My Twin Brother is Actually a Wendigo (Part 4)

After an explanation of; how to take a shower, put on clothes correctly, tie shoe laces properly, what cereal is, how to eat cereal, why you need to eat cereal with a spoon and not your hands, and the proper way of opening a door without breaking it. We were finally outside my apartment. Which was, right on time for my meeting to start.

Without much talk the two of us ran from the apartment building all the way to the library on campus. I noticed during this mile run that although Will, being able to match my strides, had terrible endurance. So bad in fact, that when we got to the front doors of the library he was gasping heavily for air.

“So, you got my looks. But not my cardio training.” I humored.

“I… don’t… like... running,” Will panted. After giving him a minute to catch his breath, we entered the library.

Somehow amazed by the embodiment of academic struggle and last-minute cramming, Will whistled a note that sounded like some woodland bird. Which in turned caused him to get a scolding from the front desk librarian with a quick, “SSH.”

I moved us over to where the private study rooms were and peaked a glance into my group’s room through the door’s window. Inside, I could see my research group in some type of idle chatter. Obviously, the meeting hadn’t started yet since no one had any of their computers out and no notes were being taken by the undergrad students. I then pushed Will over to a nearby study desk, sat him down, and whispered to him. “Ok, you’re going to sit in this chair and do absolutely nothing.”

“Why can’t I come with you?” Will somehow whispered in a multitude of voices.

“People don’t know I have a look-a-like.”

“What about the brother-thing, with Miss Martha?”

“I only have a sister!”

“SSSSHH,” the librarian hissed all the way from the front.

“Fine. How long will it take?”

“I don’t know, two maybe three hours.”

“Three hours!”

“SSSSSSHHH!” poison was on the librarian’s lips that time.

I rummaged through my pockets and pulled out my phone and a knotted set wired earbuds. Unlocking my phone, I scrolled through my saved videos and clicked on the longest one. An hour-long personal recording of the history and property mechanics of concrete. It was a video I had to make for a final project and I was the only narrator for the video. “Here, watch this and maybe you’ll be able to have a basis conversation in my voice.”

“Uh… ok.” Will said as he took my phone with a look a doubt as the video started to play.

With that done, I went over to my group’s meeting room and walked into the room fifteen minutes late.

“Well, look who finally decides to show up,” a guy’s voice boasted.

“Well, look who finally decides to talk after using the wrong sensors,” I shot back “Yes, James, I’m late but you’re not lead on this project.”

“And neither are you,” an exhausted female voice said. I looked over to the voice, to see the always overworked and under-slept Ph.D. student who was our actual project leader.

“Sorry I’m late, Jessica,” I said honestly “Your aunt stalled me for a bit. Telling me about how you need to call her.

Jessica groaned, “Michael, please stop being a messenger for my aunt.”

“We are neighbors,” I replied.

“Weird and not the point of this meeting.”

Sitting down at the last available seat, I said my hellos to the rest of the group and we properly began the meeting. The main topic of this meeting, was of course the mistake James made by breaking three-month old curded cylinders with the wrong stress sensors. I logged into my laptop to view the data, but came face-to-face with one of the most annoying things ever. The third-party security check.

I requested my login token but realized who had my phone. ‘Dammit. I need to get to Will and- ‘

*THUD*

Everyone in the room collectively looked over to the door’s window to see a guy that looked exactly like me, but in different clothes and shoving a phone flush against the glass with our campus’s security authentication app open.

“Excuse me,” I said while leaving my seat. Opening the door, I gave a polite shove to Will in order to get him away from the window and back to his seat.

He whispered in a panicked tone while handing me my phone. “Your thing did something weird.”

I grabbed it out of his hands and confirmed the authentication check. “I sent a request to my phone to unlock my school account. You just clicked on the notification is all.”

“What?” he said baffled.

“Right… uh, I can explain it later,” I said as I handed him back my phone “Wait, why aren’t you using the earbuds?”

“I was ok with the sound already.”

“What?” I checked the phone’s volume and saw it was at the lowest setting “How can you hear this?”

He gave me an amused look and echoed my voice with a sly grin. “I can explain that later.”

“Fine,” I said and left him to get back to my meeting.

As I reentered the room everyone’s eyes were on me. The first to speak was James. “Was that your- “

“Brother,” I finished for him and sat back down. “Somehow. Yes.”

With the question answered, we resumed our meeting.

Being the assistant lead for this group mostly meant that I acted as the eyes and ears for Jessica in the lab while she lectured a course or data-crunched in her office. So, most of this meeting was me explaining the mess that happened and giving my opinion on what we can salvage from our current data gain.

When the spotlight wasn’t on me, I decided to look busy by typing notes down. In reality I was surfing the internet about my current doppelganger predicament. From what I found on different paranormal websites, cryptid hunter’s blogs, and derange message boards. I can with two possible options. I either had a wendigo or a skinwalker.

Neither sounded enticing to say the least.

After an exhausting three hours the meeting was finally adjourned with a possible remedy for our issue. I said my goodbyes and was happy to see Will still sitting in his seat. But instead of having my phone, he had a book in his hand.

“Concrete so boring that you took to reading?” I asked as I approached him.

“Nooooo,” Will said as he raised the book closer to his face. I could already tell something happened by the inflection in his voice.

“What happened?”

Will tucked the book closer to his face.

“What happened,” I repeated with a hint of annoyance.

