Borrowed Face:

I first observed her on the train. She sat across from me, head tilted slightly, eyes fixed on the window as if the city rushing past was more important than the people inside. At first glance, she seemed ordinary—dark hair, pale skin, a tired expression. But then she turned, and my breath caught.

She had my face.

Not just a resemblance, not the kind of similarity that makes people say, “You could be sisters.” No. This was exact. The same faint scar above the eyebrow from when I fell off my bike at twelve. The same uneven smile, the same tired shadows beneath the eyes. It was like looking into a mirror that had stepped out of its frame.

I wanted to speak, but my throat locked. She noticed me staring, and for a moment, her lips curled into a smile that wasn’t mine. It was sharper, colder. Then the train stopped, and she vanished into the crowd.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept replaying her face, her movements, the way she smiled as if she knew something I didn’t. I told myself it was coincidence. Doppelgangers exist. But the scar? That was impossible.

The next day, I saw another one.

This time, it was at the grocery store. A man, tall and broad-shouldered, pushing a cart filled with bottled water. He turned, and my stomach dropped. My face again. My scar again. My expression again. I froze in the aisle, clutching a box of cereal. He didn’t look at me. He just walked past, humming softly, as if nothing was wrong.

By the third encounter, I stopped pretending it was coincidence.

I was walking home late, the streetlights flickering, when I saw her. Another me. She leaned against a lamppost, smoking, her eyes locked on mine. This one didn’t smile. She just watched, exhaling smoke into the night air.

I whispered, “Who are you?”

She dropped the cigarette, crushed it beneath her shoe, and walked away. I started searching online. Doppelgangers, cloning, stolen identities. None of it explained the scar. None of it explained why they were multiplying.

Then the messages began.

At first, they were slips of paper tucked under my door. “We see you.” Then emails from unknown addresses. “Borrowed face. Borrowed life.” I deleted them, tore them up, but they kept coming.

One evening, I found a photograph taped to my mirror. It was me—standing in the middle of a crowd, surrounded by dozens of people with my face. Some smiled, some frowned, some stared blankly. But all of them were me. My knees buckled. I tore the photo down, but the reflection in the mirror didn’t move with me.

She stayed.

I don’t know how long I’ve been living like this now. Days blur into nights. I see them everywhere—on buses, in shops, in the shadows of alleys. They don’t speak. They don’t touch me. They just watch. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the original. Maybe I’m the borrowed face. Maybe I’m the copy. The scar burns when I think about it, as if reminding me of something I’ve forgotten.

Last night, I woke to find one of them standing at the foot of my bed. She didn’t move. She didn’t blink. She just stood there, breathing softly, as if waiting for me to speak. I whispered, “Why me?” Her lips parted, and for the first time, one of them answered.

“You’re the only one who still believes you’re real.”