They stare at each other in silence for many moments—neither moving, both waiting for the other to blink first. Nick’s nose curls as the stench of rotting flesh and aged faecal matter claws at his face. His eyes sting as years of built-up gases burn his flesh. Tears stream down his face as a demented grin spreads across his decaying doppelgänger.

“What! No hug?” he sings out, his tongue heavy with an accent Nick can’t immediately place.

“W-W-Who are y-y-you, and why d-do you have my f-face? A-And why does it stink so bad in here?”

“It stinks so bad because there’s no handle on the inside of the door!” he says with a laboured laugh, running his hand around his face like some midnight telesales spruiker, highlighting the latest craze.

“Why must I be Cage, when I could be Travolta? You stole my face first!”

His brow furrows, his lip quivering as a bead of sweat slides down his temple.

“D-Didn’t Travolta steal Cage’s face first?”

He slaps his leg and laughs haggardly.

“Yes, yes, of course he did! He always did! I was just feeling you out, yes?”

“T-That still doesn’t answer my question. It doesn’t tell me who you are!”

He leans forward and lets out a raspy cough. Thick globules of green mucus drip from his lips.

“But it did, didn’t it? You realise—your little journey here, the look of surprise when you finally opened the door. You knew. Destiny was here. Your name brought you to me, as I was brought here before you by mine. I found the old me, waiting for the new me to take my place. It’s always a circle, crossed by a single line. You step into it—the last you and the next you, both the same, yet never one. We’re all just corpses-in-waiting—each of us queuing up for a chance to rot in the same skin, just to try life in a new one. The joke is, you don’t really ever escape—you just trade the flesh. One, then two, but never three. You don’t get another shot if you realise life is worse on the other side. You just have to be. Like me. I’ve sat through your life. Maybe the one before you too—waiting, living, rotting,” he says as he gestures to the decaying mess that surrounds them. “Until this day. Until you.”

“W-What? That makes no sense!”

“Yes it does. You just don’t understand what has to happen now, because you have yet to see it.”

“Okay, tell me. Tell me what happens now?”

He smiles. “What always happens. What is meant to happen.”

“B-B-But I don’t want—” Before the words finish leaving his lips, he finds himself sitting across from himself—his chest heavy with laboured breaths, his body weak, his bones aching with exhaustion.

“W-What happened?” he croaks.

Nick smiles. “Like I said, what always happens. Now, I am Travolta—and you are once again Cage!” he says as he laughs hysterically, gripping the storage box’s roller door. He grips himself and clenches his teeth tightly together, gleefully.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of these in working order,” he scoffs as he pulls down the door.

“P-P-Please! Please! Wait! Wait!” he cries out, reaching wearily toward the retreating light.

The door stops, and after a few tense moments, it slowly rises back up.

“What? What do you want? Haven’t I told you all you need to know?”

“N-No. No—you’ve told me nothing!”

He smiles proudly. “Good. Then it is as it should be,” he says as he slams the door shut, leaving Nick trapped alone in the dark inside his doppelgänger’s decaying, all-too-familiar corpse.