Chapter 1

My sister disappeared eight years ago.

She was seventeen.

There was no body. No note. No evidence that she had planned to leave.

One evening, she went upstairs to her bedroom while my parents and I were watching television.

Twenty minutes later, she was gone.

Her bedroom window was locked from the inside.

The front door had never opened.

The police searched our house three times.

They found nothing.

Eventually, everyone stopped looking.

Everyone except my mother.

She kept my sister's bedroom exactly the same until the day she died.

After the funeral, I inherited the house.

I didn't want it, but I couldn't afford to sell it.

For the first few months, nothing happened.

Then, last night at 2:13 a.m., my phone vibrated.

I looked at the screen.

It was a text from my sister's old phone number.

Don't go upstairs.

I stared at it for almost a minute.

Then another message appeared.

Please. I'm serious.

I typed:

Who is this?

The reply came immediately.

You know who this is.

My hands started shaking.

I hadn't heard from that number in eight years.

I called it.

Someone answered.

There was silence.

Then I heard breathing.

A girl's voice whispered:

"I'm still in the house."

The call ended.

I didn't sleep that night.

In the morning, I checked the upstairs hallway.

Nothing.

My sister's old bedroom was still exactly how my mother had left it.

Her bed.

Her desk.

Her old posters.

Even the small crack in the mirror above her dresser.

I almost convinced myself it had been some sick prank.

Then I noticed something on the desk.

A photograph.

I had never seen it before.

It showed my sister standing in front of the house.

But behind her, in the upstairs window, there was another girl.

She looked exactly like my sister.

Same face.

Same hair.

Same clothes.

I turned the photograph over.

Someone had written:

She wasn't the one who disappeared.

I dropped it.

Then I heard a noise from upstairs.

Three knocks.

I froze.

Three more.

They were coming from my sister's bedroom.

I didn't go up.

Instead, I called my mother’s old number out of habit.

It was disconnected, of course.

But someone answered.

An old woman's voice said:

"You finally heard her."

I couldn't speak.

She continued:

"Whatever you do, don't open that door."

I asked who she was.

She said:

"Your mother."

The line went dead.

My mother had been dead for six months.

I ran outside and stayed in my car until sunrise.

When I finally returned, the bedroom door upstairs was open.

I know I had closed it.

There was another text waiting on my phone.

I told you not to come upstairs.

Then a second message appeared.

But now it's too late.

I looked toward the staircase.

At the top stood my sister.

She looked exactly seventeen years old.

Exactly as she had the night she disappeared.

She smiled at me.

Then she pointed behind me.

I turned around.

There was another girl standing in the hallway.

She looked exactly like me.

And she was holding my phone.

My real phone.

The one I was holding was suddenly gone.

The girl smiled.

Then my sister whispered:

"That's the one who replaced you."