Something is not right with my wife…

People called me a genius. The media said I was brilliant, a pioneer, a titan or the industry. I graced the covers of magazines with headlines that screamed, “Visionary CEO Disrupts Tech World,” or “The Mind of a Modern Genius.” The cameras loved me, and the world drank up every polished word I delivered in interviews. My life was bulletproof, my empire sprawling.

It was easy to hide. Suits tailored to perfection, grins sharpened to charm boardrooms and TED Talk audiences. A steady hand when I held a microphone. But something about the applause always rang hollow in my ears, as though the sound was coming from somewhere far away.

The first crack in the façade appeared with Vivian. My wife. For ten years, she’d been the constant amid chaos. Viv was the calm in every hurricane—her laughter a balm, her gaze steady even when I fell into my darker moods. We’d met in college, a spilled coffee turning into love. She didn’t marry me for success or wealth. She loved me, the version of myself I barely recognized anymore.

Or at least, she had.

I noticed it on a Tuesday, a day so inconsequential it should have evaporated from my memory like smoke. She was slicing lemons in the kitchen, the knife moving rhythmically. I walked in, still clutching my briefcase, and froze.

Her hands weren’t right.

Vivian had delicate hands, hands that curved when she rested them on her cheek, hands that wrote letters in soft, sloping script. But these hands—her hands—were slightly different. The fingers seemed longer, the skin paler, like they belonged to a wax model of her.

She looked up at me and smiled.

“Rough day?” she asked, as though nothing was wrong.

It was her voice, her face, her everything, but my gut turned. My mouth went dry. “Yeah,” I said after a pause, setting my briefcase down carefully.

I forced myself to meet her eyes. Light hazel, same as always. But there was something behind them, something too smooth and placid, like the glass surface of a pond hiding something dark and writhing beneath.

“You look pale,” she said, stepping toward me. Her voice was honeyed, comforting. Luring.

I flinched before I could stop myself. “I’m fine,” I said quickly.

Her smile lingered for just a moment too long before she turned back to the lemons, the knife continuing its steady rhythm. The scrape of metal on wood drilled into my skull like a heartbeat.

I chalked it up to exhaustion. That was logical, explainable. I was in the middle of developing the most ambitious AI platform of my career, one that had the board foaming at the mouth. Thirty-six-hour workdays were my norm. Sleep was a luxury, and sanity was a flexible concept.

But after that night, I couldn’t stop seeing it. The wrongness.

Her laughter came a beat too late, too rehearsed. When she tucked her long dark hair behind her ear, it was too perfect, like she’d practiced it in a mirror. The way she folded laundry—neat, mechanical—wasn’t how Vivian used to do it.

It was subtle, maddening in its smallness, but it was there.

The mirrors were next.

I had always been indifferent to mirrors—saw them as tools, reflections of fact. But now, when I looked into one, the truth bent and twisted.

One night, I stood in my office, pacing in front of the tall window that overlooked the city. I caught my reflection in the glass and froze. My reflection wasn’t moving.

It stood there, still as a photograph, staring back at me. Its mouth began to curl into a smile. My mouth. Only it stretched too far, too wide, as though someone were pulling it from the corners.

I turned away, my breath hitching, and when I looked back, it was normal again. My reflection, hollow-eyed, a little disheveled.

That was when I stopped trusting the world around me.

I began studying Vivian—quietly, meticulously. I asked questions only she would know the answers to, but they were too simple, too obvious. She passed them all, but too well.

“Remember Florence?” I said casually over dinner one night. “You cried when we saw the Duomo.”

She smiled fondly. “I did.”

“But what did we fight about?”

The faintest flicker of hesitation crossed her face before she smoothed it over. “We didn’t fight, Jacob. It was perfect.”

But we had fought. I’d forgotten her birthday during that trip, too busy fielding calls from investors. She stormed off to a café for hours while I panicked, thinking I’d lost her. That memory was burned into my brain, as sharp as a blade.

I stared at her across the table, my hands trembling beneath the wood. She just smiled, that placid, artificial smile, and sipped her wine.

I found the photographs a week later.

I had come home early—too early—and the house was quiet. I walked into her office to grab something and noticed the bottom drawer was slightly ajar.

Inside was a folder.

It was thick, heavy. I opened it and froze.

Photographs. Hundreds of them. All of me.

Me at work, talking to my assistant. Me pacing in my office. Me sleeping, my mouth slightly open on my pillow. Me brushing my teeth in the bathroom mirror.

They were taken at odd angles, through windows, cracks in doors.

At the bottom of the pile was a list of names. My name was at the top, circled in red.

I heard the front door creak open, and I shoved the folder back into the drawer. My pulse hammered as I stumbled back to the kitchen, forcing a smile.

“Jacob?” she called. “You’re home early.”

Her voice echoed through the hallway, but all I could hear was the blood roaring in my ears.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay next to her, staring at the ceiling, feeling her presence beside me like a storm cloud.

Around 3 a.m., she moved. Slowly, deliberately. I watched her silhouette rise and stand at the foot of the bed.

“Jacob,” she said softly. “Why don’t you sleep anymore?”

My throat felt raw, my hands clammy.

“You’re not real,” I whispered.

Her head tilted. Even in the dark, I could see the shadow of a smile stretch across her face. “You’re so tired, love. You’re seeing things.”

I bolted upright, my hand gripping the knife I kept under the pillow. “What are you?” I hissed.

“I’m your wife,” she said. “I always have been.”

I lunged, the knife flashing in the dark.

Her scream pierced the room, so raw, so real, it stopped me mid-motion. My hand shook as the light flicked on. Blood smeared my fingers, and Vivian lay crumpled on the carpet, her eyes wide, her lips quivering.

I saw it then—in the mirror across the room.

In the reflection, there was no knife. There was no blood. It was just me, kneeling on the floor, cradling her body like a child’s doll, rocking back and forth, whispering her name.

When they found me, I was alone in the room, staring into the mirror.

The doctors said I snapped. That Vivian had died months ago in a car accident that I caused. They said my mind broke under the weight of guilt, that I created imposters and monsters to protect myself.

But even now, as I sit in this stark white room, my wrists bound, I still see her in the reflections.

She smiles at me, tilts her head.

And I smile back.