebecca. She had messaged us asking to meet in person after we described our situation in detail but warned us in advance that she does not know how helpful she would be. The drive to the address she'd given us was about an hour and a half away in Augusta where she had a small apartment she was staying at currently. Connor and I walked to the hotel to find my car still there, but his had disappeared.

We kept a close eye on our wounds or bruises, unsure of what they actually were, and if they could spread we were relieved to see they still hadn't. I'd like to say we discussed theories and possible reasons for why this was happening, and why to us, but we were so afraid and exhausted by now that we barely said anything to each other. I'd spoken to my family on the phone earlier and had to pretend everything was okay when deep down I wanted to cry into the receiver to my mother and ask her what to do. Anything we tried to find regarding the missing police officers who responded to the call that night online was met with old articles that coincidentally had some of the same keywords I'd used in my search. There was nothing on the news either. It was as if nothing had happened at all.

We arrived in Augusta a little after noon and turned from the main street to town into another narrow road that led to Rebecca's neighborhood. We climbed up to the third floor and rung her bell, footsteps approaching the door a few moments later and stopping, presumably looking through the large peephole before she opened the door to greet us. What we saw in person was a woman slightly older than the one on the website, so I assumed the photo must have been taken some years ago.

"Good afternoon. I assume you're Marielle and Connor?" She pushed the door open fully now and looked at me first, then at him.

"Yes, thank you for having us miss Simmons... we're not sure who we can even turn to about this." Connor nodded and then brought his head down slightly as if admitting defeat.

"Nobody, I hate to tell you. You're not the first to come to me about something like this, but you're probably the only ones to have..." She seemed hesitant to finish her sentence but did so after a brief pause. "...survive."

Connor and I turned to meet our eyes and Rebecca invited us in, apologizing for saying what she did and shut the door behind us once we'd entered. She went to make us coffee while we took our shoes and jackets off and made ourselves comfortable in her living room and I tried taking some of the stress off by petting her puppy, a French Bulldog that couldn't have been older than a few months.

"They allow pets in the building?" I tried initiating small talk when she came back to set a friendlier tone before we got to what we were really here for.

"You can say that, honestly the owner is against animals of any kind in the apartments but I convinced him how little trouble he'd cause and that if he broke or damaged anything I'd pay back in full. Isn't that right, Frankie?"

In response, Frankie mustered up a semi-bark and licked her hand as she went to pet his head and then sat down on the opposite side of the sofa me and Connor were on, on a small cushioned chair.

"I know who you are, Marielle." I must admit that phrase almost sent me into fight or flight considering I've been on edge to say the least for the past little over two days and was ready to jump up and run out of the apartment, but she continued just in time to allow me to prevent myself from doing so. "Your husband contacted me a year ago trying to find out more about the mirror world and the creatures inhabiting it. I'm sorry to hear what happened and that you had to relive it writing it in the email..."

Her mentioning my ex husband's death was a gut punch as I still hadn't even started processing it over the weight of everything that's happened, and I stared blankly at her. Connor noticed and took over the conversation for me.

"Did he mention anything we might need to know? Why was he trying to break into Marielle's home?"

Rebecca took a sip from her coffee which still had steam coming off of it and switched her gaze to me, picking up Frankie off the floor once he jumped off as soon as I stopped petting him, obviously completely disinterested in me now, and set him in her lap.

"Because he was afraid of exactly what is happening to you. I can't put this any other way so I will be forward about it, Russel did not seem exactly in his... right mind, even back then. He was talking about all kinds of theories and supposed discoveries he had made that sounded like the ravings of a madman, but what was evident to me was his duty to protect you from it, Marielle. I assume that's why he was there that night, but he was unlucky enough to encounter something that only appeared to be you." Both Connor and I were at a loss for words at how casually this woman seemed to be talking about this, as if it was an everyday occurrence that some body snatchers who apparently lived in your damn mirror or something like that took over your life and pretended to be you, but that didn't stop her from continuing. "Admittedly though he was one of the few to have actually come to me with more than just claims of there being another version of them."

"So what the hell are these things? Why are they targeting us?" Connor said, not even having touched his coffee yet. Not that I did either.

"I don't know for sure how they choose their hosts as I call them, but from what Russel and others before and after him have told me is that they form when you feel lost for an extended period of time in your life, like when a piece of you seems to be missing. Is that description accurate for you after your divorce, Marielle?"

Part of me was getting more and more furious at how confidently this woman was trying to gouge the low points in my life but I could not bring myself to go against her when everything she'd been saying so far was correct, and it didn't help that she sounded so confident... well, maybe it did, because we were finally talking to someone who not only believed us but seemed experienced in the topic at hand.

"It... it does. And I guess the same goes for Russel, he started talking about all this a month after his father passed in a tragic work accident. I thought he was just taking the loss really bad but... my God." I took a moment to think everything through and allowed myself to finally take a sip from the coffee Rebecca had made me before continuing. "You said he had made some kind of discovery when he'd come to you? What were you talking about?"

"Well, I don't know if your husband had ever come in contact with any of them, but according to him the only way to sever these beings' connection to you was to destroy them in their own world. I'll be honest that I was up until very recently skeptical about its existence as a whole, considering no one had ever actually been to it, or at least done that and returned to tell the tale, but here you two are. And you have evidence." She held her hand up to her ribcage while also looking at my ankle, referring to the dark marks Connor and I had. I'm sure he felt as unnerved as I did at the mention of them.

"And what do these markings mean? Do you know?" Connor joined in.

"My theory is that it's this other reality's way to manifest itself into our own. I can't tell you what that means or how dangerous it may be, but I hope nobody has to find out." She put Frankie back on the ground and he tried to get her attention again by scratching on her left leg for a second before making a sound like an angry toddler and curling up by her feet, then Rebecca leaned on her knees and her eyes darted from Connor's to mine and back. "I know that this will sound like suicide, but you were already there once - you twice even, Connor - and you both managed to escape. In all my time following this phenomenon I've not heard or met anyone to have done that. I'd say that it's your decision if you wanted to to this, but with those marks you have, I'm not sure if you have any choice in the matter if you want to... stay. You must go back and destroy your impostors before they claim you."

I don't have to explain how hard my stomach dropped as we were literally instructed to go back into that damned maze that took the form of my home, but at the same time there was no other solution we could think of, and I am sure it had been floating around Connor's head as much as it had been in mine recently.

"But... how do we even go about doing it? We don't know what they even are, how are we supposed to fight them?" My voice trembled at the mention of a confrontation with them.

"We don't call them mirror people just because we came up with it randomly, Marielle. You came out of that world through your mirror. You see how they are trying to become you, slowly. So..." Rebecca stood up and walked over to one of the walls of the apartment that had a large rectangular mirror on it. "My guess is that attacking them with glass will be effective in hurting and potentia...

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