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A ride in the underground train, when he saw him. It was just a brief image as they left a station, Axel had blinked and he was gone. Where had he gone? Axel stared at the dark wall, only seeing his own reflection. It hadn’t been his reflection before. They had been at the station. There had been light but it had just looked exactly like him. Like Axel.
Except for the glasses. Sunglasses. And the clothes.
But the train had driven off and the image of the strangers had been replaced with Axel. Just him.
He could recall that other man perfectly, it hadn’t just been in his imagination, he had looked too different to just be made up. They looked the same and they didn’t. The expression.
Axel stared in his own eyes, they were already driving into the next station. His reflection disappeared and so did the crawling shadow of having the black sunglasses at his eyes.
When the train stopped, he didn’t think. He rushed out of the next door, ignored his two best friends calling his name, he could reach them later.
If he didn’t find that man now, Axel would never know.
But he was real. So surely real Axel hadn’t made him up, he couldn’t even attempt to make up someone like that. Someone that was so real.
But it had been his own face. The edges had barely shifted.
Under the sunglasses that man had looked at him the same way.
He hurried up the stairs, the escalator was full, not enough time. The train from the other direction came in seven minutes. Axel should be able to make that. Unless that man had gotten out of the previous train. The one Axel had just left.
It was good he knew his way around in Stockholm, more or less. He quickly ran the bit between the two underground stations.
Completely out of breath, his lungs were stinging. He had crossed streets without even checking the traffic light. That man. That man in the train station.
And he looked around.
There were a few people. They all looked different from each other. And different from Axel.
He wasn’t here anymore. He had left. Axel would never find him.
His phone rang, Axel picked it up.
“Axel? Why the hell did you get out early, we—”
“I saw someone.” Axel stood alone on the platform. “At least I thought I did…”
A man, man in a denim jacket.