. “The Man Who Came Home Before I Did… And Looked Exactly Like Me”

“The Man Who Came Home Before I Did… And Looked Exactly Like Me”

By [Ali Rehman]

I always believed that horror was something that happened on screens — in movies, in books, in legends whispered at night. I never imagined I would one day walk into a life that no longer belonged to me.

It began on an evening like any other.

The street outside my apartment was quiet as I climbed the stairs, grocery bag cutting into my fingers. I remember the sound of the key turning in the lock — familiar, comforting — until it wasn’t.

Because the door was already unlocked.

I froze.

I never leave it unlocked.

My breath caught in my throat, but I told myself it was probably nothing. Maybe I had been careless that morning. Maybe the lock jammed. Maybe I was overthinking.

But when I pushed the door open, my heart dropped.

Someone was in my home.

Someone humming.

Someone moving.

Someone… in the kitchen.

I stepped inside slowly, quietly. The humming grew louder — a tune I knew too well.

Because it was mine.

I turned the corner.

And there he was.

Standing at my stove, stirring something in a pan, wearing my shirt, my watch, my mannerisms.

My face.

My expression.

Me.

He looked up at the exact same second I did.

For a moment, we both just stared. The grocery bag slipped from my hand and hit the floor. Apples rolled across the tiles. He blinked. I blinked. He tilted his head — the way I do when I’m confused or pretending not to be afraid.

“What are you doing in my house?” I asked.

But he smiled. My smile. Soft. Almost pitying.

“I live here,” he replied, in my voice.

Cold shot through me.

“This isn’t funny,” I whispered.

“It isn’t meant to be,” he answered.

He turned off the stove and walked toward me as casually as if he were greeting a friend. Instinct pushed me back. My hand felt along the wall for something — anything — to defend myself with. But there was nothing.

“You’re not real,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as him.

“I’m as real as you,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe more.”

My throat tightened.

He walked to the table and sat down, folding his hands in front of him — exactly the way I do when I rehearse difficult conversations.

“Sit,” he said. “We should talk.”

I didn’t. I reached for my phone instead.

He chuckled. “Calling the police? What will you say? That you're already home?”

I froze again.

And then he said something worse:

“Check your bedroom.”

Something in his voice — my voice — made me do it.

I walked down the hallway, shaking, and opened the door.

A suitcase was on the bed.

My suitcase.

Packed neatly. With my clothes. My notebooks. My toothbrush. Everything arranged the way I would do it if I were leaving.

I stumbled back into the hallway.

He was leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed, smiling casually.

“I’ve been meaning to leave,” he said. “But I needed you to come home first.”

“Why?” I asked. “What do you want from me?”

His smile widened — not mine anymore. Something stretched underneath it. Something wrong.

“I came to give you your life back.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Tell me,” he said as he stepped closer, “when was the last time you actually lived it?”

My chest tightened.

“Your routine,” he continued. “Wake up. Work. Eat alone. Sleep. Repeat. You call this existing? You were fading. So I arrived.”

“Arrived from where?”

He tapped his temple. “From the space between who you are and who you pretend to be. From the version of you that wanted to escape.”

I didn’t understand.

But then he whispered, “You made me.”

A sickening realization washed over me.

He looked like me because… he was me.

Everything I ignored — every suppressed emotion, every buried fear, every version of myself I abandoned — had taken form.

“You weren’t coming home,” he said. “Not really. So I did.”

He paused… and suddenly his expression softened, as if he truly cared.

“You can leave now,” he said gently. “Everything is packed.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh, but you are.”

His eyes darkened.

Then he stepped aside, gesturing to the door.

“You can walk out, or I can drag you out. But either way — only one of us stays.”

My legs trembled. The room blurred.

Run? Fight? Scream?

But I did none of those.

Instead, I whispered, “If you’re me… then you know I won’t give up my life.”

He stepped close — so close I felt his breath on my cheek.

“That,” he whispered back, “is why I deserve it more.”

The lights flickered.

Everything blacked out.

When I woke up, I was outside my apartment building, suitcase beside me.

The lock on the door clicked from inside.

I pounded on it until my fists hurt.

No answer.

Then… humming.

My humming.

Growing quieter.

Deeper.

Settling into my life.

He had taken everything.

And the terrifying truth?

No one would ever know.

Because the man living inside — the one smiling at my neighbors, wearing my clothes, going to my job — looked exactly like me.

Maybe better than me.

Now, every night, I sit across the street and watch my own silhouette move behind my curtains.

Living my life.

Breathing my air.

Existing as if I never existed.

And sometimes, in the silence, I hear him whisper from behind the glass:

“You should have come home sooner.”

Moral:

When you abandon parts of yourself long enough, they don’t disappear — they replace you. Never ignore the version of you that’s struggling to breathe.