Pho3nix

I don't even know where to start things off right now...
I feel it is too risky to share my name, but my friends call me Phoenix. It all started on October 31st, 2023. Me and my 4 friends Luke, Israel, Nicholas, and William had stopped trick-or-treating last year, so this year we decided to hop on Minecraft and create a new world with some spooky mods. We eventually found a mod labeled “The Doppelgänger” which surprisingly had not a single download or view, and its description read;
“Experience a whole new experience with the Doppelgänger Mod, It adds a new entity that mimics a randomly selected player and haunts you throughout your gameplay. This mod also includes other features such as structures, items, and even biomes. Are you interested? Download now!”.
The mod page was well detailed, it almost seemed like this came from a very popular mod developer, but when I read the publisher, it simply read “Lo0mat593” which when searched, not a single thing appears. I downloaded the mod and sent it to my friend Luke, who hosted the server for us, we hopped on a discord call and decided we would also install the proximity chat mod to make things more exciting. We made sure our world was whitelisted and we all loaded into the world and everything seemed normal, at least for now. We started gathering wood, and soon we already had full iron gear before the 2nd night. As the sun started to set we decided we would start construction on our base, being the master builder in the group and stuff, I had already planned out the design and we got to work. Night hit as we had almost finished the first floor. As long as it had walls, a roof, and lighting, we were fine for the most part. At least, thats what we thought.
Not too long after night hit, we started hearing cave noises. We were excited, a nice and scary horror mod on Halloween; the year for tricks, scares and candy. My friend Israel had finished smelting some glass panes and quickly filled in our empty window frames. As he placed down the last one I noticed a player in the distance, but I couldn't tell who it was mimicking just yet. I yelled out to my friends "YO! ITS THE DOPPELGÄNGER!!" My friends quickly rushed to my player and we watched it walk away. We wanted to see how strong this thing really was, so we ran after it with our iron gear. We were positive we would win as it was literally a 5 versus 1, but we couldn't find the Doppelgänger at all, so we went back to the house and continued waiting for the morning. As the sun rose we felt at ease and decided to go caving. We found a nice long ravine that already had diamonds at the bottom and had tons of caves for us to explore on the sides. We rode down on a waterfall and started mining. We had split up into different caves for efficiently and used the chat to communicate with each other. Not before long I myself had found some diamonds. I quickly mined them and crafted a pickaxe. A lava pool was nearby so I gathered some obsidian to make a nether portal and to also make an enchanting table. I messaged my friends in the chat
<edmjxkiw> yo guys dont worry about obsidian i just got 14
<YGLuke17> alr nice
<NicholasLikesBobux> W phoenix
However, as I was gathering up my gear I saw something move. At first I thought I was paranoid or it was just a zombie, but I watched as the entity appeared across my screen again, I quickly typed in the chat.
<edmjxkiw> I THINK THE DOPPPELGAGER IS NERABY
My heart raced so fast I couldn't even type properly. I quickly gathered my things and bolted towards the exit of my cave, my friends doing the same. As I ran through the cave I noticed the doppelgänger had switched into my skin and chased me, but it was slightly slower which allowed me to escape. The thing I found weird was how it moved, It was so player-like and I was amazed at how someone was able to program this and get not a single download. we all met up at the bottom of the ravine, It was nighttime so we had to get back to base as soon as possible, we rode up a waterfall and bolted towards our base. We were able to shut the door behind us and safely wrap up what just happened. As my friends crafted some diamond tools and armor, something in the chat caught our eye.
<Pho3nix> Yo guys im outside. can u let me in my game is bugged or smth and I cant open the door.
at first we were confused. My username wasn't Phoenix, nor was it Pho3nix. I was only called that in real life, so how the the game know what to copy? Not too long after he said that my friend William had told us someone was knocking at his door. I checked the time and it was already 11:00 PM. Trick or treaters should have stopped by now, so who was it? William muted and went AFK. In the meanwhile we equipped our gear which was a mix of iron and diamond armor and decided we would build a nether portal in the morning, since It was getting late we decided that we would log back in tomorrow after school. We pinged William that we were logging of for the night and didint bother kicking him out the call since discord kicks him out automatically anyways.
The next day at school was strange for our friend group. William wasn't there which raised our suspicion from when he had to go last night, but we shook it off as just a coincidence, and sure enough it was. William had told us his mom had ordered pizza and he got sick from eating too much candy. We laughed at what he had said and asked him if he could play, which he responded that he could. We hopped into call and joined our world, Nothing had changed and we continued our grind. As we explored the nether we were cautious towards any doppelgänger appearances, everytime we saw him he would always be in my skin, and nobody elses. We suggested that it was normal so we continued exploring and trying to kill the doppelgänger any chance we could. From time to time he would type things in the chat such as:
<Pho3nix> bro wait up
<Pho3nix> come back
<Pho3nix> where are you guys
As we finally found the nether fortress we were looking for, the doppelgänger appeared once again, we charged towards him and we actually managed hit him this time, but as soon as William hit him, he disappeared.
