Day 433: He Was My Brother’s Shadow

Day 433.

It’s been over a year since my brother disappeared, and yet—I still see him. Not in photographs or old video clips. Not in memories, either.

I mean I see him. In real time. Behind me. Behind others. In the flicker of a streetlamp. The corner of my mirror. In the way my shadow sometimes grows longer when there’s no sun.

He never says anything.

He just stands there. A little taller than I remember. A little quieter. A little… emptier.

We were only eleven months apart, which made us “Irish twins,” my mom said. We looked nothing alike—he was all storm clouds and crooked smiles; I was softer, gentler. He liked climbing rooftops; I liked reading books in basements.

And yet, we were inseparable.

Until he wasn’t.

It happened on a Tuesday.

He went out for a walk—just fifteen minutes down to the gas station to buy gum and a comic book. He never came back.

At first, the police called it a runaway. Then they upgraded it to a possible abduction. The case went cold after three months. The posters curled from telephone poles. The search dogs were retired.

But I never stopped looking.

Because I still saw him.

It began small. Subtle.

A second set of footsteps behind me.

A chill when I entered his old room.

My bookshelf tipping ever so slightly, even when the windows were shut.

At night, I'd lie in bed and see a silhouette just outside the door. It never moved. Never knocked. Just watched.

I told myself it was grief. A trick of memory.

But then came Day 121.

I had taken the stairs too quickly. Tripped on the last step. Should’ve split my skull open on the tiled floor.

Instead, I felt something cold pull me back. Fingers—not imagined, but real—clenched around my hoodie, yanking me upright.

When I turned, breath caught in my chest, there was no one.

But in the mirror by the coat rack…

There was a boy.

My brother.

Standing behind me.

Except—his eyes were wrong.

Empty.

I started logging it after that. The days. The appearances. The whispers I couldn’t quite hear. Day 143. Day 197. Day 300.

Always him.

Never speaking. Never aging.

By Day 433, I was no longer afraid.

But I was obsessed.

I returned to his old room—the one we sealed off a year ago. Dust blanketed everything: posters, trophies, the bed still half-made.

I brought a tape recorder. Left it running overnight.

When I played it back, there was nothing for six hours but static.

And then, at 3:33 AM:

“You were supposed to come with me.”

The voice was his. Garbled. Wrong. Like it had been fed through a thousand echoes and spat back.

After that, I stopped sleeping. I stopped talking. Friends faded. Mom grew pale. Dad kept busy in the garage, tightening bolts that didn’t need it.

The house grew heavy. Like it knew.

Like he was pulling us down from the inside.

Day 455. Something new.

He followed Mom that day. I watched from the top of the stairs as she walked to the kitchen, unaware of the shape that slinked behind her.

He mimicked her movements. Turned when she turned. Tilted his head as she looked out the window.

When she dropped a glass and bent to pick it up, his head snapped toward me. Eyes black as mourning cloth.

He knew I was watching.

That night, I found a note in my room.

It wasn’t written in my brother’s handwriting. It wasn’t written in anyone’s handwriting.

The letters looked burned onto the paper.

You are forgetting who you belong to.

Day 460. I found the old treehouse.

We hadn’t gone up there since we were ten. I climbed the rotting ladder, nails biting into my palms.

Inside, someone had been staying there.

Blankets. Gum wrappers. A flashlight. And pinned to the wall…

A drawing.

Me.

Standing in the front yard.

A long, thin shadow behind me.

No eyes. No mouth. Just darkness.

And underneath, written in charcoal: "He never left."

Day 467. I confronted him.

I went to the attic, the only place he hadn’t appeared. I set up candles. A mirror. His old toy soldiers. A comic book.

I stood in the middle of the room and said, “If you’re still here… show me.”

Silence.

And then—

A whisper:

“You didn’t stop me.”

I froze. “Stop you from what?”

“Going alone.”

The mirror cracked. Candles snuffed themselves out.

In the reflection, I saw the two of us—not as we were—but as we could have been.

Him. Older. Taller. Real.

Me. Reaching out. Always too late.

Day 471.

Mom found me talking to the hallway.

There was no one there, she said.

But I knew better.

I always knew better.

It’s Day 500 now.

I’ve stopped counting.

But I still write letters to him. I still leave comics under my pillow, hoping he’ll take one.

Sometimes I find them bent. Sometimes I find the pages turned to his favorite parts.

He was my brother’s shadow.

Or maybe...

I was his.