Once the small boy was sure no one was watching, he jumped up from the bed, and ran over to the corner of his box shaped room. He counted the panels on the wall, and didn’t stop until he got to the third one down, fifth one from the right. His breathing was ragged, and his pale hands shook as he carefully stuck his fingernails behind the thin layer of the panel on the wall. He carefully moved his fingers all along the edge until the panel popped off revealing a short, but wide hole in the wall. He felt a soft drift emitting from the hole, and he inhaled the small swatches of fresh air that now escaped into his room. It smelled sweet and crisp. It smelled like freedom. He took a quick glance behind himself, before pulling his body up and through the small hole he had created with his own two hands. He replaced the panel, and then the darkness swallowed him. He could still smell the fresh air, but now it was mixed in with the dusty, thick air that was stuck between the walls. The boy took a deep breath and started to crawl. It had taken him months to chisel out the round hole in the wall, and create a small tunnel just beyond the view of his captors. It would have taken way less time if they had not put that stupid bracelet on his ankle that stopped him from using his powers. Once he reached the end of the tunnel, and emerged onto the outside, he ran as far away as he could, not even daring to take a look behind him. 

~

The policeman’s voice boomed out against the concrete walls of the small room, shaking Quincy from his thoughts, 

“Mr. Everett, we’re just going to need you to tell us exactly what you saw.” 

Quincy gulped, his throat thick and chalky. He decided to start his story right at the beginning, right when Quincy crossed through the small threshold into the petite italian restaurant known as Trattoria Dell'Arte;

“I stared at him. I know it’s rude to stare but I couldn't help it. I knew him. At least I thought I did. I reached back into my memories, searching for the one that contained him. But I couldn't find it. I kept staring as he came down the stairs. I kept staring as he walked across the room. Perhaps I didn’t know who he was. Maybe I had never seen him before. But my brain still rang the alarms of familiarity, and I couldn't help but listen to  it. I tried to forget him, but he seemed important. Until it dawned on me. The second he turned his eyes to meet mine, I knew why he seemed so relevant, so familiar. It was as though I was looking in the mirror, or at a reflection of myself. He was me.”

“Can you describe him to us,” the police officer asked, smirking, clearly amused with Quincy’s unbelievable yet somewhat entertaining story. 

“He didn’t just look like me, he was me. Everything about that man was identical to me. He had the same blond highlights darting through his hair. The same combed, and polished mustache that was plastered on my face. The same wrinkled tie he probably shoved into his suitcase last minute. The same twinkle in his ocean blue eyes. And the same red, blistering scar that ran through the side of his face through his left eye, all the way down to the corner of his mouth.You don’t see someone with a scar like that often.” Quincy repeated the dialogue he had written up in his head word for word, trying to convince the police officer that his story was in fact true. He knew he sounded crazy but he could only state what he had seen. 

~

Dr. Luke Bower sat in his desk chair, his eyes closed, the vein in his forehead pulsing from thought. It had been chaos ever since he had opened the door to the boys room, and found him gone. His eyes jumped open at the sound of a knock on the door.

“Enter,” the doctor said as a young man appeared in the doorway.

“Doctor, there was a murder reported right outside a restaurant in the city.” The young man relayed the information to his boss like a proud school boy showing his parents his latest art project.

“ Alright we’ll look into it, what’s the restaurant?” The doctor asked. 

“Trattoria Dell'Arte.”

“That’s not far from here, I think. Thanks for letting me know Tanner.” Tanner exited the room swiftly, beaming with the satisfaction that he might have contributed to finding the lost boy. The doctor sat in the room thinking hard before lifting up the phone to make a call, to the local police station. 

~

“Right, so you're telling us, you saw your twin at some old, run down Italian restaurant. And that this is the man the witness saw kill that young girl?” The policeman scoffed and folded up the notepad he had been jotting down one word notes on during Quincy’s story.  Quincy just sat there looking at his shoes, racking his brain for something, anything that could get him out of this situation. 

“I didn’t kill her.” The policeman ignored Quincy, stood up and exited the room leaving Quincy sitting on the hard metal chair, the ridges on the back of the chair pressing into his skin. The room was hot, and stuffy and soon rounded beads of sweat began to cascade down Quincy’s face, making his cheeks shine in the dim light of the room. His head started to bob up and down like a fishing bobber, bouncing gently on the water. He started to feel drowsy, his eyes looked drained, the light from the room painting a reflection on the tiny canvas of his iris. His mind stayed alert while his body seemed to be shutting down. His mind seemed to grasp that something was wrong, that his body was drugged. The last thing he saw before his eyes finally shut, was the tall glass of water they had given to him, standing half empty on the table. 

