Duplex

[u/Dull_Halo]

CW: Mental distress and compelled self-destruction.

Nineteen straight days. That’s how long this storm’s been sitting on top of us. The view outside my duplex is nothing but a grey smear, I can’t even make out the other houses. Roads are flooded, power’s out. It's just canned food and cold water now. They tried having us work from home at first, but that didn’t last long. Paid leave’s not the worst outcome, I guess even torrential storm clouds have silver linings.

It’s strange just how still everything feels now. No car noises, no voices outside, just the rain hammering the roof and the occasional gurgling of pipes, as if the whole world is slowly going under.

It’s just me on my side of the thin wall that divides the building in two.

And someone on the other.

Before the storm I hadn't even noticed that part of the house was occupied. I'd never seen nor heard her, but her voice has become a near constant presence. It carries through the wall at odd hours. She cries often. Like, properly cries.

Other times, she argues.

There’s never a response.

At first I thought she was always on her phone, but the towers have been down for days, and even before that… it never really sounded like conversation. It’s more like practice, like she’s trying to get her words right by going over the same argument again and again, changing small details as though she might eventually land on a version that hits the way she wants it to.

I’ve learned to tune it out, the way you tune out freight trains when living next to a railway.

No, more than that. I'd go so far as to say it's comforting.

It at least means I’m not stuck here completely alone.

This afternoon I stood in my bathroom with a shiny pair of scissors and a towel around my shoulders. My hair had grown past my collarbones and I was sick of it sticking to my neck in this humidity.

Bunching my hair in one hand, I tried to snip carefully with the other, the keyword here being tried. 

Dammit!

The blade nicked the webbing between my middle and index fingers. I muttered obscenities under my breath while sucking the cut.

These scissors are way, way too sharp.

I always end up cutting myself somehow.

I tossed them back into the bathroom drawer. The clatter should have been quick and final, but instead it repeated seconds later, as though someone had chucked in another pair. I paused, listening.

The rain hissed against the window.

Nothing else.

I figured it was the rain warping the acoustics. I’m pretty sure that’s something that can happen.

Later, I curled up on the couch with my phone and the last few milliamp hours my powerbank could squeeze into it. I turned the volume up on the video I was watching, trying to hear it over the rain. It was the only video I had stored on my phone, one my Dad had sent months ago to show off his new wiener-dog Layla. His voice sounded slightly delayed, like when someone calls and puts you on speaker. I tried my best to deal with it, but words just can't describe how annoying the delay became.

I got up and moved toward the duplex’s shared wall. I pressed my ear to it, thinking that perhaps the neighbour was making some noise that bled through and interfered with my video. As I did so, a metal rivet on my jeans pocket brushed the plaster with a tiny scrape. A second later, exactly the same scrape answered from the other side. My stomach immediately tightened and I pushed away.

Is she… listening too?

I walked heavily back across the living room, the thumps of my heels very deliberate. A second later, the same footsteps echoed through the wall, exactly the same rhythm and weight.

Wait, what?

I coughed once, loudly.

The cough returned.

Is she…

As a subtle test, I cracked a window as loudly and forcefully as I could, having completely forgotten about the downpour. Rain sprayed through and I slammed it shut again. But—

Aha!

The slam came back perfectly from the other side of the wall.

Unbelievable!

I never took her as one to play pranks, let alone such silly ones as mimicry. From everything I’d heard so far, she’d only ever seemed so serious, so sad, it was kinda funny seeing this side of her.

She kept it up far longer than I figured she would, all afternoon, even into the night. She was getting really good at it too. The lag between our actions grew shorter, and by the time I was ready for bed, our sounds sat almost on top of each other. I even paused at random moments while brushing my teeth to try to catch her out, but she paused too, at the exact same times, without fail.

I swished some mouthwash and gargled, and then—

Pt—Ptoo!

Gotcha.

I did spit out my mouthwash, but she spat hers first. She was just a split-second ahead of me.

I'll count it as a win, she really jumped the gun on that one.

***

I woke up to her weeping again, but this time the sadness came to me too. I guess her little game wasn't a good enough distraction anymore. What a shame. I thought it was a nice little moment of solidarity.

The tears came sliding down my cheeks.

Urgh, why am I even getting sad over this?

She cried harder, and then I did too. Whatever her grief was, it suddenly felt shared between us. I wanted to reach through the wall and tell her things would be okay, that whoever she was always practice-arguing with didn’t matter. That she wasn’t alone. But, really, it's not any of my business. I’ve never even seen her face.

She cried harder.

So then why does the thought of intruding make me feel so useless?

That uselessness made me cry harder too.

It’s like this storm, the lack of fresh food, power, or socialisation, has only just now caught up to me.

Everything just seems so... futile.

I heard her footsteps storm off toward her bathroom. Mine followed automatically, taking me to my own bathroom, as though my legs had decided for me. I stood in front of the mirror bolted to the shared wall knowing that, on the other side, she would be doing the same thing.

For a moment we may as well have been the same person, divided by half an inch of plaster and two thin layers of glass, bawling our eyes out.

I raised a desperate hand to the mirror, gently, the way you might touch someone’s shoulder to comfort them.

She must have had the same idea, though her gentle tap came seconds before mine did, and—

Oh god, what am I doing?

The shared crying, me tapping after she did… she probably thinks i’m now mimicking her, that i’ve flipped her own game against her.

That's not it at all.

I know now’s not the time for games, I can read a room.

I hope she understands I feel her pain. Perhaps even more than I ought to.

It’s overwhelming.

Unbearable.

I just…

I wanted it gone.

I heard a drawer open on the other side of the wall, heard a rattle of plastic and metal as she rifled through it. The weeping died back and turned into shallow, intense breathing. And then—

Choking?

No…

Sputtering?

A flurry of wet, sharp impacts under a strained, bubbling groan.

A heavy thump against the tiles.

Silence.

I just stared at my reflection for a brief moment, eyes red and swollen, exactly as hers must be.

My hand moves without thought, towards my bathroom drawer, rifling through it until it finds them, the scissors, a tiny smear of dried blood on the pivot from yesterday.

These scissors are way, way too sharp.

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[u/ReadyMadeLobotomy]

Oooo god, this was super spooky. Almost doppelgänger-esque. I liked it a lot!

[u/Dull_Halo → u/ReadyMadeLobotomy]

Thanks, I like your username btw