The Uninvited Double

Every night, Mara heard footsteps in the hallway—slow, dragging, deliberate.

They always stopped right outside her bedroom door. She never opened it.

She never dared. One night, the footsteps didn’t stop. The door creaked

open by itself, inch by inch. “Mara…” a voice rasped from the darkness.

Her breath froze. “Who are you?” she whispered. The voice answered, “I’m the one you

let in… when you wished you weren’t alone.” Mara shook her head. “I never—”

But then she remembered: the lonely birthday candle, the whispered wish, the silence afterward.

The figure stepped into the room—her silhouette, her face, her smile.