Snowflakes are speeding past like tiny supernovae, shimmering briefly against the city lights before melting on the wet sidewalk. Early sun rays are already shearing off lengthy patches of nocturnal sky.

The morning stillness clashes the horrific chaos that is the current contents of my head. I lose myself within the sound of remote traffic, the incessant repetition of heartbeat and footsteps. Rhythmical breaths turning to small puffy clouds of humidity. The beautiful and heart shattering process of being alive.

I feel divided and forlorn. Part of me feels flabbergasted, numb. Another part is seething with rage. Part of me needs a drink. Another is frantically trying to devise some kind of plan.

When I meet him, I will fucking chew his throat off. And then watch the freak bleed his arteries dry.

My name is Shadow. I tried to save the world for the sake of my dead sister. I fell from space and nearly died. I came home after nearly three years to find out I never left in the first place. A doppleganger of me works for the GUN. Lives with my only friend. And Amy loves him.

Suddenly, the peace is interrupted by the aloof sound of footsteps. Heavy ones, too; they are almost surreal, compared to the unsurmountable inertia of the surroundings. Tap, tap, tap. A rather vexated pace. Like their owner is indecisive, reluctant to coordinate his brain and legs. Tap. Tap.

The universe works in mysterious ways. There are moments of cosmic clarity, moments you only recognize as such afterwards, during which the past and the present wear one another's clothes and your mind makes synapses like little shining nodes connecting through impossible dimentions. The footsteps are becoming louder and louder, and I am quite surprised to realise I am hiding behind a parked truck.

Something important is imminent.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

.

.

.

It's him!

I crouch slightly, fidgeting from side to side like my weight alone is too much to handle. The truck is rather big, and the angle from which I am watching is a fairly safe one- the mere view of a man by all means identical to me, however, leaves me paralyzed with an eerie sense of horror.

He is me.

And he is walking towards Amy's house.

The next minutes are little more than a massive blur: I am following him, a cover at a time, as he walks to her door, rings the doorbell, goes in. Then I am suddenly behind a window, witnessing them through the glass as they interact. There is a lot of frantic gesturing, angry facial expressions, but the conversation is only partially audible.

"...-me if I am on drugs? Seriously, YOU?"

More gestures. Loud exclamations, unintelligible shouting. At some point, Shadow Number Two tries to reach out for her, attempting what looks like a reassuring tone, but she jumps back.

"...came here, sounding just like you did back then..." ... "everyth...at made my st..d little heart love you in the first place back then..."

Right now I am the one gesturing, trying to catch her attention.

Now she'll believe me.

"...amy...'s not me. That guy...psycho...escaped from a mental hospital..."

Fucking liar. We'll see how you'll like my teeth inside your carotide. "Mental hospital." Pffft.

'".. authorities are looking for him."

Ηer eyes finally slip away from his, and although my pretending twin keeps droning on, Amy and me delve into each other's stare. Astonishment spreads across her face for a second, then her traits melt back into a calm façade. The monologue continues, but she doesn't seem to be paying attention, and a smile trembles on the edges of her lips.

Thanks to this newly found way of communicating without words, we now both know what to do.

"That guy...", Rose speaks flatly, looking at him. Then back at me. She opens a drawer and materializes a small handgun. "...is not a psycho, after all."

Next thing I know? I am barging in.

"Oh, c'mon, Amy. That's silly."

"Out of the things I said which one exactly sounded silly to you?"

She is talking to me but her eyes stay fixated on the weirdo from the newspaper. He is inside the house right now, standing somewhere between me and the door, and hasn't spoken a word yet. I realize that when he does, it will be almost hair-triggering; his voice will be my voice.

"That guy is all over the news. He comes here and serves you a ridiculous story and you choose to believe him over me!"

And it's true. I knew that Amy was immature, I knew she was naive, but right now my feelings have devolved from being merely annoyed to downright murderous. She isn't even being a proper friend to Rouge: "Made me love you back then." She didn't try much to keep those emotions to herself, did she?

"It's not about what he told me. I thought he was you-Geez, this is so confusing-I thought you were drunk. But, ugh. It's hard to explain and sound rational, you know?"

