Genre: Psychological Thriller / Horror / Science Fiction
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Part 1: Arrival
I moved to Kasauli to disappear.
After the accident, the therapist told me to "reconnect with myself." I didn’t know what that meant. I wasn’t sure there was a "self" left to reconnect with.
It’s funny, the things you remember after a trauma.
The color of blood on a white dashboard.
The metallic taste of fear.
The sound of her voice screaming your name.
And the silence that followed.
Everyone said it wasn’t my fault.
But guilt doesn’t listen to logic.
I booked a year-long lease for a quiet cottage on the edge of the forest. No neighbors for half a mile. Just me, trees, and time. The owner, Mr. Singh, lived in Delhi and handled everything remotely. I never met him. Just a phone call and a key mailed to me in an envelope without a return address.
Perfect.
The house had two bedrooms, a stone fireplace, and walls lined with books. It smelled of damp pine and forgotten memories. I didn’t mind. In fact, it felt oddly familiar. Like I had been there before. Like some part of me remembered it.
On the second night, I found a photograph behind a loose brick in the fireplace.
It was old, black and white, and blurred from time. A woman stood in the center, wearing a winter coat. Her eyes were scratched out. Beside her, a man who looked *almost* like me. Not exactly, but close enough to give me chills.
On the back: “We never left.”
I didn’t sleep that night.
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Part 2: Disintegration
Things began to shift around day 10.
It started small. The kettle would whistle even when it wasn’t turned on. I’d hear footsteps in the attic, even though it was sealed shut. I’d go to sleep in one room and wake up in another.
Once, I woke up facing the mirror, a phrase written across it in condensation:
“You’re remembering too fast. Slow down.”
I wanted to believe it was just stress. Hallucinations. PTSD.
But the more I denied it, the more reality seemed to bend.
I kept a journal. I wrote down everything. Dates. Dreams. What I ate. What I heard. What I saw. I even installed cameras inside and outside the cottage.
On Day 14, I played back footage from the night before.
At 2:37 AM, the bedroom door opened.
I was still in bed, asleep.
Someone stepped in. The figure was blurry, static around their body like interference. They stood at the foot of the bed for a full minute, then leaned down and whispered something.
The audio captured only one word: “Again.”
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Part 3: Duplicates
I drove into the town on Day 17 to talk to someone. Anyone.
A local café owner named Ravi was kind enough to talk to me over tea. I asked if anyone had ever lived in that cottage before.
He frowned.
“It’s been abandoned for years. Since 1984. After the fire.”
“What fire?” I asked.
He looked confused. “The one you survived.”
“I wasn’t even born in 1984.”
His expression changed. Like he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to.
“I... I must be wrong,” he muttered. “Sorry. My memory’s not what it used to be.”
I left, heart pounding.
That night, I heard a voice whisper behind my ear as I turned off the lights.
“You were always here.”
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Part 4: Identity Drift
By Day 21, my journal started betraying me.
Whole entries I didn’t remember writing. Pages that looked like they were written by someone else. One entry chilled me:
“He’s starting to suspect. I tried to slow the bleed, but the memories are leaking. His consciousness is reattaching to the wrong self. If he remembers the lake, it’s over.”
What lake?
I had never seen a lake here.
The next day, I found one.
About a kilometer into the woods, behind a thicket I could swear didn’t exist before, was a still, black lake. Its surface didn’t reflect light. No birds, no insects, nothing around it.
On the shore, I saw myself.
Or someone who looked exactly like me, standing, staring into the water.
I ran.
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Part 5: The Bleed
That night, the cameras glitched again. Static. Until 3:03 AM. Then a clear frame.
Me. Sitting on the couch. Smiling.
Except I wasn’t awake.
The figure looked up at the camera. Then raised a hand and made a motion.
Like writing.
I slowed the footage and read the motion of his finger:
“Wake up.”
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Part 6: Memories That Weren’t Mine.
I began to remember things that couldn’t be mine.
A childhood I didn’t live. A sister I never had. A fire. A scream. A mirror breaking. A shadow stepping through me.
I found a second journal hidden under the floorboard in the bedroom. It was identical to mine—but the entries were dated *10 years ago. And they ended with:
“I thought I could escape. But you can’t run from a self you don’t remember being. If you find this, you’re too far gone. Just drown it. Drown it all.”
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Part 7: The Observer
On Day 30, I woke up to find someone sitting at the kitchen table.
A man. Black coat. Hands folded. No face. Just a blank smear where features should be.
He spoke without sound:
“Your cycle is collapsing.”
“You are remembering all the selves.”
“Too many versions. Too little time.”
I tried to scream. He raised a hand.
“Don’t run. Listen.”
He touched my forehead.
And I remembered.
Every version of myself across time. Every time I tried to escape. Every time I moved cities. Changed names. Burned journals. Killed myself. And woke up here again.
The cottage was not a place.
It was a containment loop.
A recursion.
A simulation designed to hold one mind fractured into many.
Me.
The accident wasn’t real.
The therapist was a protocol.
Ravi didn’t exist.
Nothing existed outside the containment field.
Only the observer was real.
And now that I remembered—
He had to erase me.
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Part 8: Collapse
The house began to decay. Wood curled like paper. Lights flickered like a dying sun.
I ran into the forest. The trees looped. The lake boiled.
The other versions of me emerged—dozens. Hundreds. All screaming. All trying to wake up.
One of them grabbed my face and screamed:
“You have to choose which you are!”
Another:
“Split minds die. Whole ones break through. Pick!”
I saw flashes:
The original me, in a lab, volunteering for a consciousness fragmentation trial.
The accident was the catalyst, a memory scar implanted to fragment my self.
The loop was meant to test how many versions of me could integrate.
The experiment failed.
But they couldn’t delete me.
I had nested too deep.
Now only I could end it.
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Part 9: The Integration
I sat by the lake.
Each self surrounded me. Each memory, each mistake, each lie, each trauma.
I opened the journal one last time.
“Integration protocol initiated.”
I spoke:
“I am not the victim.”
“I am not the killer.”
“I am not the survivor.”
“I am the whole.”
The selves merged.
The world bled white.
And then...
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Part 10: Reboot
I opened my eyes in a white room.
A glass wall. Scientists on the other side.
"Subject 7 has stabilized," one said.
"Is he conscious?"
I looked at my hands.
Whole.
Real.
Integrated.
I remembered everything.
The experiment. The selves. The loops. The observer. The choice.
And now, for the first time...
I was free.
But on the table beside me...
Another journal.
Still warm.
On the cover:
"Do Not Read. Begin Again."
React