Will huffed and brought the book down from his face, “I watched the video like you said and then it ended, but when I touched your phone, it moved to another video of you talking with a group and then that one ended also. I kind of kept doing that till your phone stopped showing videos.”

I was more surprised than shocked. The videos he watched did in fact work as I intended and he sound just like me. “So, you just watched all my videos. No big deal.”

“No. Your phone stopped the videos when it turned all black.”

“Oh- “

“I’m really sorry,” Will pleaded “I didn’t mean to break it.”

“Let me see it,” he handed me my phone and my suspicion was answered. “Well, you didn’t break it. You just killed it.”

“Phones can die!”

“SSH!” came from the whole library

“Don’t worry,” I said while looking for a portable charger in my backpack “It’s not the way that you think. Come on, lets get out of here.”

We left the library and was on route to head back to my apartment. This time however we walked instead. I was half attempted to start running when we got out to see if Will would do the same, but thought better than to annoy a supposed paranormal entity.

The start of the walk was silent between the two of us. I will be honest with that half of my mind was still going over future work that needed to get done for research while the other half was happy to see James getting the scolding he deserved. So, I wasn’t actually paying attention that neither of us spoke after leaving the library.

I took a glance over to Will to see a sorrowful expression on his face. I figured that he probably still felt guilty over a negligible mistake. I didn’t want him to be too strung about it. So, I decided to break some ice.

“Hey. So, about that hearing thing you mentioned before.”

“Huh,” he said as if I woke him from a daze “Oh, right. I just have really good hearing. In fact, I could hear your meeting through the door.”

“No way.”

“~Stop being a messenger~,” Will said in Jessica’s voice. I think Will could see how surprised I was by flashing a smile. “Yeah, it’s natural for me.”

“Wow. Well, speaking of natural,” I said while approaching a topic I still had no idea about “What exactly are, you?”

“Like, what I am not as human?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m a .̷̭̮̞͐͐̍̒m̵̝͙̺̫̉̀̓͝ő̴̥͈̏̿n̸̬͖̈́͜͠s̶̥̤̑͌͛̀t̷͕̘̣̟̓e̶̜̽͠ŕ̵͕͔̫.̷̱̻͂,” he answered as if it was obvious. "Specifically a, .̸̗͙̬̎ͅd̵̪̫͑͒͛e̴̻̥͇͙̔ė̵̢̹͎̓̍̈́r̷̨̨͚̮̎́̚͘w̸͈̲̿̆̽͛a̵̧̧͖̳̅l̴͍͕̟̉̈͌k̶̡̹̅ͅe̷͍̺͋̂̕r̸̛͇͂̏̅.̵̦̇̉."

My ears rang for the strange words. Obviously they were in the same language that he used back at my apartment. “Ok, you can’t say words like that around people, they hurt to hear them for some reason. Do you know what that could be in English, at all?”

“Uh, no. I just know the words in my own language and kind of copy human word to talk.”

“Of course,” I huffed. “Well, from searching online I found two possible options of what you could be based on human folklore. But I need to know, what do you actually look like?”

Will stopped in his tracks from the question and started at me with intent. “You didn’t see me last night, when you turned around all those times?”

“No,” I shot him a confused looked “It was like really foggy and I found you when you were already looking like, well, me.”

“Oh… right. I guess you don’t have the eyesight I have.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” I said as I resumed our walk.

“Well, I guess the best way to described my true form is that of a bipedal deer,” Will sounded more unsure in his answer “You have seen a deer before, right?”

“Yeah duh,” I responded. “Just not one standing on two legs. But either way that a least tells me you’re not a skinwalker”

“A what?”

“It’s like something else that pretend to be people to eat them, I guess. But from your description you sound more like a wendigo in a way.”

“And what’s a wendigo.”

“It’s like a forest spirit or something that drives people crazy to the point of them becoming a cannibal,” I answered while locking eyes with Will.

We both stopped on the sidewalk and started at each other for a couple second.

Then we both laughed at the stupidity of the folklore.

In an instant I grabbed Will by his shoulders and squeezed as hard as I could. “You’re not going to do that to me. RIGHT?”

“NO!” he yelled in a panic gasped

“Then I don’t get it. Why do you want to look like me?”

Will looked baffled by my question, “Listen, I’m not going to make you crazy or anything and I’m not going to just kill.”

I shook Will hard by his shoulders. “Answer my question!”

“I wanted to know what humans were like!” he blurted out.

“What?” I asked confused while still having my grip on him.

“I wanted to know what normal everyday people were like,” he admitted in a shameful tone.

“Why would you want to know that?” I said while loosening my grip on him.

He slipped his shoulders away from my hands and took a step back. “It’s complicated,” was the only answer he gave.

We were silent for a moment. The tension felt think in the air and I knew in way that if I pushed further on it, Will would just slink back more. “Listen you don’t have to give me an answer on that now. I’m sorry for freaking out on you there.”

“It’s ok," Will said apprehensively. "But please believe me, I’m not going to drive you crazy or eat you.”

“Sure,” I said genuinely.

At that moment I got a ping from my half-charged phone. It was a reminded for a date I had that night.

“Was that one of those notifications?” Will asked as a topic change.

“Yeah,” I answered while realizing I forgot about another important thing with week. “I have this dumb double-blind date tonight.”

“What's a double blind date?”

I chuckled at his question and started our walk again. “It’s complicated. But I think I can explain it to you.”