Today was the day that everything Felix thought he knew would change. And he thought he knew quite a lot. Felix, you see, never forgot a face, though he often wished he could. You might think this would be a wonderful superpower. No more awkward moments forgetting a name at a party. Not that Felix ever went to parties.
His memory wasn’t simply a catalog of names and faces. No, instead, every unfamiliar face radiated a soft yellow glow—warm and harmless. But the faces he recognized were different. They blazed with neon-red light that drilled into him, and with the light came a dull pressure behind his eyes that built into daggers ripping through his skull. His past was a minefield of color and pain. Needless to say, he didn’t have many friends.
The train was eight minutes late. Felix put his pocket watch away. He didn’t trust anything he couldn’t disassemble and fix himself. Which was part of the reason he insisted on traveling by train. The other, more salient reason, was his absolute certainty that getting airborne was the easiest way to get abducted. By aliens. Felix was a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Strike that. He was the conspiracy theorist. In fact, it’s how Felix made his living. His was the most highly sought-after newsletter documenting conspiracy theories in the world—nay, the universe (and beyond, according to his sources). His devoted followers knew him only as the faceless Mr. X, author of The CodeX.
He’d been homeschooled for obvious reasons. His mind was his worst enemy, but also his greatest weapon. He saw patterns no one else did—some real, most imagined. Writing became his escape. He posted on obscure forums about his life, short stories, even poems, until one day, he struck gold. He wrote a long, emphatic article about the clear link between the UFO crash in New Mexico, the alien testing facility at Area 51, and the JFK assassination. It was brilliantly unhinged, and millions of views later, CodeX was born. Felix hung the first page of that post in a frame above his desk.
Today, it wasn’t uncommon for him to see flyers on bus stop benches or street lights proclaiming his tagline and signature, X knows. He smiled proudly as he passed by one such flyer on the train station’s bulletin board next to the ticket counter. His eXers were everywhere. He’d come to El Paso based on a tip from one of them about migrant sleeper agents sent by the Satan worshiping cartels to infiltrate the American pharmaceutical industry.
Felix stared at the woman’s chin behind the ticket counter. He wore a black baseball cap that he pulled over his eyes. “Excuse me. The ten o’clock to San Antonio seems to be running late.” He cleared his throat. “I have a connection to make.”
“Mmmm.” The woman was typing something on her computer.
He couldn’t see her expression, but she clearly wasn’t treating his question with the seriousness that it deserved.
“My stopover in San Antonio, I don’t want to miss my connection to the Texas Eagle train to Chicago tomorrow.”
“Dude … it’s a five-hour stopover.”
“Your point?”
“Can you step aside, man? There’s a customer behind you.”
Felix glanced down at her nametag and retreated to a corner of the El Paso Union Depot lobby. Despite his rage at her indignity, his rule was to wait at least a day before unleashing his rabid followers on one of his perceived enemies. She’d regret her rudeness. He let his eyes drift across the lobby and immediately cursed himself for allowing his anger to make him so careless. Thankfully, all the faces glowed with gentle yellow light.
He needed a distraction and pulled out his copy of Rainbow’s End, a beefy non-fiction about the stock market crash in 1929. As he read he would carefully cover each of the photographs with sticky notes, allowing himself just one look at each. He was in the early stages of a deep-dive into the old theory that Jewish bankers, namely the Rothschilds, had orchestrated the market crash to undermine American isolationism, leading the U.S. into the Second World War. Felix distrusted most everyone. Though he didn’t see it as hateful, just practical.
He turned the pages of the book, reading about the day before the crash. He examined the photograph. All the faces smiled up at him—each of them glowed yellow, blissfully unaware what was about to happen to the world. This was the first book he’d read about the crash, so he expected all the photographs, and all the faces, to be new to him.
He studied the flapper look the women wore and the men’s three-piece suits. When he was satisfied he’d committed it to memory, he covered it with a sticky note and kept reading. After some time, he checked his watch. Almost two hours had passed since the distasteful conversation with the woman at the ticket counter. He didn’t dare look up to see if there was any change to the digital schedule for the train.
