Chapter 5: What Follows You Home
For a moment, he wasn’t on the street anymore.
Something wet and pulsing pressed against his back.
Debra’s voice yanked him back.
Too thin.
And then, it moved.
His own skin moved.
Like something was beneath it.
Crawling.
Twitching.
Waking up.
"Oh, God." Debra’s voice was small, trembling. "What the hell is happening to you?"
Stuart’s breath hitched.
He felt it.
Something just under his skin.
Not his bones.
Not his muscles.
Something else.
Something that shouldn’t be there.
"I don’t—" He swallowed hard. "I don’t know."
Then—
The other Stuart stepped closer.
The stitches over its eyes twitched.
Like, it could still see him.
"You know what’s happening, Inspector."
Stuart’s breath hitched.
"No."
The thing’s grin grew wider.
"Yes. You left something behind in the house."
Debra shook her head.
"This isn’t possible," she whispered. "You were gone for five years. How—how can you not remember?"
Because it wasn’t him.
It was this thing.
This copy.
Living in the world while he was trapped.
"I don’t know what I am," Stuart said, voice unsteady. "But I know what you are."
The thing tilted its head.
"And what’s that?"
His hands clenched.
"A thief."
It laughed.
Not human laughter.
Something wet. Slithering.
Like it was made of more than one voice.
"I didn’t steal your life, Stuart."
It stepped closer.
And then—
It lifted a hand.
Slow. Mocking.
And peeled back its own skin.
Debra screamed.
Stuart’s stomach turned.
Because beneath the skin—
There was nothing.
Not blood.
Not bone.
Just darkness.
Shifting.
Moving.
Trying to take shape.
"I borrowed it," the thing whispered. "And now… I think I’ll keep it."
Stuart’s own skin crawled.
Literally.
The thing was inside him.
Buried under his flesh.
Trying to wake up.
Trying to take him back.
Debra’s hands shook.
"We have to stop this."
Stuart’s hands trembled.
Because now—
Now he wasn’t sure if he was real at all.
And the thing in front of him?
The one with his face?
It wasn’t sure either.
And that meant—
Only one of them could exist.
And the house had already been chosen.
The world bent around Stuart.
Not like a dream.
Not like waking up from one.
Something else.
Something worse.
The air felt too thick.
The sky above him rippled, like someone was holding their breath.
He could still hear Debra, somewhere behind him—her breath ragged, her mind trying to catch up to the impossible.
But he couldn’t turn to her.
Wouldn’t.
Because in front of him, the thing stood waiting.
It had his face, but it wasn’t his.
And now—
Now it was peeling itself open.
Not fast.
Not like a zipper or a knife through fabric.
Slower.
Like something trying to remember how skin worked.
The thing shrugged the flesh from its shoulders like a wet coat, letting it pool at its feet.
Underneath, there was nothing.
No muscle.
No bone.
Not even a shadow.
Just absence.
A space where a person should have been.
Stuart’s stomach turned.
His own hands twitched.
And that’s when he felt it.
Something shifting under his ribs.
A crawling, twisting thing inside his own skin.
No—
Not inside.
Instead.
Like his body was just a shell.
Like he had been walking around wearing himself out.
Like he had been something else all along.
And the house—
The house had been trying to show him.
The street around them shuddered.
The buildings trembled.
Something inside the pavement sighed.
The world wasn’t the world.
This town—this street—was part of the house.
Had always been.
Stuart had never left.
The thing with his face—the Not-Stuart—stepped closer, bare of skin now.
Featureless.
Unmarked.
Waiting.
Then—
Stuart’s own skin cracked.
A hairline fracture running down his forearm.
He reached up, gripping his face, and felt something move beneath.
Something that wasn’t him.
The Not-Stuart tilted its head.
It raised one hand—
And where its fingers should have been, there was only hunger.
Then—
It reached for him.
And Stuart understood.
One of them had to go.
And the house had already been chosen.
Stuart didn’t move.
At first, it was because he didn’t know how.
His body and skin no longer felt like it belonged to him.
There was a pull, a stretch, something unraveling from the inside out.
