His eyes widen as sweat drips down his brow, his lips twitch nervously. They grow wider still as he drags in a stuttered breath as he leans forward, closer to the photos hanging from strings stretched left and right across the dimly lit red room.

“F-Fuck me,” he stammers, blinking as he steps back, his tongue running nervously between his teeth and lips, pushing the soft flesh against the sharp enamel. He leans forward again, flicking from photo to photo, drawing a stuttered, desperate breath with each. He mumbles, pulling handfuls of hair in frustration. His world spins as he drops to the floor in a heap, ripping his collar loose. He gulps at the air, each breath more frantic than the last. He arches backwards, the ceiling lights flooding his vision with searing red, darkness fluttering at the edges. He screams, the sound tearing from his throat as he scrambles backwards and slams into the wall.

“GO AWAY!” he bellows into the empty room. He darts desperate glances around the space, his breaths laboured, and panicked. He forces himself to his feet and blindly feels for the door handle. His hands grip it, and he looks around the room one last time before he turns the handle and falls backwards through the doorway. He shields his eyes, expecting light to blind him, but the room is dark. His heart beats in his chest at a million miles an hour. He gasps as the red glow seeps into the blackness. His breath falters, breaking unevenly as the silhouetted shape fills the doorway.

“W-W-W-Who are you?” he stammers.

“Why ask such a ridiculous question, when the photos show you the answer?”

“B-But you can’t be me, it’s not possible! Y-You appear in pictures from before I was born. You’re something else, y-you’re not me!”

“Why can’t I be? Because you say I can’t? If I’m here now, why couldn’t I have always been here? Why couldn’t I have been with you before you were even born, when you were still the seed inside your mother, inside your grandmother? Don’t you understand this moment? Don’t you realise? This is it. This is where we overlap for the final time. After this, there will only be me. And you will go back, and watch, and slowly become me.”

“W-W-What?”

He steps forward, out of the room and into the red glow. He stands, wearing the same clothes he has always worn in all of the photos, and with a laboured breath, realises he’s wearing the exact outfit now.

“I-I-It can’t be, i-it can’t!” he whispers.

“But it is, isn’t it? The answers are finally yours, the things you’ve been chasing, the questions you’ve been asking, now lie at your fingertips. Don’t you want to see the truth? Don’t you want to see how it ends?”

“H-H-How? H-H-How do I, become you?” he asks, lips trembling nervously.

He laughs softly and crouches down.

“You are me, and I have always been you. The journey began long before you noticed, moving beneath everything you are. You’ve been carried forward by it all this time, quiet, certain, inevitable, and you just haven’t realised it yet. Even now, you still don’t see it. You still don’t realise the truth.”

“H-How do I see? How do I realise?”

He laughs again and nods to his side.

“With that. That will help you see. That will continue your journey to becoming me.”

He looks down at a box cutter that lies a few feet away, its blade gleaming in the red light of the room. He looks back up at himself with a curious expression.

“Y-Y-You want me to what, kill myself?”

The shadow holds up his wrists for him to see.

“You already have,” he says, and he realises they’re his wrists.

His breath catches in his chest, warmth pooling beneath him. Together they gasp as his heart skips a beat. He stares into his own sorrow-filled eyes and smiles. With the next breath he draws comes understanding, he knows this has always been his last moment.

“We never appreciated the little things until they were no longer ours to enjoy,” he says, as the world falls away.

Then he’s standing in a brightly lit room, his grandmother asleep in her bed. He draws another breath, more reflex than need, and realises this is his first moment.