On my first night in the attic of the used bookstore, I pried a black-covered diary out of a crack in the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I flipped to the first page, which contained just one line: \u201cIf you\u2019re reading this diary, it means I\u2019m already dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The handwriting was sloppy, as if written with the left hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I assumed it was a prank left by the previous tenant, so I casually flipped to the next page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOctober 3. It\u2019s windy tonight. I heard something scratching at the floorboards from under the bed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I jerked my head up and glanced at the calendar. Today was, in fact, October 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I swallowed hard and kept reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLate at night on October 3. It came in. It stood by the bed and stared at me for a long time. It looked exactly like me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My breathing began to quicken. Because just a moment ago, I had indeed heard a faint scratching sound coming from under the bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the last page of the diary, the handwriting became extremely distorted, as if written by someone in the grip of extreme fear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt took my diary. It wants to become me. Remember, never look back, never\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sentence ended abruptly there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just then, the wardrobe door behind me let out an extremely faint \u201ccreak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A cold breath brushed against the nape of my neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A voice identical to mine whispered right into my ear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re reading too slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I froze in place, not even daring to turn around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, the landlord came to collect the rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u201d opened the door, smiled, and handed over the rent\u2014behaving perfectly, without a single slip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the landlord left, \u201cI\u201d walked over to the desk, opened the diary, and wrote a new entry in extremely neat handwriting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOctober 4. A new day. It\u2019s quiet in the attic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After finishing, \u201cI\u201d closed the diary and slipped it back into the crack in the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But from that day on, the resident of this attic never looked in a mirror again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because every time \u201cI\u201d passed that full-length mirror, the \u201cperson\u201d in the mirror always smiled a second later than the \u201cperson\u201d on the outside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Diary Full of Secrets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suspense","tag-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}