outline-ish thing for doppelganger story

• "Jordan" starts seeing flashes of a weird, scary face in a mirror (starts out showing up in the corner of her eye, then she starts seeing it more and more)
• She MAYBE checks herself into a mental hospital
• if so, she MAYBE starts feeling better and not seeing faces anymore after not talking to "Stan" for a while
• she notices the face appears more often when it seems like "Stan" is ignoring her OR when "Stan" is love bombing her (although she doesn’t recognize it as love bombing yet)
• specifically appears when she is trying to suppress her emotions, but this should be described subtly
• not sure when, but she should at some point realize that the mirror monster is trying to warn her and wants to help her to better understand herself -- she represents suppressed emotions from traumatic experiences
• Eventually "Stan" starts getting really cagey, and then gradually disappears completely
• "Jordan" is highly perturbed by this but tries to reassure herself that she is not responsible for his behavior
• She has trouble leaving well enough alone, eventually looks into what happened
• maybe hires a PI? maybe just searches for clues online? background check? sees him in an online group dedicated to tracking down cheating partners (based on are we dating the same guy facebook group but with a different name)? I don't know
• She discovers that "Stan" is legally married and has left a string of confused, ghosted women in his wake
• maybe she will eventually learn that "Stan"'s wife is aware of his behavior and wishes she could leave but is unable to because of financial abuse or something to that effect
• !!!!!! maybe she starts seeing women associated with him mysteriously disappear and then later turn up dead?!?!!?!?! or maybe it's like a sporadic thing like some of them die and some don't -- maybe she got ditched because she went to a mental hospital and he took that as a sign that he needed to cut and run before draining her to death
• She makes plans to confront him in person in a public place she knows that he frequents (maybe a bar they've been to together or something like that)
• alternatively, maybe she goes to a new bar and finds him there
• in any case, she spots him chatting up another woman in a bar, decides to confront him, then suddenly notices his doppelganger across the room, also watching him
• she decides to approach the doppelganger instead, "Stan..?" "What? I'm busy. Wait… I remember you -- you're… Joy, right?" (eventually she'll figure out that part of the time she was talking to fake Stan but after that real Stan took over)
• Stan convinces Jordan to help him investigate fake Stan, claims he's been doing all kinds of bad stuff and he's been taking the blame for it (she'll eventually figure out that he's only doing the same stuff that real Stan is doing)
• At first, working with real Stan to investigate fake Stan makes her feel better, but she starts seeing the monster in the mirror again and eventually realizes that real Stan is also manipulative and hasn't been telling the full truth
• Jordan has a really disturbing dream with the mirror monster the night before they plan to confront fake Stan. She wonders if it's an omen
• They confront fake Stan and Jordan realizes that he's a stronger, smarter, better-looking, more charismatic version of real Stan (maybe he's been draining energy from women he has affairs with?)
• Fake Stan easily disarms real Stan, pockets the gun, and starts to drain his life from him -- maybe tells him he's going to eat his eyeballs first [possibly brags about acquiring a taste for sheep eyes in Saudi Arabia?]
• real Stan probably tries to throw Jordan under the bus to escape, and Jordan is injured but real Stan is the one who is captured
• Jordan looks for a way to escape, but fake Stan has chased them into a dead end (outdoors)
• She notices the mirror monster in a puddle on the ground; the monster has an urgent look on her face. Jordan hears a raspy voice say "lure him into the puddle and I will help you
• When fake Stan finishes draining real Stan, their bodies begin to merge; fake Stan suddenly looks even taller and stronger than before
• Fake Stan approaches Jordan, who is standing in the puddle; once he steps into the reflection of Jordan's torso, ghostly arms with filthy, ragged fingernails grab him by the leg and restrain him. He's dragged down to his hands and knees in the puddle; a second (larger, hairier, but still ghostly and filthy) pair of arms pulls him closer to the ground by his shirt and then his hair, until his face is hovering just over his reflection in the puddle
• a chorus of eerie voices possibly bellows "LOOOOOOOOOK AT YOURSEEEEEEELF" or something like that -- only if it's not totally obvious what's going on without it, though
• might be a good idea for Jordan to go through some kind of experience earlier in the story where the mirror monster shows her something -- past memories of the way other people have exploited her? the way they felt when they used her to bolster themselves? something to say this is what has happened and this is how it has affected people and this is how it has affected you, so you need to trust yourself and not bleed yourself dry for others' benefit. Maybe every time she looks straight at the mirror monster, she starts to get flashbacks, and they become more intense the longer and more often she looks, but they also become more coherent
• Fake Stan struggles at first but then he stays very still and a look of recognition dawns on his face. He starts to scream "No! No!!!! Oh god no, make it stop!" [maybe "don't make me look, I don't want to look! It's so horrible!"]
• He thrashes wildly until he's able to get his arms free, at which point he shoots himself in the head. Real Stan and Fake Stan separate; real Stan has a head wound and fake Stan disappears (maybe looks like he's turning into steam and evaporates or something like that)
• Jordan is real fuckin glad she didn't touch the gun. She decides to call emergency services even though it seems extremely likely that Stan is dead
• maybe he regains consciousness and starts sobbing "oh god oh god, what have I done? I hurt so many people" etc. Jordan almost pities him, just a little
• Jordan sees her mirror monster in the puddle; Stan's mirror monster is there for a moment but then it turns into a vague generic humanoid shape and fades away once Stan loses consciousness again and apparently dies. Jordan's mirror monster smiles serenely at her. Some of her scars/wounds appear to be less severe now (but not completely absent)