Seven Versions of Me

Day One

Mira opened her eyes to sunlight filtering through gauzy white curtains. A warm breeze tickled her face, carrying the scent of roses and something faintly chemical—hospital-grade antiseptic? She blinked, sat up.

The room was unfamiliar. Clean. Modern. Expensive.

She stumbled to the mirror. Her face stared back, unchanged. Same sharp cheekbones, same tired eyes. But behind her, the reflection showed a sleek apartment—white marble, minimal decor, a man’s suit jacket draped over a chair.

On the vanity was a note, written in her handwriting:

"Don’t panic. This is real. You have six more. — Mira"

She laughed. Nervously. What kind of joke was this?

Then her phone rang.

“Dr. Mirabel Lane? Your keynote starts in thirty.”

“Dr. Who?” she muttered. The call ended.

Her name was Mira Carter. She worked in marketing. She lived in a walk-up apartment in Brooklyn.

She did not give keynotes.

And yet—when she opened the closet, there it was: a sleek blazer, monogrammed scrubs, and a badge. Dr. Mirabel Lane, MD, Neuroscience Division, NYCU.

Day Two

She awoke gasping.

This time, the walls were made of exposed brick. A guitar lay across a faded rug, an empty wine bottle on the floor. Her hands were stained with charcoal. When she touched her face, she felt a stud in her eyebrow and the buzz of a short haircut.

The note was there again.

"You're still not dreaming. Pay attention. There's a pattern. — Mira"

She screamed. No one answered. Her voice echoed in an empty loft.

This Mira was an artist. A struggling one, judging by the past-due notices on the kitchen table.

She found a mirror.

Her eyes stared back, but they looked... tired. Sad.

She wasn’t dreaming. This was real. But how?

Day Three

She lived in the suburbs. A toddler tugged at her hand, shouting “Mommy!” over and over. A man kissed her cheek and handed her coffee like this had been happening for years.

She excused herself, locked the bathroom door, and read the note.

"Version Three. Look deeper. They’re starting to overlap. You’ll feel it soon. — Mira"

Her hands trembled. She opened the medicine cabinet: prenatal vitamins, anxiety pills, a wedding photo of her with a man she’d never seen before.

She couldn’t breathe. Not from fear, but from something deeper—grief? Why did this version feel like a goodbye?

Day Four

The sirens screamed. She ducked behind a crumbling wall as a drone zipped past overhead.

War. This world was at war.

She was wearing tactical gear. A patch on her sleeve read “Agent M. Carter.”

The note was encrypted into a military-grade wristpad.

"You’re halfway. Memory bleed is imminent. Be careful who you trust. — Mira"

This Mira knew how to fight. Knew how to kill.

She touched the scar above her eyebrow and saw flashes—gunfire, betrayal, a woman’s scream.

Reality felt loose now, like she could slip between layers at any moment.

Day Five

The room was white. Everything was white.

She was strapped to a bed.

A doctor peered down at her, scribbling something.

“Another personality surfaced last night,” he murmured. “Fifth one. She calls herself ‘Mira Carter.’ Doesn’t remember her real name.”

No mirror this time. No note.

Only her thoughts—and they weren’t all hers.

Day Six

She was rich. She was powerful.

CEO of a biotech company. Her office sat on the 98th floor, looking out over a skyline that shimmered like glass.

This Mira wore sharp heels and sharper smiles.

She found the note tucked inside a dossier:

"You’re not the original. None of us are. But one of us is trying to become her. We must stop her before Day Seven. — Mira"

She closed her eyes.

Her reflection in the glass didn’t match her movements anymore.

Day Seven

She woke in her real apartment.

The same crooked blinds. The same coffee-stained carpet. Everything was normal.

Except it wasn’t.

The other versions of herself were bleeding in—memories, feelings, fragments. She could draw. She could quote medical journals. Her body moved with the trained grace of a soldier. She remembered giving birth. She remembered signing off on human trials for memory duplication.

And she remembered something worse:

One of the versions didn’t want to go back.

That Mira—the rich one—had found a way to manipulate the others, to steal stability. She wasn’t content being a copy. She wanted to overwrite the rest. Become the “real” one.

Mira stared at her reflection.

It smiled back. Before she did.

Epilogue

The police report would later describe the incident as a psychotic break.

But the neighbors swore they saw the woman arguing with her own reflection for nearly an hour before she smashed every mirror in the apartment and vanished.

No trace of her was found.

Except for a note, left behind in a locked drawer.

"Only one version gets to stay.

But which one was I?"