Someone Is Using My Face

It started with small things. People waved at me on the street. Strangers. Shopkeepers I’d never met. One man thanked me for helping him last week.

I laughed it off. Wrong guy. Happens. Then my neighbor asked why I’d been standing outside her door at night.

I told her I hadn’t.

She didn’t argue. She just said, “Okay,” too quickly, like she didn’t want to upset me again. That night, I checked my phone.

There were photos I didn’t remember taking. Blurry selfies. Taken in low light. My face in all of them. Same clothes I owned. Same scar near my eyebrow.

But the expressions were wrong.

In one photo, I was smiling like I knew something funny that no one else did. The timestamps were between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m.

I live alone. I sleep at night. Or at least, I thought I did. I set up my old phone to record me while I slept. The next morning, I watched the footage.

At 2:11 a.m., I sat up in bed.

My eyes were open. I stared directly at the camera for a full minute. No blinking. Then I stood up and walked out of the room.

I didn’t come back until 3:04.

When I returned, I lay down carefully. Like someone placing a body. I checked the rest of the footage. Before lying down, I leaned close to the camera and whispered something.

There was no sound. Just my mouth moving. I zoomed in frame by frame and read my own lips.

“Don’t wake up.”

That day, I skipped work. At 2:07 a.m. the next night, I stayed awake. Lights on. Coffee. Fear keeping me sharp. Nothing happened.

At 3:00 a.m., I relaxed.

At 3:01, I blinked.

Just once. When my eyes opened, I was standing in the bathroom. The mirror was fogged. Someone had written on it with their finger.

YOU’RE GETTING BETTER AT STAYING ASLEEP

Behind me, in the reflection, I was still smiling.

I was still smiling in the mirror. Not wide. Not crazy. Just enough to look calm. I didn’t move.

Neither did the reflection.

We stayed like that for a long time. Long enough that my legs started hurting. Long enough that I realized something important.

I wasn’t scared. That scared me. Slowly, my reflection raised its hand.

I didn’t.

It touched the glass from the inside, like the mirror was thin skin. Its fingertip lined up exactly with mine, but there was a delay. Half a second.

Like bad video sync.

It spoke. My voice. Same tone I use when I don’t want trouble. “You wake up too much.” My mouth stayed closed. “You look,” it continued. “You notice. That makes things harder.”

I finally whispered, “What are you?” It smiled a little more. “I’m what keeps going when you stop.”

The bathroom light flickered. Suddenly I knew things I had never done but somehow remembered.

Standing outside doors at night.
Listening.
Smiling so people wouldn’t panic.
Leaving before anyone could say my name.

“You think sleep is rest,” it said. “Sleep is permission.” My phone buzzed in the other room. A message notification lit up the screen, reflected faintly in the mirror.

From my own number. Go back to bed. I’ll handle tomorrow.

My reflection leaned closer. I could see tiny cracks in its teeth, like they’d been clenched too long.

“You don’t want to know how tired I am,” it said softly.
“And you don’t want your life back the way it really is.”

Behind the mirror, something knocked.

Once.

Like a polite reminder. The reflection’s smile faded for the first time.

“We’re running out of time,” it said. “So decide.”

“Decide what?” I asked.

Whether you want to be awake…
or useful.”

The bathroom light went out. When it came back on, I was alone.

Mirror normal.
Smile gone.

I checked my phone.

Unread messages sent from me.
Meetings confirmed.
Apologies written.
Promises made.

All while I stood there. I went back to bed.

At 2:07 a.m., I felt myself slipping.

This time, I didn’t fight it. Because here’s the truth I haven’t told anyone:

When I woke up in the morning, everything in my life was finally in order.

And in the mirror,

I wasn’t smiling anymore.

Someone else was.