A feeling that he wasn’t standing on the street anymore.
That he had never been standing there at all.
The town quivered.
Buildings rippled like reflections in dark water. The pavement swelled beneath his feet, the cracks in the road opening like jaws.
He had spent his entire life believing in things that made sense.
Police work. Investigations. Facts.
But this wasn’t any of those things.
How do you investigate a world that isn’t real?
How do you chase a killer when the killer is you?
The Not-Stuart stepped forward. Its skin—his skin—lay in a crumpled heap at its feet, a pile of discarded flesh that had never belonged to it in the first place.
And yet, it had worn it better than he.
Beneath the skin, there was nothing.
Not darkness, not shadow—just absence.
A hollow space where something had once been, or where something had never been at all.
And now, that hollow was spreading.
Inside Stuart.
Through his veins.
His muscles began to loosen, his bones whispering to themselves in voices he couldn’t hear.
Not breaking.
Not even dissolving.
Just… giving up.
Because maybe—just maybe—they had never belonged to him, either.
Maybe the house had only ever let him borrow them.
The wind picked up.
Not wind. Breath.
The world was breathing.
The town inhaled, exhaled, waiting for him to let go.
His fingers twitched.
His chest hitched.
And then—
The first piece of him peeled away.
Not skin.
Not something solid.
Something deeper.
Like memory.
Like self.
A piece of him—who he was, who he had been—was slipping loose.
Falling into the cracks in the pavement, where so many other pieces had gone before.
And the Not-Stuart just stood there.
Watching.
Waiting.
It didn’t have to take anything from him.
It knew he would give it away.
The town rippled.
The house exhaled.
And Stuart—
Stuart began to disappear.
It started with his hands.
The fingers first—twitching, blurring, unraveling.
Not like smoke. Not like dust.
Something else.
Like they had never been there to begin with.
Like they had been borrowed for too long, and now, the house was calling them back.
Stuart felt the loss, but not as pain.
Not even as fear.
Something deeper.
Something like absence.
His skin softened at the edges, a slow melting, a quiet surrender.
His wrists—gone.
His forearms, dissolving.
The Not-Stuart tilted its head.
Not in victory.
Not in hunger.
Just waiting.
Because it knew.
It had always known.
This wasn’t a fight.
This was a return.
A correction.
Stuart had stepped out of the world when he entered that house five years ago.
Now, the house was simply pulling him back in.
He swayed on the cracked pavement, his body light, weightless.
His legs had gone next, vanishing in slow, deliberate increments—knees to shins to feet—until he wasn’t standing at all.
And yet, he hadn’t fallen.
There was nothing left to fall.
Only a torso.
Only a face.
His reflection had stopped mimicking him.
Now, it was just the only thing left.
The real one.
Or had it always been the real one?
Had Stuart been the copy all along?
Had he ever been more than a shadow, pulled from something deeper inside that house, shaped into something close to human, close, but never quite right?
The town shuddered.
The streetlights flickered, bending in the wind that wasn’t wind.
The world was taking a breath.
A final breath.
His ribs collapsed inward.
His shoulders caved, folding like paper, curling into something smaller, thinner, less.
His mouth—his last remaining piece—opened.
Not in a scream.
Not in a plea.
Just acceptance.
And as the last of him peeled away, he understood.
He had never been Stuart.
Not really.
Stuart had died five years ago.
And whatever had walked out of that house—whatever had lived in the skin of a missing man—had only been waiting for this moment.
Waiting to go home.
The Not-Stuart stepped forward.
The last of his body gave in.
The air swallowed him whole.
And just like that—
Inspector Stuart was gone.
The wind had stopped.
No breath. No movement.
Debra stood in the empty street, staring at the space where Stuart had been—where something had unmade itself, piece by piece.
A minute ago, there had been a man there.
A man she had known.
Or thought she had known.
Now, there was nothing.
Nobody. No shadow.
Not even a trace of where he had stood.
Just the Not-Stuart.
It turned toward her, and for the first time, she realized—
It wasn’t wearing his skin anymore.
And yet, somehow, it still looked exactly like him.