"This is going to be harder than I thought."
I had said to my friends, as we continued to hunt down blazes. Soon enough we had 16 and we headed back to the portal. The doppelgänger appeared from time to time as we made our way back, But we soon caught a glimpse of its nametag. "Pho3nix" I brushed it off as something the developer added to make things more interesting. 
As soon as we reached the nether portal we quickly got out of the nether and back to the overworld, it was so relieving to finally see all the nice animals, the greenness of nature, and the bright blue sky. However, what didint look so good was our base. It had somehow caught fire and our walls had burnt to a crisp. We still had our chests and furnace, so we quickly rebuilt the house from spare wood. As my friends entered the house my game froze and my friends stopped talking. I pressed alt + tab and went to my browser where I saw my wifi had been cut off. I went on discord and it went to the loading screen. I checked back into minecraft and surprisingly I hadn't been kicked from the server, but what was weird was that the chat reads
NicholasLikesBobux has left the game.
thatguy1g has left the game.
YGLuke17 has left the game
Willmart54 has left the game.
my heart dropped. I genuinely felt scared at the moment and I didint know what to do. I held tab and all i showed was me and another user, Pho3nix. I quickly went back inside the base, but as soon as I entered lightning starting roaring outside of the base, it was happening so quick and it was so loud, for some reason I had the darkness debuff which made it more scarier, but as I went outside, I saw Pho3nix there. I quickly went back inside and logged out for the day. After non-stop pinging my friends with no response, I went to bed.
right|frameless|600x600px|Phoenix's Encounter with Pho3nix.
The next day at school I met up with my friends during lunch period and asked them what happened. I found it strange how they told me that I had been the one who had left the game and had not been responding to them. I checked my phone and sure enough, they were right. I thought that whole scenario was dream, but soon I would realize that wasn't true. As I returned home I hopped on discord and me and my friends joined a call once again. As we played on the server I decided I wanted to do research, I went on curseforge to check for any information I had missed on the mod page, but for some reason the mod page wasn't there. I searched for a good 10 minutes before accepting defeat. We had decided to save netherite for after the enderdragon, so we went to find the stronghold and slay the dragon to finish the game. As we entered the stronghold we split up to find the end portal room, but as I wandered through the endless corridors of bricks I found myself stuck. I couldn't look in any other direction no matter how I moved my mouse, I watched as Pho3nix slowly walked towards me and disappeared. "damn this mod is creepy.." I thought to myself as I continued the search for the end portal. Luke eventually found the portal, which he gave us the coordinates and we made our way through the stronghold towards him. We gathered up our eyes, placed them and then jumped in.
As we entered the end we noticed that the music sounded different. Infact, there was no music at all. It was dead silent, no dragon noises, no enderman hissing, nothing. We bridged our way to the main island where we took down some crystals and hit the dragon's head with our diamond swords. Within its first perch we already got it to 3/4 of its HP until the lights and internet went out. Like last time I still hadn't been kicked from the server. But my friends were standing still. While I was texting my parents, I noticed movement on my screen. My friends had started to move again. Except this time, they're movements corresponded together, and as I moved my screen around I watched as Pho3nix was creating the movements that they had been mimicking. I tried my best to hit Pho3nix but it was to no avail as he took no damage. I had been kicked from the discord call and I still had no wifi. "How is this possible.." I thought to myself as I watched they're characters continue to move despite me not having any wifi. I tried to save and quit, but it didint work. It played the clicking sound and it even went blue, but it didint work. Pho3nix and my friends continued to get closer, so I panicked and pressed Alt +f4 and shut down my computer.
The next day at school my friends where there I asked my other friends if they had any whereabouts about my friends who I had played with, but I got nothing. As I returned home after a long day of school I opened discord and pinged my friends, but I got no response.
"Yo guys, this isn't funny. where tf u guys actually been?" 
Suddenly, I got a notification. I went to friends and someone had sent me a friend request. Pho3nix#0000 added the user and clicked on their profile, the user had the same profile picture as me but other than that it didint give me a single bit of information, not even when the account was made. A few minutes went by of me just pinging my friends, trying to get someone online, until I got a DM from Pho3nix.
Pho3nix @Phoenix Your friends are mine now. You were so oblivious to me. Your skin is mine now.
I got furious.
Phoenix @Pho3nix bro this isn't funny. I dont know who you are, one of my friends trolling me or not, this isn't funny.
From that point on I never received a single DM from Pho3nix ever, and I dont know what happened to my friends, and not only that but I lost my account too. Opening Minecraft Launcher would instantly kick me out saying I had been revoked access due to uncertain circumstances. After this incident I had contacted my principal, counselors, and even my friends' parents but to no avail, all telling me the same exact thing;
"Oh, they moved away with a relative."
Its been a month since this has happened. I cant forget all the times that we all had fun together. I promise I will find you guys.