When she was a child, strange things began happening in her house.
The family lived in a two-story home.
Her parents stayed on the ground floor, while she and her brother slept upstairs.
One afternoon, she came home from school and saw her father in the living room.
He smiled, and she greeted him before going upstairs to change her clothes.
As she reached the stairs, she noticed him walking into one of the rooms downstairs.
A few minutes later, after changing, she stepped into the upstairs hallway...
Her father was sitting with her brother, calmly eating lunch.
"What's for lunch?" she asked.
After looking at the food, she went downstairs to serve herself.
As she entered the kitchen and began putting food on her plate...
Her father walked out of the very same room she had seen him enter earlier.
He looked completely normal.
No one else reacted.
She simply brushed it off.
At first, she thought it was her imagination.
But it kept happening.
Sometimes her father would disappear
around one corner, only to appear
seconds later from a completely different part of the house.
Sometimes she would see him upstairs and downstairs almost at the same time.
Other times, she would hear his footsteps climbing the stairs while she
was already watching him sit downstairs with her mother.
Once, she woke up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water.
As she stepped into the upstairs hallway, she saw her father standing at the far end.
He wasn't moving.
He wasn't doing anything.
He was just... standing there.
"Dad?" she whispered.
He didn't answer.
After a few seconds, he slowly turned his head toward her.
His face was completely expressionless.
She blinked.
A hand rested gently on her shoulder.
She nearly screamed.
It was her real father.
"What are you doing awake?" he asked sleepily, holding an empty glass.
She looked back down the hallway.
It was empty...
One afternoon, she heard her father call from downstairs.
"Come here."
She started walking toward the stairs.
Halfway down, another voice stopped her.
The exact same voice.
"Can you get me a glass of water?"
She turned around.
Her father was sitting on the bed in her brother's room, reading something as
if nothing was unusual.
Confused, she looked back downstairs.
There he was again.
Her father sat on the living room sofa, flipping through a stack of papers.
Without looking up, he called once more.
"Come here."
She looked upstairs.
Then downstairs.
Upstairs.
Downstairs.
For several long seconds...
There were two fathers.
Neither acknowledged the other.
Neither seemed aware that another
version of him existed.
Only she stood frozen between them.
No one else ever noticed.
After everything she had seen, she finally knew she wasn't imagining it.
She had seen them.
Both of them.
At the same time.
That evening, while her mother was preparing dinner, she finally gathered the courage to speak.
"Mom..."
Her mother looked up from the stove.
"What is it?"
She took a shaky breath.
"I think... Dad..."
The words barely left her mouth before she instinctively looked toward the living room.
Her father was there.
Or...
The other one.
He had been quietly reading through a few papers.
Then, without warning...
He stopped.
Slowly...
He lifted his head.
Their eyes met.
A slow, unnatural smile spread across his face.
Not the warm smile her father always wore.
This one stretched just a little too wide.
Just a little too long.
It wasn't a smile anyone else could see.
It was meant only for her.
As if he already knew exactly what she was about to say.
Her mother continued cooking.
Her brother kept watching television.
No one noticed.
No one except her.
Her mouth suddenly went dry.
The words caught in her throat.
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.
"...Nothing," she whispered.
The smile faded.
He lowered his eyes and went back to reading, as if nothing had happened.
From that day on...
She never tried to tell anyone again.
Because every time she even thought about exposing him...
He would look at her...
And smile.
Not a smile of happiness.
A smile of understanding.
A smile that seemed to say—
"I know.."
"And you know...
that I know..."
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