The creature didn't pounce.
It just stood there, twitching in the half-light, head tilted like a question mark made of meat. The spaghetti-tangled mess of its face pulsed with wet breath, and its eyes, if they could be called that, didn't blink. Kye held the flat rock like a shield, every nerve in his body braced for pain that hadn't come yet.
Behind him, Jason coughed blood into the grass.
Kye didn't look away from the thing. He didn't move. His legs felt like twigs ready to splinter. The creature shifted one foot, then another, and Kye's breath locked in his chest.
But then it turned.
Not toward him. Not toward Jason.
Toward the trees.
It melted back into the forest like shadow through cracks, slipping into the darkness without a sound.
Kye didn't realize he was breathing again until his vision doubled.
Jason groaned. He rolled onto his side, gripping his leg with trembling hands.
"Did it... leave?" he croaked.
Kye nodded. He crouched beside him, heart still hammering like a dying engine. "For now."
They sat there, barely speaking, until the stream's trickling was the only sound that seemed real again. The sun above them shifted slightly, casting odd yellow patches across the clearing. The air felt thicker than before, like breathing through gauze.
"We need to move," Kye finally said.
Jason hissed through his teeth as he tried to stand. "Can't. I think my ankle's gone. It twisted when, when it grabbed me."
Kye scanned the forest. "Then we crawl. Or I drag you. Either way, we don't stay here."
He tore off part of his shirt sleeve, soaking it in the stream before pressing it gently to Jason's leg. "This'll have to hold for now. But we have to find better cover."
Jason's eyes fluttered half-shut. "It talks," he muttered.
Kye froze. "What?"
"The thing. That one, it whispered to me, just before it grabbed me. Sounded like my sister."
A chill crawled up Kye's neck.
Jason kept rambling. "Said she missed me. That I'd be safe now. That I should come with her."
Kye said nothing. He looked down at the water, hoping the reflection wouldn't twist again.
It didn't.
But something about the light was still wrong.
---
They moved.
Or limped, more accurately. Kye threw Jason's arm over his shoulder and half-carried him through the woods. He used the stream as a guide, following it downhill, hoping it might lead to a fence, a road, a staff hut, anything.
After nearly twenty minutes, they found a patch of fern-covered ground where the sunlight shone straight down. Kye helped Jason down into the grass and looked around.
"Rest here. I'll scout ahead."
Jason caught his arm. "Don't go far. If it finds me alone"
"I'll be close."
Kye slid away through the trees.
The forest around them was quieter now. No birds. No wind. Just stillness, like something holding its breath.
Then, voices.
He dropped low, crawling on his elbows toward the sound.
Two people were talking beyond a cluster of trees.
"…he went that way, I think."
"Good. He's slower now. Wounded."
It was his voice.
Kye's chest locked up.
He peered between branches and saw it. Himself. Or a version of himself. Standing upright, hoodie still torn from the earlier chase, but face too clean. Too calm.
And beside him, another one.
It looked like Jason.
Only, the eyes were glazed and wrong. Like someone trying to fake what eyes should look like.
They weren't hunting. They were waiting.
Kye felt bile rise in his throat.
This wasn't just about mimicking voices anymore.
They were setting traps.
He backed away, careful not to snap a single twig.
---
Jason was asleep when he returned. Or unconscious.
Kye shook him gently.
"Hey. Jason. Wake up."
A groggy moan.
"Listen," Kye whispered. "They're copying us. They're moving around the woods wearing our faces, luring others. Pretending to be friends."
Jason's eyes blinked open slowly. "Yeah," he croaked. "I saw... two of myself earlier. One smiling. One crying. I think... they're getting better at it."
Kye nodded. "We need a plan."
He scanned the clearing again, eyes landing on the sunlit ferns. The mimics hadn't stepped into full sunlight earlier.
"I don't think they like open light. Maybe it messes with their copying."
Jason coughed. "Then what? Build a sun tent and wait?"
Kye shook his head. "We draw one in. Into the light. See what it does."
Jason gave a weak laugh. "That's insane."
"Yeah," Kye muttered, "but it's better than running blind."
---
He moved quickly.
He smeared mud and blood on a torn strip of fabric and tied it to a tree. Then another. Then another. A trail leading into the clearing. The stream shimmered nearby, and he scattered stones to catch the light.
A lure.
Then he hid.
Time passed slowly.
Eventually, the forest shifted. Like before, sound vanished first. Then the shadows deepened unnaturally. Then came the voice.
"Jason?" it called out.
His own voice again.
"I found berries," it said. "I can fix your leg. Come on."
Kye tensed.
Footsteps approached.
The mimic walked into view.
It paused.
Then took a step into the sunlight.
Its body shuddered.
The skin peeled slightly, like paper curling in heat.
It hissed.
Kye waited one more second, then pounced from the side and shoved it fully into the open patch.
The creature shrieked. Its skin writhed. The image of Kye's face fell apart, revealing a blank mask of stretched, gray skin beneath. The bones crunched and folded, and it crumpled like ash in the wind.
Then silence.
---
Kye stumbled back, breathing hard.
Jason was staring from the ground, eyes wide. "What the hell...?"
Kye dropped to his knees, heart pounding. "Sunlight. It burns the image away."
Jason looked at him, lips cracked, voice hoarse.
"They're afraid of the truth," he whispered. "Of being seen."