"Where is he?" Her voice came out sharp, colder than she felt inside.
The Not-Stuart smiled.
"Gone."
"Gone where?"
It cocked its head.
"Gone."
No anger in its voice. No malice.
Just a fact.
Debra’s pulse hammered.
"He was real. He was here."
"He was borrowed."
The words slithered into her ears, too smooth, too calm.
"What do you mean—borrowed?"
The Not-Stuart took a step toward her.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
It studied her.
And then—
"He came out of the house, Debra. But he wasn’t supposed to. The house made another. This town made another. But things don’t like to be doubled."
"Doubled?"
"Two of the same thing can’t exist, not for long. It stretches the edges of what’s real. Makes it thin. So, one of them had to go."
The thing took another step, hands loose at its sides.
"He was only ever meant to be a placeholder."
Debra’s fingers twitched.
Her mind grasped for something solid, something that made sense, but there was nothing.
"And you?" she asked. "What the hell are you?"
The Not-Stuart blinked, slowly.
"I’m the answer."
Her stomach curled.
"Answer to what?"
It smiled.
A too-wide, too-knowing smile.
"To the question you don’t want to ask."
Her breath caught.
Because she already knew the question.
Had known it since the moment she saw Stuart disappear.
"And what was the question?"
The Not-Stuart grinned.
"Who was the real one?"
She staggered back.
No.
No, this wasn’t—this couldn’t be happening.
"He was real," she whispered. "I saw him. I talked to him. I—"
"Real?" The Not-Stuart tilted its head. "Then tell me, Debra—"
It took another step.
Close now.
Too close.
"If he was real… why did the world let him go?"
The question clawed at her.
Because there was no answer.
Because she didn’t know.
And the Not-Stuart knew that she didn’t know.
It reached up, touched its own cheek—skin solid, warm.
Normal.
"I’m here," it whispered.
"I stayed."
And then—
It turned.
And walked away.
Not back toward the house.
Not back toward the dark.
Into the world.
Into the real world.
Like it had every right to be there.
And the worst part?
It did.
The town was silent.
Too silent.
Not the peaceful kind. Not the kind that came after a long day when the world exhaled and settled into its quiet corners.
This was wrong silence.
The kind that listened back.
The kind that meant something was waiting.
Debra felt it in her bones.
Felt it in the way the air hung too heavy.
Like the town itself had been holding its breath since Stuart disappeared.
No, since it let him go.
Because that was the part that didn't make sense, wasn’t it?
He had vanished.
Not been torn apart. Not consumed.
Just… gone.
Like he had been a mistake that needed erasing.
And yet, the thing that walked away—the Not-Stuart—was still here.
Breathing.
Real.
Her feet moved before she could think.
She followed.
Not because she wanted to.
Not because she thought she could stop it.
Because she had to know where it was going.
The street stretched ahead of her, empty.
The town had always felt small, but now it felt too small.
Like it had been shrinking around them, piece by piece, closing in.
She turned the corner—
And saw him.
The Not-Stuart.
Walking down the middle of the road, unbothered.
Like a man leaving his shift at the end of the day.
Like this was normal.
But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t.
Because the buildings around them had changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
The doors were wrong.
Too narrow. Too tall.
Some of the windows had moved.
The pavement under her feet was slick, wet—but it hadn't rained.
Not since earlier.
Not since the night Inspector Stuart had gone to the graveyard.
A realization slithered through her.
What if he had never really left the graveyard?
What if this town had eaten him up that night?
What if the Stuart she'd seen since then had just been the town’s version of him?
Something it had built from memory and leftover pieces?
Her stomach twisted.
The Not-Stuart kept walking.
Straight toward the edge of town.
Straight toward the trees.
And then—
The wind came back.
But not from behind her.
Not from the town.
From the trees.
A thick, rolling gust of wet breath.
Heavy with something rotting.
Something that had been waiting.
The Not-Stuart stopped.
Right at the tree line.
And for the first time, it hesitated.
Not much.
Just a half-step. A twitch of its fingers.
But it was enough.
