Turn Around at 2:17 A.M.

Every night at exactly 2:17 a.m., my phone buzzed with a reminder I didn’t set: “Turn

around.” I assumed it was a glitch. I live alone, and my bed faces

the wall anyway. On the fourth night, curiosity won. I rolled over. The wall was gone.

Instead, there was my bedroom—perfectly identical—except I was still asleep in the bed,

facing away from me. Standing beside that other bed was something tall and

folded wrong, like it had learned how to be human by watching from a corner.

My phone buzzed again in my hand. “Too slow.” The thing bent down and whispered my

name with my own voice. I woke up screaming, facing the wall. My phone lay on