Never to Be Alone

"Oh Hello. I can't belive you are still here. I am glad you are though"

It seemed like it's been a long time, but has it really? Alone in a room with nothing. Not even a bed. Just the four corners and the reflective door and lonely floor tiles.

How does he do that? Just appear in my door whenever I look for him? He must be magic!

The man jumped in front of the door again and his twin appeared in front of him.

"Oh I am always here for you when you need me," the twin pulled a crooked smile across his face.

"Good."

The man always wanted a friend. When the mirror was hung on his door while he was sleeping one night, he woke up to one. Sleeping across the room from him. In the exact position he was. They had so much in common.

"How come I can never touch you?" asked the man, hopping from tile to tile.

He hopped in front of the mirror on the door, "Because I told you not to."

The only thing the man considered human would not let him touch it. An awful thing. The man was so alone. Before his twin came along, he would huddle in a corner and talk to himself. What a silly thing to do. Now that the man looked back on it, the man thought that he probably looked ridiculous. Talking to himself. Ha!

"Why did you leave us? How could you leave us alone?"

The man dropped his head to look at the tiles, "I didn't know that you were here."

"How could you? When your twin walked in, you forgot all about us," the tiles hissed. Multiple hisses at once. It sounded like a thousand snakes had slithered under the man.

"You are still my friends!"

"Liar! Smash your twin and prove that you are still our friend."

The man looked up to his twin.

"Hi! What are you doing?" smiled the twin. He seemed especially cheery today.

"Oh, nothing twin. Did you hear those hissing noises?" The man was worried that his twin might have overheard the hushed conversation held in the corner.

"Hissing noises?" the twin laughed, "Of course I did."

The man became distraught, "I am so sorry! I did not want to..."

"Please. I know you wouldn't hurt me. I am all you have."

The man stopped to think. He allowed his eyes to wander in his twin's. They were so dark and vast.

"I never will be alone with you here." The man knew his twin was right, he was all he had. He couldn't hurt him.

The man rubbed his face and slumped his shoulders. "I have to think," he scooted around, using his feet to drag himself to face his wall. He felt the cold tiles beneath him and for the first time, he realized he was surrounded. Oh what was he to do?! He felt the tiles crawling beneath him, and he heard their harsh whispers. He touched the floor, "I don't want to be alone."

"Your twin wants you to kill yourself," whispered a chipped tile in front of the man's feet.

"What?"

"Look behind you."

The man slowly turned his head around to face what the tile had told him. There, sat his twin with his back turned and head crooked around in an unnatural way over his shoulder. Watching. The man whipped his head around, the way the twin's neck was positioned made the man's skin crawl and his stomach upset.

"Go."

The man stood up and faced his twin, who was positioned with an evil lean and a possessed smile. The man ran the two steps you have to take to get to the other side of the room and reached up to his twin. Touched his arm. Cold. Like the ice in his eyes. The man knew it was true, his twin wanted him dead. He was cold. The twin wanted him cold too. The man punched his twin in the stomach. No movement except the twin pulled his hand away just as the man did.

He knows my every move! What do I do? He has dug into my brain and linked my thoughts with his! The man closed his eyes and wildly swung his fists, until he heard the clatter of glass on tile. He snatched his eyelids open and glanced down, staring in horror at what he had done. He picked up a piece of reflection up and looked at his twin. The man dropped to his knees with tears in his eyes. He heard the tiles snickering at him from behind. He stared at the thousands of twins he had now.

"I am sorry."

The man scooped his twins up into his arms, carried them over to a corner of the empty room, and dropped them into a pile. Blood from fresh cuts slithered down his arms.

"I will never be alone with you here," he whispered, and he laid his head and chest across his thousands of twins as one twin dug deep into his neck.