This happened a few years ago when I was in college. Our school wasn’t big or well-known. It had two branches. The main one, where they taught kids from nursery to grade six, was located beside the road and the other (we called it Annex) was located two blocks from it. The Annex was where I studied. It had two buildings: one for high school and one for college. The high school department was packed with students. It was almost always noisy. Our building, on the other hand, was gloomy, and there were very few students. Like, only five to ten people in a class. If we were lucky, there were twenty. Our hallways were quiet. There were rooms that were never occupied. Since no one was using those rooms, the lights were off, and at night I found that really disturbing because I walked through dimly lit corridors while my footsteps echoed. I know, our school didn’t seem like what a school should be, but hey, my tuition was free (I was a scholar and only needed to maintain good grades) and the place was just 10 minutes from home. I had no reason to complain.
Anyway, while I was waiting for my next class, I got bored of whatever I was doing and decided to go the fourth floor. As I was walking up the stairs, I saw my English teacher wearing an orange outfit. I stopped and smiled at her.
“Good afternoon, Ma’am.”
I expected her to reply but she didn’t. She didn’t even smile or acknowledge me. She just continued walking. Down the stairs. She passed by me without sparing me a glance. I became worried. Maybe she was angry at me? But what for? I hadn’t done anything bad to her. I decided to try and catch her attention again.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
No response. It was like she didn’t hear me. I frowned. She didn’t seem like herself. Weird. But that wasn’t weird enough to keep me thinking so I just shrugged it off and thought other stuff.
When I passed by the faculty room, I heard a familiar voice. It was so loud and clear, there was no way I could have mistaken it.
It was the voice of my English teacher. So I went into the faculty room and found my English teacher behind a desk, telling some random story to my classmate who sat directly in front of her. When she saw me, she smiled and greeted me. You could imagine my confusion at this point. I just saw her a few minutes ago. She went down. How come she was here?
“Ma’am, did you go downstairs a while ago?”
She seemed surprise with the question but answered anyway. “No, why did you ask?”
My mind was thinking for a logical explanation but couldn’t find any.
“Um, I just saw you a few minutes ago. You were taking the stairs. I greeted you but you ignored me.”
She frowned. “I’ve been here the whole time.”
“Oh, okay, that’s weird. I swear I saw you.”
This time, my classmate spoke up. “We’ve been here for half an hour, at least. Nobody left this room.”
That was when I noticed her clothes. The one I saw at the stairs was wearing an orange outfit. The one in front of me was wearing brown. A sense of dread surged through me. I asked the most obvious question.
“Then who was the woman I saw?”
But then I knew the answer to that myself. I had heard stories about these creatures. I just never thought I’d encounter one. And in broad daylight.
Doppelganger. This creature copies a person’s appearance and it’s said that once you see your doppelganger, you’ll die. I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t ever want to find out.
My teacher freaked out, and we spent the afternoon waiting for the fake English teacher to show up but it never did. Pretty soon, this little incident was forgotten, and I thought that was the last time I’d encounter something like that. Well, I was wrong. The next incident happened a few months after the first. Again, I saw a nursery teacher I was rather fond of standing at the guardhouse. Let’s call her Teacher Marie. It was pretty late already so I was wondering why she was still at school, so I called her. She didn’t respond. She didn’t even seem to hear me. I called again. Nope, I was invisible. I figured she was just tired and wasn’t in the mood to have a chat.
I went inside the library and saw Hana. She was an assistant teacher who used to be a college acquaintance and was close friends with Teacher Marie. I casually approached her and asked, “Hey, I saw Teacher Marie at the guardhouse. Is she waiting for you so that you two can go home together? She seems tired and I think she’ll appreciate it if you hurry.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? I thought she went home already.”
Then she gathered her things and exited the library. A few minutes later, she returned.
“She’s not there,” she said.
“Oh, maybe she got tired of waiting and left.”
“No, Kath, she was never there.”
I frowned and closed the book I was planning to read. “What do you mean she was never there? I saw her. Ask the guard.”
“I already did. He didn’t see Teacher Marie. Are you sure it was her?”
Her face was dead serious.
“I’m sure,” I said. “It was definitely her. I called her but she never looked back.”
“Shit,” she cursed. “You’re scaring me.”
She picked up her phone, dialled Teacher Marie’s number, and told her what I saw. It was a brief conversation that ended with “be careful.”
Days went by. I hadn’t seen a doppelganger again and I assumed that was the end of it. I wasn’t really that scared but it didn’t mean I was eager to repeat the experience. One afternoon, as I was chilling out, a classmate of mine approached me and said, “Whoa, how did you get here so fast?”
Naturally, I was confused.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I saw you at the other end of the building a few minutes ago. Come to think of it, you seemed a little off. I called you several times but you just ignored me. Is there anything wrong?”
I froze. I felt my heart beat accelerate.
“Tina,” I said slowly. “I’ve been here since lunch time. The person you saw isn’t me.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s definitely you. You got the same hair and everything.”
My blood ran cold. “I swear it isn’t me.”
Her mouth hung open. “Then who – “ She stopped right there. She didn’t need to ask. She knew the answer already. She heard stories about the creature that went around copying people’s faces and the horror that would befall on the ones who unfortunately laid eyes on it. My English teacher didn’t see it. Teacher Marie didn’t either. Now it was my turn.
And I wished I wouldn’t, too.
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Credits to: lovelagsana
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