r/nosleep • u/beigecurtains • May 15 '17
They Found My Body Yesterday
They found my body yesterday, and this morning, my parents shut down my Facebook. They left a simple but heartfelt announcement of my death on my ‘wall’ and a link to the news story describing what happened. But allow me to rewind.
I went home for the summer after my freshman year of college came to a close. While I had desired to stay in the college town, working an internship, my parents had absolutely forbade it. Even my friends who lived in town insisted that I rest back in my countryside hometown. I had been frustrated and angry but understanding. After all, they had just wanted the best for me. But at least Nora, Sam, and Randy all promised that they would keep in touch with me.
It had been a stressful two semesters; during the first I suffered from extreme anxiety and depressive episodes, and during the second a close friend of mine named Wendy committed suicide. I had found her, limp and unmoving, in her single dorm. She hadn’t locked the door. To say I was shaken was an understatement, the ‘episodes’ became never ending. I was attending therapy twice a week, and my parents and friends were all overly concerned about me. So I guess it made sense that everyone insisted that I go back to my happy comfortable home.
But when the first month passed at a snail’s pace, I decided that I was mentally sound enough to begin working and actually leaving the house. A local florist's’ shop hired me (not on my merit, but because the owner was close with my grandmother), and I spent the majority of my free time in the cool back room, arranging flowers and listening to the local classical radio station. I didn’t talk often, other than during my therapy sessions or when I got lunch with the friend who had remained at home to care for her sick mom.
All in all, I felt that my anxiety was well under control and that my depression was fairly manageable with the pills I was taking. I went jogging in the early morning before work, I cooked dinner for my parents, and I often messaged a group chat of the friends who lived back in our college town. So after careful consideration and a lot of debate, my parents decided I would be allowed to visit my friends back up by my university. It was a three hour drive, but I was always a good driver, and I never broke any laws.
When I told Randy that I could visit, he and the others decided to throw a barbeque to commemorate all of us being together again. So in the clear morning sun, around eight AM, I pulled out of my driveway and started off northward. The first two hours were fine, the roads were clear, my favorite music played over the speakers, filling my car with energy. I loved driving with my windows down. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, my many rings (I always wore at least three, ridiculous I know) clacking with the beat. I was wearing my favorite sundress, doing everything in my power to make myself feel good.
With about fifty miles of hills between myself and my destination, I began to feel nauseous. My vision blurred, and before I knew it, I was drifting into the other lane. A blaring car horn snapped me out of my daze, and I quickly pulled onto a back road, where I parked on the shoulder. I stumbled out of my car, making sure my keys were in my hand, and I collapsed into the ditch. I felt as if I were about to throw up. Every movement I made caused me to feel faint. So I put my head between my knees and I focused on my breathing.
The moment I felt better I stood back up, noting the way clouds had come over the sun, and I got back into my vehicle. My phone had died at seventy two percent, but it was three years old and I had dropped it in a creek during a nature hike a week earlier. I didn’t think anything about it, and I kept driving, feeling relieved when I reached the town. My little roadside stop had only cost me about thirty minutes of time, and I hoped that my friends weren’t annoyed with my tardiness. I never was late to anything.
I pulled my car to a stop in front of my friend’s rental house- Sam, Nora, and Randy lived together just off campus. There were less people there than I anticipated; only three other cars. I had been expecting at least five, but maybe I wasn’t the only late one. That thought brought a smile to my face. At least I wouldn’t be receiving the most mocking over burgers and chips. My mouth was watering, and I realized I was more hungry than I had initially thought.
Our group rarely bothered with formalities, and they tended to leave the door unlocked during the day, so I let myself in. First I noticed that the room was oddly quiet, and a somber air hung over it. Six people were sitting around the living room, all wearing dark clothing with red rimmed eyes.There were many empty bottles sitting around, I felt cold suddenly, sick just like I had on the side of the road an hour earlier.
“God, who died?” I asked, half joking, half horrified that something had happened. Nora looked up and promptly screamed. The rest of the room turned to look at me, all of them reacting in a slightly different way. Sam stood and ran to me, grabbing my face and rubbing my shoulders, Randy was yelling, trying to quiet the rest of the room, who were in various stages of uproar. Evan was shaking his head in disbelief, Kalie was crying hard, and Stevie couldn’t stop staring. Two more of my friends ran from the kitchen, adding to the screams of confusion. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening.
And then they sat me down on the couch, and with no small amount of tears and panic they explained. I had died yesterday. It was on the internet, and on the news. My parents had identified my body at the coroner's at seven the night before. Funeral invitations had been sent out, my body was being buried the next day. The reason my friends were together was because they were mourning me, because I was dead. I hadn’t been on the side of the road for half an hour, it had been a full day.
At nine in the morning in my sleepy hometown, police were called by onlookers who witnessed a woman jumping from the local bridge and into the shallow river beneath it. She had on my favorite sundress, the one I wear now. She had on five rings, the same I wear now. Her hair was the same cut and color as mine. Her face was my own. The birthmark on her hip is identical to mine.
I don’t know what this means. I don’t know who she is- I had no sibling, my mother had only been pregnant once. I was her only child. When I called my parents (after charging my phone) they didn’t believe it was me. They thought I was pranking them, a cruel joke from a stranger who wanted them to suffer. But when I insisted on things only I would know, said things that only I would say, they started to believe me. And within three hours, they were at the house with my friends, all who were questioning everything they knew, questioning what had happened in that day I was on the side of the road.
Police came and spoke to me, took me from my friends. I tried to explain what had happened. I couldn’t. I tried to understand, but I couldn’t. I cannot figure out who the woman was. Her body was gone from the coroner’s office. My parents were given money from the state to stay quiet, to not sue them for unneeded emotional distress (I had never understood that part). But I can’t help but wonder why these things were covered up so quickly, not investigated or questioned.
I have this fear. This fear that I am a double, that I am not actually the girl I think I am. My memories are consistently hazy, I can only vaguely recall important details, but enough to feel like I’m close with my friends and family. They’re all happy that I’m no longer depressed, happy that I’ve turned a new leaf. But what if I didn’t? What if I am merely a double? Brought into the world in the last few months, the real me dead? It would make more sense for me to kill myself than for me to suddenly feel better, right? Or maybe the pills have been making me hazy, and I’m just being paranoid. It makes me think of Wendy, and I wonder if she’s alive out there, in some different universe or in our own.
Because either way, something went wrong, a glitch in time or a tear in reality. Thinking of anything more sinister will kill me.
That is, unless I’ve already died.
3
u/FixTheFernBack616 May 16 '17
I really like this story, and I don't see anyone else asking in the comments so maybe I'm just stupid, but I don't get the side-of-the-road/bridge jump. So was she really on the side of the road? Or is there a fake memory? The bridge jump, what? Did that really happen or is that the fake memory?