~

Quincy blinked, his eyes groggy, trying to recall what had happened. Trying to figure out what the leftover panic in his stomach was for. He blinked a few more times trying to force the sleep out of every bone in his body. He started to sit up, but a clammy hand pushed him firmly back downwards. The owner of the hand was a tall sandy-haired man who looked to be around the same age as Quincy. His eyes started to fully grasp the situation before his mind did. He was sitting in the back of what appeared to be an old ford lincoln with two men up in the front, and one beside him. They were all wearing matching suits, their red ties standing out against their sleek black coats. He started to remember the guy in the restaurant, and the time he had spent at the police station explaining it. 

“What’s going on here?” he asked, trying to hold his voice steady.

“We’ll explain everything, but not here.” The guy driving the car said softly as though he was trying to establish a sense of security. Quincy’s anxiety started to grow as the long strip of road they were driving on got smaller, the large fields of grass swallowing the car on either side. The car kept drawing onwards, leaving nothing but puffs of smoke behind. The car didn’t slow its pace until they arrived at a large, gray building with concrete walls that offered a stark contrast to the green fields neighboring it. There was a set of pale blue doors at front of the building, with a small black gate surrounding the walls. They got out of the car and silently made their way to the tall building looming ahead of them. Quincy didn’t know what was hiding just beyond its walls, but his human instincts told him it couldn't be good. The two men stood directly next to each other stepping in sync two paces ahead of Quincy. They opened the doors and stepped through them with Quincy following somewhat reluctantly at their heels.

~

“Can I get you something to drink?” The tall man said as he sat down in the chair opposite Quincy. A shiny name tag, pinned to the front of his white button down shirt,  read  ‘Dr. Luke Bower.’ Quincy, remembering the last time he accepted the offer, declined with a light, mocking smile. The two men sat in silence for a minute, both unsure of how to address the current situation. 

“Just please tell me what’s going on. I’m assuming you have something to do with the guy I saw in the restaurant.” Quincy said, starting to get annoyed. He gently tapped his boot on the hard, tiled floor, creating a soft thudding noise. He met the eyes of the man across from him and stared hard ,not taking his gaze away. 

“ It’s not an easy thing to explain. But I’ll try for your sake.” There was a pause and the doctor shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 

“In simple terms, myself and my team of well qualified scientists have been doing experiments. Now I won’t bore you with all the details, but what it comes down to this; we were doing investigations as well as experiments on a creature we presumed to be well, not from this world.”

“You mean, like an alien?” Quincy asked skeptically, raising his eyebrow and laughing lightly. 

“Well, yes I suppose that’s what you could call it.” The doctor said ignoring Quincy’s skepticism. Quincy’s face fell, the humor etched into it, now erased.

 “Now this alien, as you call it, had escaped from our care a few days ago, and we have reason to believe that the thing you saw in that restaurant was the exact creature that we lost. This creature has the power to take the form of any human that it sees. That’s what makes him so dangerous, he can hide in plain sight and we would never find him. His natural form is a little boy, who looks quite normal, and human, but he’s dangerous. We have been doing experiments to find out what he is capable of but we are still unsure of what exactly he can do. He has powers, but we don’t know the extent of how he is able to use them. Now we apologize for having to extract you from the police station, but I hope, Mr. Everett, that you can understand the severity if this information were to get out.” As the doctor finished, you could see the sweat start to build on his brow. They sat in silence for some time. 

~

It was a slow day in the office. Tanner had retired to his car hoping to take a quick nap before Dr. Bower noticed he was gone. His car was parked on the side of the building, the late afternoon sun casting rays of sunlight into the car. He was just dozing off when a high pitched shriek pierced through the silence. He opened one eye first, convinced that he had only imagined it. A few seconds passed, then he closed his eye, wiggling in his chair to get comfortable again when another yell issued out of the building. Tanner, this time definitely sure that he had not imagined it, sped out of his car to investigate. He entered the lab from the side door. He yelled through the building calling for someone to respond, but all he got in response was his own voice echoing off the walls of the empty lab. He finally got to the doors of Dr. Bower's office. The door slowly swung open, and Tanner paused. He stood glued to the spot, either from fear or from pure bewilderment he didn’t know. Dr.Bower lay dead in his chair, his broad shoulders slumped down, and his face was frozen in an expression of surprise.

~

  Once Quincy was sure that everybody in the lab was dead, he exited the building, this time out the front door, a satisfied grin spread across his face. As he walked, his head grew smaller, his legs got shorter, and his face grew back into that of a small, young boy. He had hated taking the form of that proper, muscular blond he had seen in the restaurant, but he knew it was a perfect disguise to get back into the building. He had been able to trick the doctor into thinking that he was the innocent victim of an alien’s shapeshifting shenanigans. Quincy had hidden himself in plain sight and the doctor had fallen right into his trap.