It all started when my neighbor began acting strange. He used to be friendly, always smiling and talking to me. But this time, when I met him in the hallway, his face was pale, he didn't smile, and he stayed silent. In his eyes, I caught flashes of a strange darkness.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yeah. Everything's fine," he replied, then went on his way.
But that was only the beginning.
That evening, in the bathroom, I saw in the mirror the reflection of a strange man with a white face, darkness in his eyes, and a formal suit. In his hand, he held a long, sharp knife that glinted several times in the light of the lamp.
I spun around, but there was no one there. Was it just an illusion or some trick of the light? I don't think so anymore.
That night, I woke up in my bed. I opened my eyes and saw that same man with the white face and the darkness in his eyes — the exact same darkness I had seen in my changed neighbor, the thought flashed through my mind. He was sitting on my bed, silently staring at me. In his pale hand, he held a knife.
I tried to move, but couldn't. Something had paralyzed me. Slowly, the man leaned over and began cutting something around me with the knife. I felt pain — and then blacked out.
When I came to, I saw myself standing in my room. My face was pale, my eyes filled with darkness, and I wasn't smiling. I rushed toward him — toward me — and crashed into an invisible wall separating us. The other me looked at me from the other side, eyes full of black darkness. Then he turned away, picked up a briefcase, and left for work.
And I turned and walked to the labor camp, where many others like me worked — dirty, thin, exhausted. Under the black starry sky, we mined gold for them. High above us, beyond the dark clouds, hung their grim, ominous-looking ships. Sometimes, narrow vertical lights flickered on their hulls — as if someone up there was slowly scanning us with their gaze.
My neighbor was there. He patted me on the shoulder in a gesture of support and said:
"They steal our faces."
We kept digging for gold.