You #CreatureFeature [Finalist]

You #CreatureFeature

"Who-who..." I stumble over my numbed tongue.

He is me, I tell myself, but the thought is unnerving, and makes the hair on my arms stand.

He is me, I try again, and it allows me, although clumsily, to make my question. "Who a-a-are you?"

"I am You," he is quick to respond through his smile.

I expect to hear a hoarse voice, like what I'd expect from a demon of some sort, but just like he uses my face and body, he also uses my voice. The difference being that mine was fear-ridden when I spoke, and his voice is upbeat and carefree. It relieves me somewhat, but it also scares me more, and makes my palms sweat.

"Me?" I bite my tongue to rid the numb that rests over it, and speak through the ting of pain that comes with it.

"Correct," he says cheerfully. Then leans towards me, places his mouth over my ear, loses his smile and breathes," and wrong." Instantly, he is back to the position he was in before: head tilted towards my eyes behind the mirror, and grin plastered above his chin.

Wrong, he said, and his voice faltered, but for such a short time span that I am unsure if I did, or just imagined, that I heard the hoarse voice I had originally in place for him, sift past his teeth.

"I... I..." it's difficult to speak with the fear still pressing down on my shoulders. "I am wrong? Then who-who are you?"

"I am You; I am you." He answers joyfully.

"Then I am not wrong," a sharp dose of anger warms my blood and allows me to say without a stutter, but my frigid fear is quick to put it out. "So... so you are me."

"Correct," he chirps, once again turns to me, and places his lips over my ear. His icy temperature penetrates my skull and threatens to numb my brain. He spits cold words into my ear, "and wrong."  Before the scared shiver can exit my body, he is back to smiling at me in the mirror. "I am you. And to others, I am also, You. But they are not you."

He must see the confusion spread across my face because he stands and says, "Come." In the mirror I see him inch forward until he is standing on the floor between the bed and the glass. But physically I see nothing, and the only reassurance I get that it's not all in my head, is that the cold temperature he holds moves along with him.

Fear keeps me frozen stiff in bed, but fear also gets me to move and do as he says because I am unsure of what he might do if I anger him.

"Take this," he grasps a hand mirror, and comes up empty handed as the material glides right through his hand. "And come here."

Maybe he can't touch me either, my mind suggests. He radiates cold meaning that he doesn't just live behind the mirror; if he wanted to, could he do more? I do as he says, hold the mirror at arms' length so both he and I are visible in its reflection and follow him to the window.

"Look," he says, full of cheer, and points out the window. But in the hand mirror I notice his closed eyes stay focused on my own two eyes that burn red because I neglect to shut them for any longer than needed.

"What... what am I looking at?"

Outside I faintly hear my neighbor's creaky front door opening. And I watch him walk out, arms flailing, legs kicking, head twisting... and a joyful smile spreads across his face.

"That is You," he laughs, happily, "that is me, but that is not you."

I look down at the hand mirror to find him, You, with an even wider smile and arms at his chest clapping quietly. "Look!" He screams, excitedly.