My phone is ringing.

I glance at the number. It’s my own.

The voice is low, urgent.

“Listen to me. I don’t have much time.”

“Who are you? And why do we have the exact same number?”

“I’m your long-lost twin brother, Anthony—”

“I don’t have a twin brother!”

“That‘s what Mum wants you to think. She locked me in the basement when we were both kids. Now please, set me free.”

The line goes dead. I stare at my phone, questions piling up in my mind. Do I really have a twin brother I didn’t know about? Let alone one locked in a basement?

Do we even have a basement?

I try asking Mum about Anthony, but a look of fear always crosses her face.

I think about the door a lot. It isn’t really an obsession, just morbid curiosity. I also think about Anthony. Sometimes I stare in the mirror, I try to imagine what he will look like, but for some reason my eyes are green instead of blue.

And his voice. Pleading.

“Please…set me free…”

One night I wake up in a basement. It is continuous with the rest of the house, extremely dusty, the pictures old and faded. Things are scattered around the floor or crammed together on shelves that haven’t seen the light of day in years. I don’t know how I got here, just that I should be here.

Anthony’s voice is calling me. It is alluring, hypnotizing, like a siren’s call.

“Please…set me free…”

It is coming from a mirror, a tall piece of glass set in oak. I blow the dust away and I see a boy staring back at me. He looks exactly like me. Except his eyes are green instead of blue.

His eyes light up in hope.

“You have come…”

I reach out, and I stroke the glass. “Anthony…” I whisper.

That’s when hands shoot out from the glass, sending shards flying out in all directions. Before I can scream, I am yanked inside. The boy steps out of the mirror and smirks back at me.

I pound against the glass, but it has become a smooth wall. I yell out for help, but silence answers my call.

Anthony laughs. “Thank you, ‘brother’.”

---

I walk upstairs and sit on his bed. I look at the full moon in the sky and laugh out loud.

Young boys are so easy to fool.

The next morning, his parents are quietly eating breakfast at the table.

“Good morning–” starts the mum.

She gasps when she sees my eyes. Green instead of blue.

Anthony…

I grin back at her. She's shaking like a leaf, her face pale. Excellent.

"Do you miss me?" I grin at her. "We're going to have more fun than boring old Lucas."

"Lots of it."