Shift

The first time, it lasted less than a second.

A woman in a café raised her cup.

Only a moment later did she herself raise the cup.

Not her hand.

Her.

As if something had arrived late to the world.

The Corrector blinked.

The image aligned.

He decided he was tired.

But the next day it happened again.

A man on the street smiled at a passerby.

A moment later, another smile appeared behind him.

Colder.

More mocking.

As if it belonged to the same person.

And yet — it didn’t.

The longer he watched people, the more often he saw it.

Everyone had something extra.

A second movement.

A second glance.

A second breath.

They were always late.

Just by an instant.

But enough that you could no longer pretend nothing was happening.

Sometimes that other one would embrace someone the moment the person turned away.

Sometimes it spat in the face of the very person he had just helped.

Sometimes it stood perfectly calm while the person was torn apart by rage.

Sometimes it laughed where the other wept.

And sometimes…

sometimes it did what the first one would never dare to do.

No one else saw them.

The Corrector tried to mention it to his colleagues.

They looked at him with polite sympathy.

He was offered a vacation.

Later — treatment.

Even later — observation.

He stopped talking.

He started watching.

And then he noticed the strangest pattern.

The second one always appeared an instant before a strong emotion.

Before anger.

Before envy.

Before desire.

Before fear.

As if it wasn’t the person who gave birth to the feeling.

As if the feeling was born first in the other one.

And only then moved into the person.

From that day on, the Corrector began to doubt not his own mind.

He began to doubt which of the two the world considered real.