As always, her routine is the same. Always.

She wakes.

Eyes opening and seeing the white ceiling, never the top of a coffin. Death does not, will not come in her sleep. Not if she's actually looking for it, ha ha. But this can't be it. Maybe, if she tries to sleep a little more...

She wakes.

Gripping the sheets with one hand and the other wiping away the dried salt from her eyes. At least, she only cries in her sleep now. Soon, even those tears will stop.

She wakes.

In the same room, in the same sheets she changes on a whim. Her sheets, not their sheets.

Skipping school. Wasting time. It doesn't help. Not like everyone says on TV, she thinks and reaches over to a notepad. How long has it been since she's been outside? Two weeks, eleven hours and five minutes, she recounts easily. It been longer since she's gone to school. That makes her sad, makes that body of her sigh and rustle against the bed, her prison, her comfort. It's not fair but nothing is.

The school might send someone to the house today. It's been too long.

Too many letters have been coming. Too many letters she has been ignoring. Burning and burying in the front yard. That was a while ago. Ah yes, she did that a while ago. Did someone already come to see her?

Who knows? Who knows!

She rather not remember.

'Today would be a good day to be gone', she writes in a flourish with the pen hidden under her pillow.

Twilight gets up and drags her numb legs to the bathroom. Opening the mirror cabinet, she pulls out her toothbrush and toothpaste and sits them on the sink. She hears barking and ignores it for the sake of clean hygiene, something that she should keep a good handle on. After all, having bad breath and looking terrible on whatever vehicle she chose to make her escape could bring un-wanted attention to herself.

'Adscititious,' is written in black marker on the mirror. It is a bad habit to be writing on things but she had thought... She still thinks that she has plenty of time to clean it up before anyone notices. Twilight taps the glass, trying to remember the meaning. “Adscititious...” She knowingly pronounces incorrectly, her head moving to look down the hallway for any sounds of another soul.

Ah, there is no one home. As always, always.

“Adscititious,” She repeats but correctly this time. “Means something not inherent or essential; derived from something outside. A good synonym would be the word 'supplemental'.”

She waits in silence before she remembers. Twilight digs into her skirt and pulls out a tape recorder. Holding it in her hands and hitting rewind, she click 'play' once the brown tape rolls and squirms in her grasp. The sound of applause, her own hands clapping and pretending to be a crowd, is loud, disgusting and welcoming in her cold house.

"I give my thanks to everyone who has supported me for this grant. I know that I have a few skeptics in the room but this is absolute proof that I have found of ____.” The static roars in and out, making it hard to hear the rest of the speech. “I give my thanks to my f-” Twilight pauses it mid-word and drops the tape recorder.

It makes a shallow thump against her bare foot and she thinks little of it. She drops the tape recorder dozens of times and this time is no different. It will work fine. As always, always.

Twilight finally gets to brushing her teeth, wasting no time to scrub the grime and plaque off her gums. She rinses thoroughly and decides to gargle with a little mouthwash for that extra kick. Just like before... The tape recorder still rests against her feet and Twilight thinks of smashing it, chucking it out of the window to never return. There's no point in doing that though, today is a different day. Nobody will care about a cheap tape recorder. Not even the people who will come.

They left it behind, after all.

Once she finishes, she leaves the bathroom and returns to her room. Clothes pile in bunches and little towers of unwashed filth, dust and spider webs gather in corners and the wallpaper has definitely seen better days. Her books, they've long gone missing and Twilight no longer bothers to look for them. It hurts to have them gone but it's better this way. She could hardly open them anyway. Twilight feels a little sad about the sight but she hasn't been able to get the washing machine working and-

'Doppelganger,' is scribbled all over that wall where she used to keep all of her awards and science posters. “Doppelganger...” She echoes, exaggerating the 'pel' of the word and snorting.

“Doppelganger,” Twilight defines, “A ghostly double. Often suggested as a bad omen resulting in one's death. A good synonym would be 'replica'.”

Something taps from the inside of the wall. Ah yes, she'd forgotten. Twilight walks over to the wall and drags her hand across, following a familiar, invisible path until she hits the dresser. Good grief, why did she need to get a new dresser? Of all the things out of place in her room, the dresser annoys her the most. Hmm, wasn't this dresser her brother's? No way. No way. Why would he give it to her?

In any case, it keeps moving itself. She never seen it happening in person but the dresser is always back in that place. No matter where she moves it or places it or locks it away... It always goes back to that same place, covering those words. Why? Why couldn't it stay put? Twilight bites her upper lip, relishing in the burst of pain, bringing a bit of concentration to her actions. Pushing the dresser away, she huffs and collapses on the floor. Too much of a strain for her to bother with. She needs to work out more, can hardly turn or push things anymore.

Something in her pocket clicks and plays, “I have just made a new discovery! I saw my-” her voice goes on and on and Twilight tunes out the sound. Those are her words, how could she ever forget them. She can't forget them and sighs loudly, hoping that everything could just end already.

On the wall, she sees more synonyms, most of them crossed out with only one circled with a question mark. 'Doppelganger' is underlined again and again with a arrow pointing to the original word.

“That's silly,” She says out loud, sitting up and staring at her words. “Why would I think doppelganger would be a good synonym for doppelganger.” A small, fragmented sentence is hidden right under the second doppelganger. She leans in, touches the old words. 'Confront her to stop it?' and answers, “I couldn't.”

Twilight changes her mind on different clothes, the pair she was wearing is probably the cleanest. She leaves the room and heads down the hallway quickly, her feet making no sound.

Down the stairs she goes, over the white outline where her body once laid, crooked and dead, and to the front door. Her see-through hand touches the front door and opens it.

“Magic really exists! I saw another me, today!” The tape recorder continues. “If only I could find her and-”