Enough for Debra to understand.
It wasn’t just walking away.
It was returning.
Returning to whatever had sent it out in the first place.
And whatever was waiting for it in those trees—
I wasn't happy.
The wind swelled.
Branches groaned.
The air bent inward, pressing against her skin like it was trying to push her back.
And the Not-Stuart?
It turned its head.
Not fully.
Just enough.
And for the first time, she saw something in its expression.
No confidence.
Not knowing.
Something else.
Something close to—
Regret.
And then—
The trees opened their mouths.
Not split.
Not cracked.
Opened.
Like a hundred waiting throats, hollow and hungry.
And something inside them reached out.
Not a hand.
Not a shadow.
Something worse.
Something like a memory, but bigger.
Older.
Something that had made this place.
The Not-Stuart took a step back.
Another.
And for the first time, Debra saw it—
Fear.
Not fear of her.
Not fear of what it had done.
Fear of where it was going.
The wind screamed.
The ground shook.
And then—
The Not-Stuart was yanked backward.
Fast.
Too fast.
One second, it was standing there.
The next—
It was gone.
Pulled into the dark.
Into the trees.
Into the thing that had been waiting.
The wind died.
The trees closed.
The road was empty again.
Debra just stood there.
Not breathing.
Not moving.
Because for the first time, she knew.
It hadn’t let Stuart go.
It had let him escape.
And what had followed him out?
That wasn’t Stuart at all.
That was something that never should have left.
Something that had broken the rules.
And now, the thing that had made the rules—
Had come to collect.
The town did not return to normal.
Not that night.
Not ever.
Something had been taken.
Something had been put back.
And whatever had reached out of those trees—whatever had **yanked the Not-Stuart into the dark—**had left a mark.
Not a scar.
Something deeper.
Something alive.
Debra felt it before she saw it.
The world had tilted around her, ever so slightly, as if the ground was no longer holding steady.
The sky was too low.
The air was too thick.
But the worst part?
The town was breathing.
Not the way it had been before.
Not the way it had whispered and exhaled when Stuart was being unmade.
This was different.
This was hungrier.
And then, the streetlights flickered.
And she heard it.
A voice.
No.
Not one voice.
Many.
Whispering in unison, crawling up her spine in a chorus of wet, hollow murmurs.
"What did you do, Debra?"
Her breath stopped.
The voice—she knew that voice.
It was Stuart’s.
Not the Not-Stuart.
Not the thing that had walked away.
The real one.
The one that had vanished.
She turned—slow, too slow.
And there, in the middle of the road, was a shape.
A stain on the air, shifting, twisting.
Not solid.
Not quite.
Something is trying to become.
Something is trying to come back.
"You shouldn’t have followed," the voices whispered.
"You shouldn’t have watched."
The shape shuddered.
Expanded.
And then—
It stepped forward.
It had Stuart’s outline.
But the edges were wrong.
Too long.
Too many bends.
Like a shadow that had forgotten how to belong to a body.
"Where am I?" the voices rasped.
And this time, it was just one voice.
Just his voice.
"Stuart?"
It twitched.
The air warped.
The street tensed beneath her feet.
"I remember the dark," the shape said. "I remember the trees."
Its head lifted.
And now she could see its face.
Not fully.
Not completely.
But just enough.
And it was him.
Or—something that thought it was him.
"You left me there," it whispered.
"No—" Debra took a step back. "No, you—" She swallowed. "You were gone."
"No."
The word scraped the air, sharp and certain.
"I was waiting."
Her stomach coiled.
"Waiting for what?"
"For the other one to fail."
The wind stopped.
The air dropped.
A cold, heavy weight settled in her chest.
"The… other one?"
The thing that looked like Stuart nodded.
"You thought it was over, didn’t you?"
The streetlights dimmed.
The buildings leaned closer.
And the thing in front of her smiled.
"It wasn’t over."
Her heart stammered.
"But I saw it—" she gasped. "I saw it take him. I saw him disappear!"
"You saw something go back," the thing whispered.
"That doesn’t mean it was the right one."
And then—
The world lurched.
