I never used to put much stock into the idea that everyone has a ’Doppelgänger’. It seemed like just another bit of occultist nonsense, like every other ‘spooky’ idea floating around the internet. But that was before I found her. It was pure chance that led me to her. I saw a link to her profile next to a fairly witty quote, and on a whim I decided to look her up. I didn’t expect anything to come of it, and I definitely didn’t expect to see my own face smiling back at me from the profile picture. At first I thought someone had made a fake profile for me as some kind of weird prank, but as I scrolled through her posts I realized I didn’t remember being to any of the places where her photos were taken, and they didn’t look edited or altered, so I had to accept she really was another person. Another person who looked just like me. My first instinct was to message her. Tell her about this amazing coincidence. Maybe we could have a laugh about it, even strike up a friendship… But something stayed my hand. I looked again at the pictures. Her left front tooth was just a little bigger than the right, just like mine. Her right eyelid drooped just a little more then the left when she was tired, just like mine. Her eyelashes were long but sparse, just like mine. The more I looked, the more I got the feeling that she didn’t just look like me. She was me. I decided to learn more about her. It wasn’t exactly hard to do. She was active on social media. She ran a blog. She had even uploaded a few videos of herself singing silly songs or just talking about her life. She even laughed the same way I do. Or the same way I used to, anyway. It was with a growing sense of unease that I looked through her history, her whole life unfolding before my eyes through the lens of a dozen different websites. There were so many similarities. We had studied the same things. We had the same hobbies. We even liked the same food. In fact there seemed to be only one real difference between us. Wherever I had failed, she had succeeded. In high school, I had always been too nervous to confess my feelings to the boy I liked. Reading her old blog posts, I saw she had a similar dilemma, but in the end she had the courage to ask him out, and they were still together. In college, I couldn’t bring myself to meet new people or make friends, so I just buried myself in my studies. She had been nervous at first, but finally brought herself to open up to people, and described her college years as some of the best in her life. After graduation, there had been an opening for a curator at the local museum, but I bombed the interview and had to settle for a job I can barely stand. She had found a similar job offer, but unlike me, she got the job with little difficulty… As I read on, my shock and disbelief slowly settled and faded away, leaving only envy and desire in its place. She had everything I had ever wanted… Learning everything there was to know about her was simple enough. She was so much like me that practically all I had to do was familiarize myself with the people around her. I could find a lot of what I needed to know online, but not quite everything. So, I did the only thing I could do. I quit my job and moved to her town, spending my days following her as she went about her day, always just out of sight. I let myself fall out of touch with my family and the few friends I had left. Soon enough I wouldn’t need them anymore. For three months, I spent every waking moment learning everything there was to know about my more fortunate double. I learned how to mimic the way her voice wavered when she was stressed. I learned all her little verbal tics. I learned the pet name she only called her boyfriend when she was sure they were all alone. But she was never alone, not really. I was always there, just out of sight, watching. For three months, I lived on my dwindling savings. My bank account draining fast as I spent all my energy becoming her… But it was all right. It would last long enough. Soon, it wouldn’t matter anymore. It was a sunny Thursday the day I finally acted. Like every morning, she left her little suburban house with her little green watering can, out to water the flowers around back. She never locked the door when she did that. After all, she’d be back in less than a minute, and it wasn’t like she was far away, and the door was a bit creaky anyway, so she’d hear if someone opened it… Except the door only creaked if you opened it more than halfway, so I carefully snuck up to the door, opening it just wide enough to slip inside. It wasn’t the first time I did this. In fact, it would be the last. I stayed hidden as she rushed off to work, cutting it a bit close like always and not really paying much attention. It was time. I opened her kitchen cupboard and searched until I found what I was looking for. A mixture of cocoa powder, sugar and cinnamon that she made herself. She mixed it with a cup of hot milk and drank it before bed every night. Carefully, I poured the mixture out in the sink and made up my own batch, replacing half the sugar with a powdered sedative I had prepared in advance. Finding a strong enough sedative that remained potent in boiling hot milk and didn’t taste too strange had been a challenge, but I had been searching for a month. It did change the taste of the drink a little, but it wouldn’t matter, because it was a Thursday. On Thursdays she had to deal with the paperwork, a chore she despised, and she always rewarded herself afterwards with a small bag of very strong mints. I had tried a bag myself once, and they were very tasty, but after a handful nothing tasted quite right for a while. Just what I needed. She came home right when I had expected her to, and I remained out of sight as she did all the things she always did. Out to fuzz with her plants once again, and then back inside to update her blog. I listened as she typed in her password, a string of nonsense letters and numbers which she (to my delight) kept on a reminder note in her desk drawer and used for absolutely everything. After an hour or so messing about with her computer she got up and made herself a sandwich and a cup of her hot cocoa, and I couldn’t help but peek as she sat down to eat. She frowned a little as she sipped her drink, and for a moment I thought my planning had all been for naught… But then she kept sipping it, and I knew I had won. By the time she finished the cup, she was already woozy, her eyelids threatening to close as she leaned back against the couch, her body too sluggish to sit up straight. I’m not sure what came over me, but for some reason I decided to show myself then. To meet her face to face just this one time. I had expected to see her eyes light up in surprise, maybe even fear… But all I could see in her eyes was recognition and understanding, like she had been waiting for this to happen… Slowly, her eyes drifted shut for what I knew to be the very last time, and I shook off the eerie feeling that her look had given me. Working quickly, I pulled her sleeping body off the couch and carefully stowed her in the back seat of her own car. This was the dangerous part. This was the part where it could all go wrong… My heart was hammering in my chest the whole way as I drove through town, and as I dragged her into my run-down little apartment I kept imagining what would happen if I was caught… But I wasn’t. Soon enough she was lying on the floor, just waiting for the end. Steeling my nerves, I slowly pushed a hose down her throat, and using a funnel I poured most of a bottle of cheap vodka straight into her stomach. Normally, she would surely have retched and thrown it all up, but the sedatives had weakened her muscles too much for her to do more than shudder a little. Lifting her up a bit, I carefully poured some of the vodka down her front, like she had spilled it all over herself. Then I laid her back down and arranged her like she had crumpled to the floor, too unsteady to stand. Finally, I pushed the nearly empty bottle into her hand and checked that the suicide note I had penned earlier in the day was still where it was supposed to be. It was all perfect. Less than an hour later the alcohol and sedatives had finally gotten to be too much for her, and she stopped breathing. With a small smile and a muttered 'thank you' to the body on the floor, I left the apartment and the life it belonged to. With a smile on my face I drove my new car back to my new house, ready to start my new life.