"Please. You are smarter than this. He probably displayed an affectionate behavior and you are just hoping I am the fake one."

Amy sighs, deeply unaffected.

"You think loving you- him- has been entertaining? I never wished for any of this mess! I was going to be a bridesmaid at your marriage, and you imply that I am selfish enough to want him to be Shadow?"

"That is exactly what I imply." I can feel every muscle on my body going rigid in sheer rage. "Besides, you believe that I would be called the Ultimate Life Form if silly firearms could damage me? Put that thing down."

Everything is crumbling in a tantalizing haze. Time flows like a dime sinking in syrup when I hear myself speak up.

"If you'd paid closer attention to her you would have known that her aim is stellar. And anyway, even if she doesn't plant a bullet halfway through your brain I might try to shave your eyelids off all the same."

But of course, that's not me at all. A ghastly sensation crawls up my spine with the agility of a spider. It is like listening to a recording of your own voice, accepting with reluctance how funny and slappable you actually sound, but there's also a dark twist. I suspect Amy is taken aback by this turn of events, for her facial expression immediately darkens.

"Let's not let it get to that.", there is a cautious undertone to the manner she addresses him. "There is a lot to discuss first."

"A lot to discuss? Rose, that man was busy living my life while I was locked in an abhorrent hospital room with drugs pumping through my veins from dawn to fucking dusk. ", he finally enters my field of vision, striding, then grabbing Amy softly by the shoulders. He is uncannily identical to me, so much so that I actually catch myself pondering on the situation from his point of view. "I don't want to discuss. I just want to see his brain sizzle on a frying pan."

Suddenly I am suffocating in a monstrous predicament; what a desperate, frightening man. His words are calmly spoken yet hair-triggering, his backstory positively insane. But my brain insists on veering in unexpected directions, pointing discreetly at the wrinkles of worry upon his forehead, the way he holds Amy, the underlying pain that stresses the word hospital.

And the way she looks at him; as though, behind those crimson irises, curled up and nuzzling like a cat, is a soul that she can recognize.

"Yeah, I 'd love to see that. You know what else I'd love to see? Everyone's face when they find out you killed him.", the girl is laughing, but in a manner that implies that nothing funny is going on, gesturing in a sort of angry theatrical mannerism. "Oh, Rouge, I don't know how to put it but your boyfriend is dead! But no worries, because he was, in fact, a fake. I know it because my female intuition told me so! Let me introduce you to the original who by the way doesn't see you as a romantic interest and is all warm and fuzzy around me! We're still cool, right? Here, have some crispy cerebellum!"

"Shadow" shakes his head indecipherably and walks up to me with the fury of a war troop. We are barely half a meter apart when he attempts to yank me by the shoulders, but our reflexes work in unison and, like an unsuspecting animal fighting its reflection on a mirror, we end up stopping one another midway, arms interwined. No one concedes. Amy, whom I can barely locate via my peripheral vision, is screaming something like "Breathe" , probably in an attempt to bring either of us to his senses.

My muscles hurt a great deal, and by the agonizing expression on his face, I can tell I am not alone.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Red cast upon red; every line, every tiny assymetry, every flaw meets its twin. The rest of the world is muffled, time stops. The predicament returns. My damaged memory. My nightmarish ordeal. His alleged imprisonment. Maria. The proffessor. People I learned about through the lips of others. But you are Shadow, my DNA screams. There is nothing else you've ever been. Nothing else you'll ever be.

My arms are paralyzed. Drops of sweat tumble down my eyebrow and the room collapses in the double vision. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

"I swear, I know... as much... as ... you do...", he watches me incredulously as I barely stammer. Two opposing urges are boiling in my ribcage. Kill him. Oppose the motherfucker. Post-concussion complications do not mean anything. I want my life. To say what I am about to say is akin to suicide.

But he is here, and all the thoughts that triggered my incurable insomnia have flesh and bones. He is here, and those rancid, suppressed fears are now rising, looming above like tidal waves.

I am drowning.

"I...I...have... memory issues..."

A.N.: I am so proud of the last paragraphs. This is starting to get mildly decent, which makes me happy.