The street ripped apart beneath her feet.
Not broken.
Not cracked.
Torn.
Like something beneath had been waiting.
Like the town itself had been holding back.
And now, it was letting go.
And then—
The voices came again.
"Debra."
"You never checked."
"You never looked."
"Are you sure—"
"Are you absolutely sure—"
"Is that the right one taken?"
And before she could answer—
Before she could even breathe—
The ground swallowed her whole.
The world dropped out from under her.
Not falling.
Not the way gravity should work.
Something else.
Like being pulled into a space that shouldn’t exist, like the air had folded inward and dragged her through a hole she couldn’t see.
And then—
She landed.
Not on solid ground.
Not on anything real.
It was soft, wet, and moving.
She gasped, pushing up with her hands, but her fingers sank too deep.
The ground pulsed.
She froze.
Not ground.
Not dirt.
Something alive.
"Debra."
She snapped her head up.
And he was there.
Stuart.
Or something wearing Stuart’s voice.
The air twisted around him, shifting like heat off pavement.
His eyes were deep—too deep.
Like if she looked long enough, she’d fall in.
"What is this place?" she whispered.
He smiled.
A slow, wrong smile.
"This?" He gestured to the quivering, writhing ground. "This is what’s underneath."
"Underneath what?"
"Everything."
Her stomach twisted.
"That’s not possible."
"Isn’t it?" He took a step closer, the ground rippling beneath his feet. "You think the world is solid? You think it’s just towns and roads and trees?"
"It is."
"Then where are you standing?"
She didn’t answer.
Because she didn’t know.
She didn’t want to know.
The air smelled thick, rancid, old.
Like something that had been buried for too long and was finally breaking through the surface.
"You shouldn’t have followed," Stuart said.
"You—you disappeared! I saw it! The trees—"
"The trees took something."
His smile widened.
"That doesn’t mean they took me."
Her breath hitched.
No.
No, that wasn’t possible.
She had seen it.
Hadn’t she?
Or had she only seen what it wanted her to see?
Her body went cold.
"Then where have you been?" she whispered.
He reached out a hand.
A slow, inviting hand.
"Right here."
She flinched back.
His face flickered.
Like an image on a screen, like a memory, trying to decide if it was real or not.
"Come on, Debra," he murmured. "Aren’t you tired?"
Her legs shook.
Not from exhaustion.
Not from fear.
From the pull.
The ground—whatever it was—was moving beneath her feet.
Not in waves.
Not in shifts.
In grasping motions.
"What is this?" she rasped.
Stuart—or what was called Stuart—sighed.
"It’s the part of the world no one looks at."
"That doesn’t explain anything!"
"No?" He cocked his head. "Then let me ask you something."
He took another step.
Close now.
Too close.
His breath was cold.
"When people disappear, Debra—where do they go?"
Her pulse hammered.
"They—they die."
"Are you sure?"
Her stomach dropped.
Because she wasn’t.
She never had been.
People vanished all the time.
Lost in the forests.
Falling through thin places in the world.
Never found.
Not a body.
Not a trace.
Not even a whisper.
And what if—
What if they weren’t gone?
What if they had just fallen through?
Just like she had?
"No," she whispered.
"Yes," Stuart whispered back.
His skin flickered again.
His hands—they weren’t hands anymore.
Not bones.
Not flesh.
Something else.
Like the world had started forgetting what he was supposed to be.
And then—
The ground opened its eyes.
Not two.
Not a dozen.
Thousands.
All of them, blinking, watching her.
Her knees buckled.
The whispering started again.
Not from Stuart.
From below.
"Stay."
"Join."
"Make room."
"There’s always room."
She clawed at her throat.
The air was thickening, hardening.
"You were never meant to see this," Stuart said softly. "But now that you have—"
The hands reached up.
Hundreds of them.
Not his.
Not hers.
Others.
Others who had come before.
Others who had never left.
And then—
They grabbed her ankles.
And pulled.
To Be Continued....
Chapter 4: https://storylinespectrum.blogspot.com/2025/03/chapter-4-man-who-wasnt-missing.html
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