Zebastien Florimon, “Doppleganger”

Artwork by Zebastien Florimon

DOPPELGANGER

Zebastien Florimon

VHS Tape One S.N.A.T.C.H “Stand your ground. Now is your time in reality. Attack if safe to do so. Thaw your fears away. Can’t reveal your secrets. Han—” The TV malfunctioned. I was a police officer watching the opening instructions to this new job. The S.N.A.T.C.H protocol was this instruction’s name. It was the first out of the three. My coworker walked into the lonely room I was put in. I was in the police department, but it was a dimly lit room with a chair, a lamp, and my hot and seemingly expired coffee. It smelled raggedy, old, and like trash. The TV matched this old room’s quality, and paint peeled off the wall. It looked like it came from the 1950s. “Oh, sorry Hannah. Lemme play it again. This happens a lot,” my co-worker said with the remote in hand. “You’re fine, Luke,” I responded gladly. The TV shone brightly in the dim room again while Luke walked away. It restarted from the beginning. “Follow the S.N.A.T.C.H protocols when dealing with effects and/or attacks. Stand your ground. Now is your time in reality. Attack if safe to do so. Thaw your fears away. Can’t reveal your secrets. Hang Yourself.” The TV stood on that final statement for a good thirty seconds. I was definitely shocked, thinking it was another malfunction, but it wasn’t static or anything. The dark room didn’t help either. I was scared more because the lamp started flickering at a steady pace. It all creeped me out. The TV had transitioned into what it was supposed to say, and erased the H in S.N.A.T.C.H. “Hold Your Place in reality.”

Now it actually made sense. The TV screen had transitioned to its next segment. “Doppelganger Encounters,” the TV narrator said. “When in a Doppelganger Encounter, you must hide until the target is neutralized or has left the area. If safe to do so, neutralize the target yourself. If the target has abnormal behavior, submit yourself. You cannot win.” The TV instructed in a robotic emotionless voice. “Okay,” I said slowly, creeped out a bit. It transitioned to the third and final segment. “Doppelganger Background and Rank,” it said. “Doppelgangers are genetically identical copies of another, and will focus on one goal: taking the place of the person they replicated in reality. Doppelgangers are determined by Rankings. Rank 1: A Doppelganger that can’t harm or speak, only watch and trick its real person into death. Rank 2: This Doppelganger has abnormal accessibilities such as irregular limbs or abnormal speed or strength. Still unable to speak but also now unable to see and hear. Rank 3: Beings which can erase things from reality and be abnormal or normal as they wish,” the TV explained. It was a different thing to see and to watch, so I turned it off. I may have revealed my fear to them. No, it can’t be.

VHS Tape Two Cries For Mom

An old classy type of music played, opera maybe. I hate that type of music, especially in the darkest places. It was slow as well, creeping me out even more. “Instructions when offspring are crying within the household,” the TV narrator said. This could be useful to me. My son cries a lot at my apartment. “When your child cries it is a beacon to the other side,” the narrator said robotically.

“All right, this just might be useless to me after all,” I thought. “Doppelgangers seem to have an unrefusable attraction to the cries of an infant or one-to-five-year-old child. If a three-day born infant cries, it usually attracts the attention of the Rank 3s. Do not enter the room when an infant cries. It is almost guaranteed that the Doppelgangers will show up.” What the hell? What would happen then? I thought to myself, confused and frightened. After the subtitles of the narrator’s instructions disappeared, two extremely low-detail, drawn people were shown on the screen. The music was still playing, only muffled. A male, beside a female character. There was a door in front of them and the endless screams of their baby behind it. Muffled screams, but they were relentless. The woman, abandoning the man, walked in through the door. With the same pitch-black background, with the white-drawn woman, and a white-drawn crib, with a TV in the very front of the room, the baby cried louder than ever. The TV sang its same tone, continuously but much louder. The woman, poorly animated, walked to the crib and when she looked inside… The screams stopped. The baby wasn’t there. Although the baby wasn’t there, the cries were fading away as if it was erased from existence. The woman walked slowly towards the TV, and when it zoomed in on what was displayed, it was shocking. There was a black figure with its two dotted eyes and a smile so wide it consumed half of its face and its long hair touching its bloodstained shoulders. The TV zoomed out, and the woman allowed the music to continue playing from within it, and she walked back to the middle of the room. It looked like she was floating to heaven perhaps. But it all came clear after this. A message on the TV said, “Shocked from her fear being revealed, her life has run its course.” It replicated the message in a stream downwards. The woman had exited out of the poorly drawn animation and followed the S.N.A.T.C.H protocol. She saw what was in the TV: it was her, and when she saw it, she revealed her fear. Just by doing that, she knew her time was up. So she hanged herself

VHS Tape Three Operator

As the final segment played, my eyes were shaken by fear. I didn’t want to believe. Did my life run its course? “Reports. If Doppelganger calls are reported to your police station . . .” the narrator said robotically. I did see a difference in which the TV would go into static a lot at this point. The lamp beside me had finally stopped its countless flickering. It also shined a bit brighter, which definitely was nice. “When a civilian reports a Doppelganger call to your police department, follow these procedures,” the narrator instructed. “If a caller reports a Doppelganger encounter, reassure them that help is on the way. But it will never come,” the narrator said. But why? I thought to myself. “Do not speak too much to the caller. They feed on your fears and desires. You might accidentally reveal it,” the narrator said. This shook me to the very core, but at this point, after everything I saw on the tapes, there was no denying the truth. “When you hear the caller’s frantic screams through the phone, hang up. You can’t save them from fate,” the narrator said slowly and creepily. This is what our world came to. A place where the so-called “defenders”—the police— can’t do a damn thing against these creatures. The tape shut off. That was the final segment. The once bright light beside me scarily shut off. The frantic screams of my coworkers were so loud and close. I couldn’t do anything. I revealed my fear. I failed to protect my place in reality. I caused the death of my coworkers. Now I must face my fear.

The Police Station

Face Your Fears

As I opened the door from the dark room, I saw the station lights flickering like the lamp. I saw blood streaks and heard cries for help across the hallways of the station. I followed the streaks of blood, and it led me to a hallway of corpses, one of them being Luke. Since I was new I didn’t have a gun, I took Luke’s. I was walking slowly, watching my corners, and I made it out to the main offices and cells. The prisoners were slaughtered with their bones twisted. I found another where his body was disintegrated to the neck, but no blood and no organs from the torso were revealed. This must have been a Rank 3. I had no means of resisting at this point, yet I clenched onto the gun tighter than before. I ran back to the entrance and avoided calling out for anyone. That would reveal my location, and I would be caught almost immediately. I saw the entrance doors in sight, and I looked everywhere: right, left, ceiling and below. They could be anywhere. I crouched and silently went to the doors. I tried opening them but they were locked. “Please, open please.” I cried and sobbed. I slouched to the ground, submitting myself. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes the lights were off. “What the—Where are you?” I shouted out for the creature. I turned on my shoulder, light and the shadow overlooking me. It was huge with a gaping mouth and hair touching the ground. It had abnormal limbs, arms too long and legs too tall, with a broken skinny curved back. It wore my exact attire. “Re—” It whispered. “What?” I cried, and asked. “Reveal,” it said distortedly. “You’re my beast?” I questioned.

“Reveal your—” it said louder and even more distorted. I knew my fate and couldn’t change it. It took its place in reality. “Reveal your fear!” it roared, with its mouth large enough to swallow anything whole. “It’s you goddammit. You!” I shouted and fired. It was useless. “Hello. My name is Hannah Torres. I’d like to apply for this job,” it said.

149