Resigned to the train’s delay, he opened his satchel and pulled out a thermos of black coffee and poured himself a cup. The book went on to describe the morning of the crash and the crowds that gathered outside the stock exchange when there were the first inklings that something catastrophic had happened. These crowd pictures carried a slight risk that they would have some of the same people.
He turned the page, and this photograph, covering almost the entire page was of a group of men and women, all looking remarkably calm, standing in front of a car with a sign that read, “$100 will buy this car must have cash lost all on the stock market.” The face of the man leaning on the car burned with angry red light.
Felix squeezed his eyes closed, but it was too late.
The pressure was already building. He dropped the book and cursed. He had minutes before the pain would be so intense that he’d retch and lose all control over his thoughts. He felt for the edge of the page and placed a sticky note over the picture, but the man’s face was already burned into his mind. Felix was sure he wasn’t from one of the other photographs in the book. He’d just seen him—here.
He shook his head. How can this be? His hand was trembling, and the hot coffee splattered on his skin, burning him. He opened his eyes just a slit, enough to help him pour it back into the thermos. His mind raced.
He’d read about doppelgängers, people who look the same despite having different parents. He was sure they were real. Was it so unusual for there to be a pair separated by almost a hundred years? Coffee missed the thermos and scalded his leg. The pain shot up his spine and aggravated the pain already slicing through his brain.
The loudspeaker buzzed with static overhead. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an announcement.”
Felix sealed the thermos and shoved it back into his bag along with the book.
“We’ve had a bomb threat and need to seal the train station.”
The crowd around Felix erupted with panicked murmurs. Someone screamed. The noise and confusion worsened his agony.
The voice got louder. “Please stay calm and stay where you are. The police are already here.” The loudspeaker clicked off.
Felix pulled out a bottle of pills and swallowed three. The medicine wouldn’t stop the attack, just shorten it, if he managed to keep them down. He needed to get to a bathroom. He’d studied the layout of the train station before arriving and knew there was one in the southwest corner. His legs were losing strength as he stumbled away from the bench.
Stars formed in his vision, and the edges were darkening, narrowing his field of view. It wouldn’t be long now and the pain would overtake him. He gasped to fill his lungs. He was just steps away from the bathroom when he crashed into someone. Felix bounced off the man as if he were a marble statue. He collapsed onto the ground. His satchel exploded, spilling his things all over the floor.
“Whoa, there. I’m sorry about that.” The man reached out to Felix. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” Felix pushed himself up and gathered his things. “I just … I need the bathroom.” His stomach was churning.
The man picked up the book and started flipping through it. Felix’s baseball cap shielded him from the man’s eyes. The eyes always glowed the brightest and were the most painful. But Felix was close enough to see that every mole, every freckle, and every crease around the man’s mouth was identical to the photograph. Felix’s head was splitting open, but he couldn’t move. He was transfixed. This was no doppelgänger.
“You … you’re him.”
“I’m who?” The man’s voice was deeper. He pulled a sticky note off the photograph in the book.
Felix backed away. “This can’t be.”
“You aren’t feeling well.” The man slammed the book shut and took a step towards him. “Let me get you some help.”
“No! Don’t … don’t touch me.” His words slurred, and his legs gave way. He collapsed onto the ground.
The man stepped closer and stood over him. Felix looked up. The blazing red light shot out of his eyes with the intensity of the naked sun. Burning coals of agony melted into Felix’s mind. But he couldn’t look away. Forming words was impossible. He pointed and sputtered. The sick burned his throat as he retched.
“Hush.” The man kneeled next to Felix. His words were a whisper only Felix could hear. “I knew I shouldn’t have sold that damned car.”
The world went black.
This is my story based on the writing prompt from Bradley Ramsey called the Power Up Pompts, it is a fun series!
If you enjoyed this short story check these out:
I believe the cover image to be public domain.
Wow. This is excellent! Damn creepy but excellent! Next instalment please!!
Oh my gosh! This is just sensational! Excellent writing, brilliant mind. Just loved this. ❤️