The first thing I noticed about my real house was the quietness. It seemed no one was home. I didn’t even know what day it was. I went downstairs and found Taylor slouched on the couch, reading a book. “You!” She stood up and threw her book aside. Gosh, I could be a real drama queen when I wanted to.

“Yes, it’s me. What do you want?”

“A better question would be ‘What do you want?’. Why are you here?”

“‘A better question would be ‘Why are you here?’. We both know this is my dimension, not yours.” I’ll admit, I got a little sassy at this point. I’m so done dealing with my other selves.

“What are you talking about? You’re the imposter.”

“No. You’re the one who took my place here. You need to get out. Where is everyone, anyway?”

“They’re shopping. And I’m sick.” She made air quotes around ‘sick.’

I knew what she meant, but I wanted to aggravate her more. “You are sick, Taylor. In the head.”

“So are you.”

“Why are you so bent on taking my family? Just accept what you have and make the best of it. You know Carmen and her family really like you. If you weren’t so grumpy all the time, you could really start to like it.”

“No. I want my family back.”

“That’s literally impossible. Just leave right away, and I won’t say anything.”

“I’d have to wait four days if I did, and I’m not.”

“Look - I’ve stayed for months in the last dimension. Do you really think that I will willingly let you take my family from me? Are you that stupid? What do you think has gotten me through all that time in the facility, and in solitary? Who is the one who reported us in the first place? You. And so I’ve stewed for months about it, and here I am.”

“Isn’t that nice. Well, guess who’s convinced the entire family that I’m you? Guess who, for an entire year, has stewed about a random accident that took her family away from her? Take a guess.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s you. But what kind of an attitude is that? ‘Oh, my entire family died, so I’m going to take someone else’s.’ Talk about maturity.”

“We’re not really that different, you know.”

“Oh, yes, we are. For one, I’m not about to go and threaten my other selves and take their family as my own.”

“But you would, if you were in my shoes.”

“That’s besides the point, Taylor.”

“Why don’t you shut up and go hide in a closet. I think they’re home.”

“Why should I listen to you? I, for one, am going to tell them right off the bat that you are an imposter, and that we need to send you back as soon as it’s been four days.”

Mom unlocked the door, and I ran to her. It felt so good to see her again after so long. She looked shocked that I had willingly hugged her, but wrapped her arms around me. “Someone doesn’t seem so sick anymore. Why are you so happy?” she murmured. “It’s only been twenty minutes.”

“Not really,” I said. “More like two months.”

She let go and carried her groceries into the kitchen. The rest of my family followed, laden down with food. I shut and locked the door behind them. I heard a conversation from the other room: “Taylor, how’d you get here so fast? I didn’t even see you!”

“Skills,” I heard her answer. Then I came into the room, and everyone got silent. “Taylor!” Dad said, suspicious. “Why are there two of you?”

“Okay, Dad. Let’s start at the beginning.” I told him all about her pulling me through the portals for the first time. He nodded and followed along as I told all about my misadventures in the other dimensions, asking the occasional question. I ended my spiel on, “And so it’s all her fault, and we have to wait four days to get rid of her, then we can break our mirror and stop all this madness forever.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Hold on a minute, Taylor. How can we know who is who?”

“Dad, I’m the one who’s been gone all this time. I just got here, like, ten minutes ago through the mirror. This Taylor right here is just a depressed little freak who wants to take my family in place of her dead one!”

“Hey!” she said, completely insulted. Good. She deserved it.

“Hey. No name calling,” Mom warned as she finished putting away the groceries.

“No, she’s lying. I’m the Taylor who got pulled through by her.” Taylor said emphatically.

“Taylor, we went through this in your dimension, with Carmen and Donovan. And this will have the same result. You will be denounced as the liar, and I will continue to uphold the good sense that my mother raised me with. Why can’t you just accept that you are living with Carmen and Donovan and their family now? Just get it through your thick skull that they like you and want you, and you’ll be fine.”

Taylor started to fire back a retort, but Mom stopped her. “Calm down, both of you. Boys, why don’t you two go upstairs. Read a book or something while your dad and I figure this out.”

