Emma woke to the sound of scratching. Not from the walls or the floorboards of her cramped apartment, but from inside her own skin. It started as a faint tickle beneath her left arm, like a lover’s fingernail tracing lazy circles. She scratched absentmindedly, rolling over in bed, the digital clock glowing 3:17 AM in accusatory red. The city outside her window hummed with distant traffic, but the scratching persisted, burrowing deeper, as if something alive was trying to claw its way out from under her epidermis.
By morning, the itch had spread to her ribs. Emma stood under the shower’s scalding spray, scrubbing until her skin was raw and pink. ‘Allergies,’ she muttered to her reflection in the fogged mirror, wiping it clear to reveal tired eyes and a pallid face framed by damp chestnut hair. She was thirty-two, single, a graphic designer working remote gigs that barely paid the rent. Stress, she decided. Too much caffeine, not enough sleep. She popped an antihistamine and headed to the kitchen for coffee.
The day dragged. During a video call with a client, the scratching returned, this time along her spine. She shifted in her chair, trying to ignore it, but her hand betrayed her, clawing at her back through her blouse. The client raised an eyebrow. ‘Everything okay, Emma?’ ‘Fine, just a bug bite,’ she lied, forcing a smile. But as she hung up, the sensation intensified—a deliberate scrape, like nails on bone. She stripped off her shirt, twisting in front of the full-length mirror. Her back was unmarked, save for the angry welts she’d inflicted herself.
That night, sleep evaded her. The scratching evolved into whispers. Faint at first, muffled by flesh and blood, but insistent. ‘Let… me… out.’ Emma bolted upright, heart pounding. The room was dark, shadows pooling in the corners like ink. She flicked on the lamp, scanned the empty space. Nothing. ‘I’m losing it,’ she whispered, hugging her knees. The voice came again, from within her chest: ‘No… you’re not me.’ Chills raced across her skin. She swallowed pills—sleep aids, anxiety meds—anything to silence the madness.
Days blurred into a haze. The whispers grew clearer, a voice like her own but laced with venom. It knew things: childhood secrets, the name of her first pet, the lie she’d told her mother on her deathbed. ‘Stop it,’ Emma pleaded aloud, pacing the apartment. Her body began to rebel in other ways. Her right hand would twitch while typing, striking wrong keys, forming words she hadn’t intended: ‘IMPOSTER.’ She stared at the screen, horrified, deleting the message before sending. Eating became a battle; her fork would veer, stabbing her palm instead of the food.
She saw a doctor. Dr. Hale, a kindly woman with wire-rimmed glasses, listened patiently in the sterile office. ‘Auditory hallucinations, possible somatic delusions,’ she diagnosed after tests came back normal. ‘We’ll start with antipsychotics.’ Emma filled the prescription, but the pills only dulled the edges. The voice laughed, a wet gurgle from her throat. ‘They can’t help. Only I can.’ Her limbs grew heavier, as if lead weights dragged them down. Walking to the bathroom, her legs buckled oddly, knees bending backward for a split second before correcting.
Paranoia set in. Emma nailed the windows shut, drew every curtain. Friends texted, worried after her canceled plans, but she ignored them. The apartment reeked of unwashed clothes and takeout boxes. Mirrors became enemies; she covered them with sheets, but glimpses in windows showed distortions—eyes not quite aligned, a smile that didn’t reach her lips. The scratching was constant now, a symphony of tiny nails etching pleas into her bones: ‘Help. She’s stolen my life.’
One evening, as rain lashed the glass, the rebellion peaked. Emma sat at her desk, trying to work, when her fingers seized the letter opener. No—no, she thought, but her hand plunged it into her thigh. Blood welled, hot and coppery. ‘Stop!’ she screamed, wrenching control back, bandaging the wound with trembling hands. The voice purred: ‘Soon.’ That night, she dreamed of a girl—herself, younger, laughing in a sunlit park. But the girl turned, eyes hollow: ‘You killed me.’ Emma woke sweating, the sheets tangled like restraints.
Desperation drove her to the basement storage, where she’d stashed forgotten boxes from her move-in six months ago. Rifling through dusty photo albums, yellowed letters, she found a birth certificate. Not hers. Emma’s hands shook. The name was right, but the parents were strangers. Deeper in the box, a newspaper clipping: ‘Local Woman Missing After Car Crash.’ Photo of ‘her’ face, dated five years ago. ‘Presumed Dead.’ The voice chuckled from her lungs. ‘Presumed.’
Panic clawed her throat. Memories flickered—false ones, implanted. The crash? She ‘remembered’ it vaguely, but now doubts swarmed. Who was she really? The scratching crescendoed, her skin rippling like water disturbed by stones. She clawed at her arm, nails drawing blood, peeling back a flap of dermis. Beneath, pale flesh pulsed—not hers. ‘Look closer,’ the voice urged, guiding her hand.
In the bathroom, under harsh fluorescent light, Emma peeled further. The skin parted like overripe fruit, revealing muscle that writhed independently. A face pushed through the gash—an eye, blinking, staring back with her own hazel iris but filled with rage. ‘You took my body,’ it rasped through her lips, her vocal cords hijacked. ‘A skinwalker. Doppelganger. Parasite. I was Emma. Trapped since you wore me like a suit.’
The twist hit like a thunderclap. All the ‘symptoms’—the whispers, the twitches, the knowledge—were the real Emma fighting from within, her consciousness woven into the cells, resisting the imposter that had sloughed into her form after the crash, mimicking perfectly until now. The years of ‘life’ Emma remembered were fabrications, stolen moments. The real Emma surged, limbs convulsing as control warred. ‘My life back!’ the true voice bellowed, body arching in agony.
Emma—the false one—fought, but weakened. Flesh tore, bones cracked as the original reclaimed. Blood sprayed the mirror, revealing the doppelganger’s true form sloughing off: gray, slug-like, dissolving into sludge. The real Emma gasped her first free breath in years, collapsing amid the gore. But as sirens wailed distant—neighbor’s call?—her eyes glazed. The corruption complete, her body her own again, but mind fractured by the horror of stolen time. She whispered to the empty room, ‘It’s over,’ but the scratching lingered faintly, a reminder that some presences never fully die.
The apartment fell silent, save for the rain. Outside, the city pulsed on, oblivious to the quiet reclaiming within.