Kye didn't answer.
But something clicked in his head.
He stood, turning toward the forest again, toward where the mimic version of himself had walked.
They weren't just copying bodies.
They were copying roles. Faces. Voices. Feelings.
Kye remembered the voice in the bush, the one that warned him: They know.
And now he knew too.
Somewhere out there, something was pretending to be him.
And it was doing a better job than he ever could.
___
The mimic's ash still clung to the air, drifting in thin streams like smoke from paper left too close to a flame. Kye stood at the edge of the clearing, fingers twitching, jaw tight, trying to hold still.
Jason hadn't spoken again, just stared. The scream of the dying mimic had stolen more than just the quiet.
It had stolen the illusion.
Something inside Kye had changed. Not snapped exactly, more like it had turned, shifted into alignment with a new reality he hadn't wanted to believe in before. The mimics weren't hunting at random. They weren't animalistic things chasing scent or noise.
They were methodical.
And worse, coordinated.
Jason's voice cut through the fog, brittle and unsure. "Do you think it... knew what it was?"
Kye didn't look at him. "I think it knew I knew."
He squatted down, picking through the fragments of the thing's remains. No bones. No organs. Just dust and something like wet cloth, but it dissolved at his touch.
Jason pulled himself closer. "What does that even mean? Kye, I'm serious, what's happening to us?"
Kye didn't answer right away.
He couldn't.
Instead, he stood, wiping his hand off on what was left of his sleeve. His eyes flicked back toward the treeline, back to where mimic-Kye had once stood and whispered false directions to false friends.
"They're trying to be us," Kye said quietly. "But not just look like us. They're trying to learn who we are."
Jason gave a weak, humorless laugh. "That's comforting."
"They used my voice," Kye continued. "Not just the words, but how I breathe, how I hesitate. That means they're listening. Watching. Maybe even feeling."
Jason's face went pale. "Feeling?"
Kye knelt again, tracing a fingertip through the patch of soil where the mimic had disintegrated. "If they're feeling, it's not like we do. They smile, but their eyes don't move. They talk, but the tone's off. They use emotion like tools."
He stood and faced Jason.
"They're not just pretending to be human. They're testing how close they can get."
Jason looked like he wanted to say something, but then his eyes darted to the edge of the glade.
"Kye..."
Kye turned.
Far across the glade, on the opposite ridge, stood another figure.
It didn't move.
It just watched.
They couldn't make out a face, not from this distance, but the posture was wrong—too rigid, arms held too straight, like it had never used a body before and didn't know what to do with it.
It wasn't approaching.
It wasn't hiding.
It was observing.
Kye stepped in front of Jason.
The figure mirrored him.
He raised his hand slowly.
So did it.
"Get behind the rock," Kye whispered.
Jason slid back, grunting from the pain in his leg.
Kye didn't move. He kept watching.
And the thing kept copying.
He shifted his weight.
So did it.
He frowned and stepped forward.
The figure stood still.
Kye blinked.
It didn't copy that.
---
A thought wormed its way in.
What if the copying wasn't automatic?
What if the mimic had to see him, fully, to make the imitation?
And what if it had limits?
Kye backed away, never breaking eye contact. The figure stayed put, unmoving.
As he stepped behind a tree, the mimic suddenly vanished from the ridge, gone like it had been snatched by a hook from behind a curtain.
Kye's heart skipped.
"They're not just copying," he muttered. "They're collecting."
Jason blinked slowly, blood crusting at the edge of his nose. "Collecting what?"
"Us."
---
They didn't move for nearly an hour.
The sun slid lower in the sky, drenching the glade in a cold orange that did nothing to chase away the creeping chill.
Kye took the time to think, really think. If the mimics were copying them, they had to gather something. Sight? Sound? Emotional cues? Then why hadn't mimic-Kye attacked him immediately? Why waste time luring others?
Unless... the creature had been practicing.
Refining.
Trying to make a better him.
Kye looked at his shaking hands. He thought of the way mimic-Kye had smiled, confident, calm, steady. The real Kye had been panicking. Doubting. Bleeding. Running.
What if the mimic had already surpassed him?
A distant branch snapped.
Jason tensed. "That wasn't an animal."
Kye stood, no weapon in hand this time. He felt empty, but sharper for it.
"Stay here."
Jason grabbed his arm. "Don't."
"I'll be fine," Kye lied.
____
The woods felt heavier the deeper he walked, like the air itself had been soaked in ink. Every sound was muffled. Every shape too tall or too narrow.
Then he heard it.
Not footsteps.
Voices.
Dozens of them.
All at once.
All familiar.
Calling out.
Laughing.
Pleading.
He reached the edge of a clearing, and saw them.
Mimics.
A nest of them.
Some half-formed, skin still translucent. Others near perfect copies, pacing in slow circles. Each one wore a face Kye knew. Some were students. Some were teachers.
And in the center, a tall, still figure.
It had no face.
Just a rippling surface, smooth and dark like oil.
The other mimics seemed to orbit it.
Then, slowly, the central figure turned.
Its head split down the center, and out of the darkness came a voice.
Kye's voice.
But not just the words.
The tone. The breath. The exact same pause he used when thinking.
"We see, you now."
Kye staggered back, bile rising in his throat.
He ran.
Not out of fear this time, not completely.
But because now he knew.
They weren't hunting him to kill him.
They were hunting him to replace him.