It started like any other day in Minecraft. I loaded up a survival world on 1.20.1, excited to explore the caves after the update. I spawned near a forest, crafted basic tools, and quickly descended into the first cave I found. It was like any other cave system—dark, winding, and full of potential. But something was… off.

At first, it was subtle. Deep within the cave, past a few clusters of iron and coal, I saw what I thought was a skeleton lingering in the shadows. Its pale white head peeked around a corner, retreating as soon as I stepped forward. I shrugged it off as normal AI behavior, but I noticed something strange—no rattling bones. Skeletons always made their clattering noise, didn’t they?

Shaking off the unease, I continued deeper into the cave, lighting torches as I went. My inventory was filling up with ores, and I felt good about the run. But every so often, I would glimpse that same white head, always just at the edge of my torchlight. It was uncanny how quiet it was. No footsteps. No growls. Just silence.

The first real scare happened when I found a deep ravine. I was placing a torch when I turned and saw the figure clearly for the first time. It looked like a skeleton, but the proportions were wrong. Its head was too round, too smooth. The body was slim and humanoid, almost like a player model, but with bone-white skin and no discernible features. Its “face” was completely blank—no eyes, no mouth, nothing.

Before I could react, it darted out of view, moving unnaturally fast. My heart raced as I switched to my sword, spinning in every direction. I shouted into the mic, even though I was playing singleplayer. Nothing responded, but I could hear faint footsteps now. They weren’t consistent—just a shuffle here, a tap there. It felt like the game was deliberately messing with me.

I debated leaving the cave altogether, but my greed for diamonds won out. I found a few veins near the bottom of the ravine and started mining, keeping an eye out for the creature. But as I broke the last diamond block, I heard something I’ll never forget: my own footsteps, directly behind me.

I spun around, expecting to see the mimic. Instead, I saw me. My player character stood there, holding the same shield, the same diamond pickaxe, even wearing the same half-broken iron chestplate. But the eyes—there weren’t any. Just two empty black voids staring into me. It raised its pickaxe.

I screamed and swung my sword wildly, hitting the figure. It recoiled but made no sound. No grunt, no hit noise—just silence. And then it shattered like glass, disappearing into a cloud of smoke. I stood there, trembling. Was this some kind of mod? But I hadn’t installed anything. It didn’t feel like a bug—it felt… intentional.

As I climbed out of the ravine, I realized my torches were gone. Every path I had lit was now pitch black. I knew I had placed them. I swore I did. Panic set in as I fumbled to craft more, but I was out of coal. I could hear the faint shuffles again, circling me in the darkness.

I ran blindly, stumbling through the tunnels, and that’s when I saw it again—the mimic. But this time, it wasn’t imitating a skeleton or me. It was crouching, staring at me from the dark, its head tilted at an unnatural angle. I threw my sword at it in desperation, but it didn’t move. Instead, it laughed.

The laugh wasn’t from Minecraft. It was too real, too human. It sounded like a distorted version of my own laugh, stretched and warped. Then the game began to glitch. The mimic flickered in and out of existence, its blank face distorting into random shapes—pixelated eyes, jagged mouths, symbols I didn’t recognize.

The screen flashed “Saving World…” and suddenly, I was back at my base. At least, it looked like my base. But the walls were wrong. They were made of polished deepslate—I had never crafted that block. My chest was filled with items I had never seen before: “Fragment of You,” “Mimic Core,” and “Stolen Heart.” Each had no description. I checked my inventory—my diamonds, my tools, everything was gone.

I tried to exit the game, but the button was grayed out. The mimic was outside my base now, staring at me through the window. It didn’t move, but every few seconds, its blank face would flicker, showing my own skin for just a frame. The longer I stared at it, the more distorted it became, its limbs elongating, its body twisting in ways that shouldn’t have been possible.

Then the chat opened on its own.

“You can’t leave. You are me now.”

My health bar drained to zero instantly, and the game crashed.

When I tried to reload the world, it was gone. No trace of the file. I searched through my Minecraft folders, but in its place was a single .txt file titled “MIMIC.” Inside was a single line of text:

“Why do you look like me?”

I haven’t played Minecraft since. Sometimes, when I turn off the lights, I swear I see it standing there—in the corner of my room, its blank face tilted, watching.