The boys obeyed reluctantly. Dad sat us down on the couch and started firing questions about the past few weeks. I had no idea about what had happened, as I was too busy breaking out of a correctional facility to pay attention to what was going on in other dimensions.

Taylor knew, of course, but pretended like she didn’t. Finally, Mom lost patience. “One of you is lying. So fess up. We just want to sort this out peacefully. Don’t force me to be mean.”

“Mom. You have to believe me. Ask me anything about the last few weeks. I was in the other dimension, escaping from a prison. Of course, she’ll be lying, too, when she says the same as I just said. Maybe Thomas can tell us apart, based on events that happened in the past year after her family died.”

Mom agreed and called Thomas down. He questioned us right away, drawing from events that happened a few months ago. I knew all the answers right away, and Taylor got left behind in my dust.

“I guess there’s a clear difference here,” Dad realized. He addressed Taylor: “Don’t worry - I’m not mad at you for lying to us for the past few weeks. Although I am miffed about the way you threatened my daughter and left her in a correctional facility to rot.”

Taylor apologized roughly, and her heart wasn’t in it. “As soon as the fourth day comes, you’ll be leaving. And you’ll not be using the upstairs bathroom, so that you can’t break it.”

That’s good. I felt so relieved that some adults had gotten involved. For so long, it’d been just teens dealing with teens. Now, adults were getting involved and setting everything straight. It felt so good to just step back and watch them do their thing to figure this mess out.

“Excuse us for a moment,” Dad said. He and mom went to the office and shut the door. I could hear them talking, but not what they were saying. Taylor glanced at me hatefully, but I ignored it. There is more to this than petty squabbles.

They returned and announced their decision: “We have determined that you, Taylor,” they indicated me, “are not lying. As for you, the other Taylor, we know your struggles. We understand why you would do this, and we forgive you. However, you will not be out of our sight for the next four days. On the fourth day, we will promptly send you back.”

She started to genuinely cry. Mom sat next to her and hugged her, rocking back and forth. “Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay, Taylor.” She spoke a few more comforting words, and Dad retrieved some tissues. So she had to be the center of attention now? Not their real daughter? You’d think they would be fawning over me. After all, I was gone for months because of her. I retreated to my room, struggling to hold back my angry tears.

I rarely take naps, but today I slept almost until dinner, despite my hungry stomach. Dad woke me up and told me to get ready; we were going out to dinner. Then he realized the situation. “Actually, sorry. We have to take the other Taylor with us, so that people won’t think we’ve suddenly had twins. Sorry. You’ll have to ask Mom what you can eat.”

That was the final straw. “So you prioritize: ‘Oh, this miscreant pandimensional daughter-of-another-me gets to go out to dinner while I’ll leave my real daughter home to starve to death, even though she’s put forth all this effort to get back to her own dimension.’ That makes sense. Here goes the Dad of the Year award, and not to you. Dad, you have no idea the immense danger I’ve been in for the past few months to get home. I’m literally a wanted criminal in other dimensions.”

He did a good job keeping his cool, but something I said hit a nerve. He sat on the edge of my bed. “Taylor, you know I don’t feel that way. You want to know what I did when I found out you were missing?”

“Had a party.”

“No! I went for a walk to try to find you. A bunch of our friends and police had showed up at the house and I needed to clear my head.”

“Nice way to show affection for your firstborn - run away.”

“I wasn’t running away! I was looking for you. And you know what I did when I couldn’t find you?” For the first time since I’d been back, I noticed the new wrinkles and the sadness in his eyes. “I came home and cried because you were gone.” His voice cracked, and I hugged him.

“Sorry, Dad. But it wasn’t my fault.”

“I know.”

“Do I get to go to dinner?”

“I’m not sure. Could we disguise her as a cousin or something? No matter what, we can’t leave her home by herself. We might still have to leave you home. Sorry.”

“That’s okay, I guess. Can you bring me something back?”

“Sure, Taylor.”

I told him my order and he left my room, closing the door behind him. I got comfortable in my bed again and fell back asleep.