Never Got Away

H lay curled up on his side in bed, hands clasped firmly beneath his cheek, trying to maintain the same position for a period of time. He squeezed his eyes shut and implored sleep to take him. Fidgeting anxiously, he buffed his pillow and flipped impatiently onto his back. The ceiling above him dominated his line of vision and its grey paint intermittently punctuated his incessant blinking. In a final, resigned and irate manoeuvre he rolled swiftly over onto his other side. Immediately in front of his face, curled up in the same fetal position as he adopted albeit directly opposite, lay himself. H's eyes opened wide, his body tensed and he felt his skin crawl. Dumbstruck with horror, he remained frozen in his place. His hands slowly began to glisten with sweat as they clenched ever tighter underneath his right cheek. Jittering eyes scoured every facet and feature of his double's face, millimetres from his own, absorbing mirror recognition. Slowly, hesitantly blinking at first, the other H's eyes began to open, wider and wider, two bright white orbs unblemished by iris or pupils. For a period of time the pair's respective eyes stayed trained on each other, H's pupils reflecting in white nothingness. Suddenly the hand that cushioned his counterparts' cheek sprang out and fastened its fingers tightly around H's neck. As the digits applied increasingly potent pressure, he felt his breath dwindling. Just as his consciousness was slipping away, the hand softened to putty, then melted to liquid. The mirror face opposite his began to split and tear along the cheeks; finally it crumbled to ashes which absorbed into the pillow, and was gone.

H decided to go out early the following morning after scrutinising the bruises on his neck anxiously in his bathroom mirror. A walk would do me the world of good, he reasoned. Clear the mind. He ambled down to his local park, and spent time savouring the quietude and morning stillness. It was near empty save for a couple sat enjoying a breakfast picnic together. Seating himself on a bench at a respectable distance, H casually observed them chatting and eating. He absent-mindedly massaged his tender throat as he watched their conversation grow more heated and argumentative. Soon the woman was gesticulating passionately, screeching furiously, and the man responding with guttural barks and jagged head shaking. The noise levels rose and rose, until the man impulsively grabbed a knife lying on their picnic spread, and plunged it into the woman's arm.

Harrowing, shrill screams filled the air. H watched the man leap to his feet and begin fleeing across the park; he felt his own legs pulling him into action and swiftly he was in pursuit, sprinting along behind the man. The abrupt chase thundered on across acres of grass, over vast stretches of unspoiled green. The man remained just within sight ahead of H who pounded along relentlessly behind. After miles and hours had slipped by H saw the man slowing to approach a tree up ahead; he stumbled to a halt before it and began frantically tapping the tree trunk. The distance between them closed drastically, and just as H bore down on him, the man faded into the tree and was gone.

Confused, H paced fretfully around the base of the tree. He tried to mimic the man, tapping at its body, trying specific bits of bark, all to no avail. Soon his fists were hammering the tree, thumping it in anger until the branches and leaves shook. Only when he had given up and was leaning, breathing heavily, against it, did he feel himself slip through the oak and inside.

The interior was dark, circular and hollow. Damp moss sprouted from the wooden walls. Squinting around until his eyes grew accustomed to the shade, H could see no sign of the man he had pursued. Instead his gaze fell upon his double, sitting hunched up against the wet inner trunk of the tree. From this position his white eyes drifted up and his lips parted.

'You shouldn't have come here, you know. He can come here because he got away. You didn't. You shouldn't have come here.'

With that he stood up and advanced upon H, his arms outstretched and his fingers clenched.