This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/PossessionInformal49 on 2024-11-21 23:54:39+00:00.

A few months ago, I started dabbling in the dark web—not for anything illegal, just out of curiosity. I wanted to see if the stories were true: hackers selling government secrets, hitmen offering their “services,” and the unthinkable lurking just a click away. Most of what I found was scams or overpriced junk. Then I stumbled onto something that felt different. A forum called “Reflections.”

The layout was simple—just a black screen with red text. The tagline read: “Find yourself in others.” I assumed it was some philosophical nonsense or a creative writing forum, but one thread caught my attention: “Doppelgängers: Post Your Match.”

Curiosity piqued, I clicked. The thread contained hundreds of pictures of people—random selfies, candid shots, even surveillance-style images—all with timestamps. And beneath each photo was another image: a match.

Sometimes the resemblance was uncanny, like identical twins. Other times, it was… off. A person’s smile might be too wide, their eyes just slightly misaligned, or their skin a shade too pale.

Scrolling down, I froze.

There was ¿ my face ?.

The first photo was a candid shot of me at a coffee shop. I recognized the hoodie I wore last week and the chipped paint on the chair I was sitting on. The timestamp was from five days ago.

Below it was another photo: “my match.”

This version of me was smiling, but it wasn’t a normal smile. It was too sharp, stretched wider than physically possible, like someone had grabbed the edges of my mouth and pulled. My eyes were slightly sunken, and my skin looked… waxy. But it was me.

My heart raced. I hadn’t shared that photo anywhere. Someone had taken it. I clicked back to the main page, panicked, but I couldn’t leave. Every time I hit the “back” button, I’d end up on another thread titled"Find Yourself."

The screen glitched. A pop-up appeared:

“Do you accept your reflection?”

Two buttons: YES and NO.

I slammed the “NO” button. My screen went black.

For a moment, I thought I’d bricked my laptop, but then my webcam light flickered on. I panicked, slamming the lid shut, but not before I caught a glimpse of the screen.

It was me—but I wasn’t sitting at my desk anymore. The room behind me was a basement I didn’t recognize, and the expression on my face wasn’t mine. It was the same too-wide smile from the photo.

I unplugged my laptop and shoved it under my bed. That night, I barely slept.

The next day, I got a text from an unknown number:

"Why don’t you smile more? :) "

Attached was a photo of me, sitting in my living room.

I don’t go near the dark web anymore. Hell, I don’t even use my computer without a piece of tape over the webcam. But it doesn’t matter.

Everywhere I go now, I see it: my face. Reflected in windows, in passing cars, in shadows that move just a second too late.

It’s always smiling.