The Thousandfold Self
Chapter One: Reflections
The man in the interrogation room looked tired.
Not sleepless tired — not coffee-and-cigarettes tired — but the kind of exhaustion that comes from carrying too many lives inside one skull.
Detective Harren watched him through the glass wall.
The man just sat there, hands folded, eyes staring ahead, fixed on nothing, like he was waiting for the world to catch up.
Harren entered, the hum of the ceiling light buzzing like a trapped fly. He dropped a folder on the table — hard enough to echo.
"Your name," he said, tapping the page, "is Elias Crowe. Age thirty-two. Arrested three nights ago at Dock Seven."
He slid a photograph free. "Except this—" tap "—is also Elias Crowe. Same fingerprints. Same DNA. Same scar on the right wrist. Arrested two hours after you, twenty miles away."
The man didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Just smiled faintly, as if Harren had announced the weather.
Harren's tone hardened.
"Two holding cells. Two identical men insisting they're the real one. We ran every test we have — perfect match, down to childhood trauma. You see the problem?"
Elias tilted his head. For a second, Harren thought he saw a flicker behind the man's eyes — like a reflection from inside the skull, not outside it.
And then Elias spoke.
Quiet. Steady.
"There is no problem, Detective. I am me."
Something in that phrasing snagged on Harren's nerves.
Not I'm Elias.
Not I'm myself.
Just — I am me.
The words didn't sound like one voice. They overlapped, a hundred versions of the same syllables whispering in microscopic delay — like a chorus trying to remember which universe it was in.
Harren leaned back, pulse creeping.
"What the hell does that mean?"
Before Elias could answer, the door clicked open.
Another man entered.
Same face. Same posture. Same tired gravity.
He didn't hesitate — just sat beside the first one, movements perfectly synchronized, and looked up.
"I am me," the second one said, tone identical to the millisecond.
The light above them flickered — once, twice — and then buzzed steadily, too bright, too white.
The air felt heavier.
Like the room itself was remembering something.
The first Elias smiled wider. His eyes were calm, compassionate even — the kind of look priests give before confession.
"This," he murmured, "is only the beginning. Don't be afraid. You'll understand soon enough."
Harren's jaw tightened. "Understand what?"
Elias leaned closer, lowering his voice until it was almost gentle.
"That there was never a 'you' to begin with."
The words hung in the air, light as dust — and yet heavy enough to crush thought.
For a moment, Harren couldn't breathe. Something about the phrasing — its certainty — wormed into him, bypassing logic entirely. He wanted to argue, to scoff, to say something — anything — but the words wouldn't come.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, a thin, insectile hum. The second Elias tilted his head, mirroring the first perfectly, eyes glinting with some quiet recognition.
Elias smiled again.
"You feel it, don't you? That flicker when you try to remember which moment you're in. Don't fight it. Everyone does at first."
Harren's pulse stuttered. "What the hell are you—"
But the voice that cut him off wasn't Elias's.
It was his own — quiet, echoing inside his head.
"I am me."
The room went dead silent.
Just the hum of the light.
And three men — all breathing in the same rhythm.
End of chapter.