The Split Identity

The first time Elara saw her it was on a news broadcast.
A grainy security camera image flashed across the screen showing a woman slipping out of a jewelry store just before the alarm blared.
The anchor said the suspect remained unidentified but had been linked to a string of high profile thefts.
Elara leaned closer to the screen.
The woman had her face.
Not similar not close not mistaken.
It was Elara.
Same hair same eyes same calm unbothered stare.
But Elara had been at work that day typing reports under fluorescent lights and sipping stale coffee.
She turned off the television and sat very still.
The next day three people gave her odd looks on the subway.
One man flinched as if he recognized her then quickly looked away.
Elara clutched her bag tighter and got off two stops early.
She tried to shake it off until she came home and found her apartment door unlocked.
Nothing was stolen but something was wrong.
The mirror above her dresser was tilted and her closet smelled faintly of perfume she never wore.
She began to sleep with the lights on.
A week later she followed a hunch to the train station downtown.
She waited in the crowd heart pounding.
And then she saw her.
The woman was across the platform wearing Elara’s face but dressed in black with a long coat and sunglasses.
Elara followed her through the crowd out onto the street and into an alley.
She watched from behind a dumpster as the woman met a man and handed him something small and silver.
They did not speak.
The man walked away.
The woman turned and looked directly at her.
I know you are there she said.
Elara stepped out.
You are me she whispered.
The woman smiled but there was no warmth in it.
No she said I am who you could have been.
They stood in silence.
What do you want Elara asked.
To finish what I started the double said.
Then she turned and walked away without another word.
Elara did not call the police.
What would she say.
That she saw herself stealing and vanishing into alleys.
That she was being haunted by a version of herself with no past and no record.
She started noticing more things missing from her life.
Emails she did not send.
Receipts she did not remember.
People greeting her on the street like they knew her.
One morning her boss called her into his office.
I do not know what kind of game you are playing he said but if you disappear again without notice you are done here.
She nodded even though she had not missed a single day.
She began to lose sleep.
She stopped answering her phone.
She started checking the locks five times each night.
Then the final straw.
She woke up in her bed and smelled smoke.
Not fire but the acrid trace of something burned.
In the kitchen her stove was still warm.
And in the middle of the table was a note written in handwriting exactly like hers.
Stop pretending.
Elara stared at the note for a long time.
Then she tore it into pieces and flushed it down the sink.
The next night she did not go home.
She waited in the shadows outside her own apartment.
At midnight she saw her double approach unlock the door and step inside like she lived there.
Elara followed her in.
This is my life she said.
The woman was calm as always.
No it was your life.
You buried everything that made you dangerous everything that made you strong.
I did not want to hurt people Elara said.
You did not want to make choices the woman replied.
They circled each other in the living room.
Two reflections without a mirror.
You cannot live both lives Elara said.
Exactly the woman said.
Then she lunged.
They struggled crashing into furniture glass shattering on the floor.
One of them reached for the fire iron by the fireplace.
One swing.
Silence.
In the dim light one woman stood over the other.
Breathing hard.
Blood running down her temple.
Later she buried the body in the woods behind the old train yard.
No one would find it.
No one would believe it.
She went back to the apartment and cleaned the blood until the floor gleamed again.
Then she stood in front of the mirror and looked into her own eyes.
I am Elara she said.
Just once.
Then she smiled.
There were things to do.
Lives to reclaim.
And no one left to stop her.