It was a regular Thursday, the kind where everything feels painfully average. I was halfway through watching a rerun of a show I didn\u2019t care about when my phone buzzed.<\/p>\n
\u201cPick me up from work now. It\u2019s urgent.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n It was from my wife, Emily.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t even hesitate. There was no punctuation, no emojis\u2014just short and direct, which wasn\u2019t like her. She always added a heart or at least a \u201cplease.\u201d But I figured maybe something had happened at the office. I threw on a jacket and grabbed my keys.<\/p>\n Twenty minutes later, I pulled up to her building. She stepped out the doors a few minutes later, looking relaxed\u2026 until she spotted me.<\/p>\n Her expression shifted instantly to confusion. \u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d she asked, walking over slowly.<\/p>\n \u201cYou texted me,\u201d I said, unlocking the car door. \u201cSaid it was urgent?\u201d<\/p>\n Her face went pale. \u201cI never texted you,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n I pulled out my phone and showed her the message. Her hand trembled slightly as she read it, then without a word, she reached into her coat pocket.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when I noticed it\u2014how stiffly she moved. Almost\u2026 scared.<\/p>\n She pulled out her<\/em> phone and turned the screen toward me.<\/p>\n The same message.<\/strong><\/p>\n Same words. Same time stamp. Same sender.<\/p>\n But she hadn\u2019t sent it.<\/p>\n And I hadn\u2019t sent it.<\/p>\n We sat there in stunned silence for a few seconds. Then Emily said, almost to herself, \u201cThis is happening again\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n My stomach dropped. \u201cWhat do you mean again<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t answer right away. Instead, she opened her phone\u2019s photo gallery and pulled up a picture I\u2019d never seen. It looked like it had been taken from across the street, through a window. It was me<\/em>, sitting on the couch at home\u2014wearing the exact same clothes I had on now.<\/p>\n \u201cI got this photo two nights ago,\u201d she said quietly. \u201cFrom an unknown number. No message. Just the picture. I didn\u2019t tell you because\u2026 I didn\u2019t want to scare you. But now I think someone\u2019s watching us. Playing with us.\u201d<\/p>\n I felt like I couldn\u2019t breathe. I grabbed her hand. \u201cLet\u2019s go home. Now.\u201d<\/p>\n We drove in silence. Every car that passed felt suspicious. Every shadow too long.<\/p>\n When we got home, our front door was unlocked.<\/p>\n I never<\/em> forget to lock it.<\/p>\n I stepped in first, telling Emily to stay behind me. Everything looked normal. Nothing broken, nothing missing.<\/p>\n Until I noticed the note on the coffee table.<\/p>\n Written in my handwriting.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s not who you think she is.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n We both stared at it.<\/p>\n Then my phone buzzed again.<\/p>\n Unknown number.<\/p>\n \u201cNice of you to bring her home.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a regular Thursday, the kind where everything feels painfully average. I was halfway through watching a rerun of a show I didn\u2019t care about when my phone buzzed. \u201cPick me up from work now. It\u2019s urgent.\u201d It was from my wife, Emily. I didn\u2019t even hesitate. There was no punctuation, no emojis\u2014just short …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4154,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152\/revisions\/4154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}