The Imitation Ward

They told me I was lucky to survive the accident.

They said the bus flipped three times. That half the class never made it out. That I was found crawling out of a drainage ditch, soaked, confused, and screaming.

I didn’t remember any of that.

Still don’t.

But I remember the hospital.

The white lights. The faint buzzing from somewhere in the walls. The scent of antiseptic over something… rotting.

And the faces.

All of them familiar. All of them wrong.

They wheeled me into Room 3B of what they called “Observation Ward Omega.” I should’ve asked more questions, but the nurse injected something into my IV every time I got curious.

“You’re safe,” she’d whisper. “Just rest. Recovery takes time.”

My room had no windows. Just a steel door with a square of glass that always reflected more than it should. Sometimes, when I stared too long, I saw me on the other side of the door — watching back.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was when my friends started showing up.

First it was Daniel, my lab partner — or someone wearing Daniel’s face.

He smiled too wide. Sat in the corner too still. When I asked how he got out of the crash, he replied, “They needed me to remember you.”

Then came Amy, with her curly hair and lilac perfume — except her shadow moved differently than her body. I watched it. I know what I saw.

They would sit with me for hours, pretending to chat. Asking about school, teachers, what I remembered. But their questions were too precise. Too rehearsed.

They were studying me.

I started keeping notes. Tearing off pieces of the paper cups and scratching with a fork I hid from lunch trays.

Things I noticed:

• They blink sideways (once every 15 minutes).
• They never touch the floor barefoot.
• They hum when they think I’m asleep — but it sounds like echoes underwater.
• Reflections don’t match their faces.
• They don’t remember the bus crash. Only I do.

One night, I faked sleep. Let my breathing slow. Amy leaned over and whispered something in a voice that didn’t belong to her.

“We almost had you that time. But you slipped through the cracks.”

Then she blinked — a thin translucent lid swiping across her eyes horizontally, like a lizard.

That’s when I knew: this wasn’t a hospital.

This was a replica chamber.

They were rebuilding the accident victims one by one. Replacing us with copies. Almost-perfect imitations.

Something was living beneath our skin. Learning. Testing. Wearing us.

I wasn’t in recovery.

I was in containment.

I tried to escape.

Tried the door. Locked from the outside.

Tried yelling. They turned up the white noise and gave me more injections.

Even tried smashing the mirror. That’s when I saw it for real — behind the glass.

Not my reflection.

A second face behind mine. Slithering over my features like a parasite finding home.

I started clawing at my skin.

That’s when they came.

Two nurses. One with Daniel’s eyes. One with Amy’s voice.

“We’re going to try again,” they said, holding a glowing syringe.

“You keep waking up too soon.”

I fought.

Bit. Screamed. Kicked.

But it was already in me. I could feel it swimming behind my teeth. Flicking across my vision like a second eyelid waiting to open.

Then… silence.

And I woke up.

Now I’m back home.

Or so they say.

Mom hugs me too tight. Dad never looks directly at me.

And my classmates? The ones who survived?

They all seem so happy to see me.

Too happy.

I watched Lena during class today. She was drinking from her water bottle, laughing at something the teacher said. She looked normal.

Until I caught her staring at me from the side — not blinking.

Then, when the bell rang, she turned her head and blinked sideways.

I’m not out.

I don’t think I ever was.

They’re everywhere now. Walking around in my friends’ skin. Waiting for something. Maybe for the rest of us to stop resisting.

Maybe for us to become like them.

And tonight, in my mirror, my reflection just blinked sideways back at me.