It started with a single strand of hair.
Nina sat bolt upright in bed, breath caught in her throat. Her fingers, trembling, grazed her scalp where the patch of hair was missing. In front of her on the sheets lay a perfect arc of black hair, freshly cut. She hadn’t noticed any pain. No sound had woken her. And yet—it was gone.
The motel room was stale with silence, its only movement the lazy rotation of the ceiling fan. She was alone. She always made sure of that.
The night before had been uneventful. Just her, a cheap dinner, and restless dreams. But in those dreams… there had been whispers. Words she couldn’t quite grasp. A girl’s voice. A street cloaked in darkness.
Somewhere else, in a world only a few vibrations apart, another Nina stood frozen in a narrow alleyway. Her breath hung in the cold air as she stared at the tuft of hair pinched between her fingers—her hair. One side of her scalp now felt raw and bare. The ends of the strand glowed faintly orange, like ember-tipped thread.
She could barely remember what had happened. One moment she was walking home, the next she heard a sharp crack in the air behind her. A pull—like something yanked her soul—and then that voice.
“Keep moving. Don’t let her wake up.”
But she had woken up. The other Nina. The one in the room. The one who had always dreamed of the alley.
Back in the motel room, Nina couldn’t stop staring at the lock of hair. The more she looked at it, the more wrong it felt. Not just because it had come from her head. It looked too fresh, too deliberate. As if someone—or something—had meant for her to find it.
Then her phone lit up, even though it had been dead for hours.
Unknown Number
"You touched the thread. Now you’ll see her."
Her heart thudded. She looked up at the mirror above the dresser.
There she was—herself, but not. Pale, wide-eyed, standing in a foggy street that shouldn’t be there. Her reflection moved a moment later than she did, as though reality lagged.
In the alley, the other Nina blinked. She saw the hotel room flicker over the wet cobblestones in front of her, like a mirage. Her double sat on the bed, holding the same hair. They locked eyes, worlds apart, yet deeply connected.
Some force had started to unravel. Some balance tipped by a forgotten rule broken.
They were trading places.
