Cleaning the Attic

By En K
Rising 5^th Grader
Summer 2024

While cleaning the attic, I stumbled upon an old photo of my grandmother.

I stared deeply into the photo then I noticed something. The photo was ripped in half. It was odd but I didn’t think much of it. I held onto it because I wanted to ask my parents at dinner. I went into my room and put it on my bedside.

At dinner, I asked my parents about the photo, but they acted like they didn’t hear me. I asked again but with a more serious voice. My parents looked at me with eyes as big as the sun. They suddenly started cleaning up. It was strange but I played along and helped my parents clean up the table. I was a little scared but didn’t think about it much.

I went to bed curious and a little scared. I woke up to the sounds of whispering. Quietly, I walked up to the door and put my ear up to the door but the moment my ear touched the door the whispering stopped. After that I went to bed and just when I tucked myself in there it was again the whispering. I ignored it and went to bed.

When I woke up, I was going to finish cleaning up the attic but when I was about to open the attic door my parents ran up to me and told me that I didn’t need to do it because they were going to do it. It was weird but I didn’t mind it was boring anyway.

I was bored so I told my parents that I wanted to go to my friend Amy’s house. Amy is my best friend. When I got to her house, I told her about my parents and how they were acting weirdly. I looked at Amy and her face was white as paper. I asked her, “What’s wrong?”

She replied, “Wait here… let me grab something.” She ran into her dad’s office and grabbed a book. The title of the book was… How to identify a doppelganger. I looked at Amy and asked her, “What is this? Why did you bring this out?”

Then she said, “How your parents are acting… It is how doppelgangers act!”

I looked at her confused and stared at her. She suddenly turned the pages frantically. She showed me a page.  The heading of the page was… “What happens if a doppelganger enters your home?” There I saw a photo of my parents. I was terrified. While I was looking at the photo something felt weird. The photo looked uncanny. I took out the photo of my grandmother. The photo of my grandmother looked strange, like it wasn’t really her.

I went home. When I walked into my house, it was a mess. My parents were frantically throwing everything around. It was like they were looking for something important. When my parents saw me, they acted like they saw a ghost. They started walking toward me, but they didn’t speak.

Something in my gut told me to run so I started sprinting out of the house. My so-called parents were running after me. They weren’t fast but they were close behind. At that moment I realized I was living with my parents’ doppelgangers for months or even longer.

As I was running, I suddenly dropped into a hidden trap, a deep hole in the ground. I looked up and saw my parents, they were tied to a pole on the wall. They had a cloth in their mouth stopping them from screaming and yelling. I walked up to them thinking I was going to help them but then I realized they were dead. They were rotting under the ground for months or even longer. Someone hit me from the back with a wooden stick. I turned around and saw myself then everything went black.

When I woke up, I saw me and my parents standing in front of me. I was trying to scream but I realized I couldn’t. I didn’t even have a cloth on my mouth, they took my voice.

I’m not dead, I found food and water. I ate bugs in the ground and saved water when it rained. They weren’t the best, but it still kept me alive. Of course, the doppelgangers don’t know I’m still alive. I’ve been living in this hole for years. The doppelgangers took over my life but I’m going to get revenge one day.