Playing with identity.

Julie immediately seized on an idea. She plucked a hair from her head and, without a word, enclosed it in the compartment.

Looking up, she was momentarily stunned into silence. Looking right back at her was her face. Her doppelganger wore a confused expression. "Julie? Why are you making that face?"

"Becca, you look and sound just like me!" She paused. "Do I really sound like that?"

Becca laughed. "Yeah, no kidding. Everyone always thinks we're twins. Do you expect me to look different because you put your hair in the box?"

Julie was scrolling through her phone. She held up a picture to Becca. "Do you recognize this woman?" It was a picture of Julie and Becca on the beach.

"No, is it an ex of yours? Should I be jealous?" Then it struck her. "That's- that's not me, is it? Are you saying that I normally look like that? That's not possible, we spend half our time explaining to people that we're not related! Remember that guy at Zack's wedding who got drunk and kept calling us the twincest girls?"'

"Becca, seriously, this is you. You don't normally look like me. What are the odds that we'd look identical anyway?"

Becca thought hard. "I guess that makes sense. It's hard to swallow, though. What if I told you that the sun was purple, or that you were an elderly man? It just seems wrong." She looked at the picture again. "At least I'm cute. Although, ew, those bangs."

Julie laughed. "Ok, let's try it in reverse. I wanna know what it's like to have always been you."

They swapped hairs and names on the cabinet. Just as before, Julie became a carbon copy of Becca. Becca looked her over approvingly.

"Damn, I look good. Listen, do you remember that whole conversation we just had about looking the same?"

Julie rubbed her temples. "Yeah. You were totally convinced we look identical, but we don't- I mean, we do- hang on, I don't get this. I was so sure you were wrong, and I still am. It was only because I put my hair in that you looked like me. Still, though, I look like you. You said something about bangs... I'm really having a hard time with this. Can we go back to normal?"

Becca took the hair back out and Julie breathed a sigh of relief. They were going to need to figure out a way to deal with these cognitive effects.

In the meantime, though, they both wanted to experiment a little more.