Almost Him - Part 1
Part 1 — The Small Things.
At first, it’s easy to ignore.
People change. Everyone knows that. Little habits shift over time without you noticing, like furniture slowly sliding across a floor. One day something feels slightly different, but you can’t say when it happened.
That’s what I tell myself when Ethan starts sleeping on the wrong side of the bed.
We’ve slept the same way for seven years. My side near the window, his near the door. It was never a conversation, just something that happened naturally. Even when we travel, even in unfamiliar hotel rooms, we fall into the same pattern without thinking.
But lately Ethan slides into the bed on my side.
The first time it happens, I laugh.
“You’re on my side,” I say, nudging him.
He blinks at me for a moment before shifting across the mattress.
“Oh. Right.”
The hesitation is small enough that I almost miss it.
Almost.
A few days later it happens again.
Then again.
Each time he corrects himself, but always after that same strange pause, like he’s remembering the rules of something instead of knowing them.
I try not to read into it.
Work has been stressful for him lately. Long hours. Too much coffee. People act strangely when they’re tired.
Still, the small things keep adding up.
Ethan has always hated black coffee. He says it tastes like burnt water and insists on drowning his in milk and sugar.
One morning I watch him pour a cup and drink it plain.
No milk.
No sugar.
Just black.
“You okay?” I ask.
He lowers the mug slowly.
“Yeah,” he says. “Why?”
“You hate it like that.”
For a moment he just looks at me.
Then he smiles.
“People change.”
The smile feels slightly wrong.
Not enough that I could explain it to someone else. If I tried, I’d sound ridiculous. Paranoid.
So I stop mentioning it.
Because maybe he’s right.
Maybe people do change.
But the longer I watch Ethan move through the house, the more I feel like I’m observing someone learning a routine instead of living one.
Like he’s memorising our life instead of remembering it.
I tell myself that’s impossible.
Ethan and I have been together too long for me to suddenly not recognise him.
That kind of thing only happens in bad films and late-night ghost stories.
Real life doesn’t work like that.
Real life is ordinary.
Predictable.
Comfortable.
Which is why the sound that comes from the living room later that night makes my stomach drop.
A low, warning growl.
I step into the doorway and see Ethan standing near the sofa.
And our dog, Milo, staring at him.
Milo has loved Ethan since the day we brought him home.
But now his fur is raised along his spine.
His teeth are showing.
And he’s growling like he’s never seen my husband before.
You’ve seen enough to question it… not enough to understand it.
Read the full story in This Isn’t Unusual by A. Sjoberg.
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Author’s Note:
This story was inspired by a prompt from subscriber @cursedandcrosseddesire
Thank you for the inspiration behind this piece.
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It keeps the caffeine flowing and the dark fiction coming.
Is excellent. a very interesting plot.
So weird, I literally had a story about replacements come to me the other day. That aside, I love the POV of the person that knows them, very enticing intro.