I only get an hour on my phone a day. I don’t know what to do. I typed this up in case any of you can help. I’m afraid I’m gonna act according to her wishes soon.
-
It all started when my twin found my diary. You know the embarrassing diary you kept when you were little where you wrote all about how much you hate your family? Yep, I kept one and it was unfortunately -maybe a little more than unfortunately- found. But I should back up.
Ever since we were little, my twin was strange. She wouldn’t talk, but instead would stare into space for hours. It was like she was talking to someone in her head. She’d giggle and then return to that blank stare. My parents were concerned but the doctors brushed it off as “natural development” and that “she’ll grow out of it.” We all decided to simply ignore this strange… quirk of hers.
Over the years, it did indeed get better. I could see my parents gradually relax as she became more animated and behaved just as any other little girl would. She’d sometimes slip back into her trance, but we saw it as progress. After all, old habits die hard. The day she completely grew out of it was the day she found my diary.
“SYLVIA YOU ARE SO DEAD!” She flung open my bedroom door and threw the diary at my face. Ouch. I scrambled to pick it up and my heart dropped. I’d written things in there that should’ve never seen the light of day. Yet here they were, words of hate lying bare to my twin’s red eyes. The diary had ripped when it hit me and pages were flying everywhere. Occasionally, pictures of a girl with crossed out eyes and tongue sticking out flew past my vision.
“Look, I can explain. I was young-”
“YOUNG?” Her eyes reddened even more as she sneered at the pages that had scattered around my bed. She stomped on one of the drawings and dug her foot into the ground.
“Fine. You hate me that much? I’ll make you hate me so much that you’ll start wishing you were dead.”She turned and slammed my door, hard enough that some dried paint fell off the walls. I stared down at the drawing, which now only featured a decapitated head.
I thought my twin was just bluffing. After all, how much would a 16 year old girl really do besides maybe smash a few plates and blame it on me? I cleaned up my room and went to sleep. The next morning as I was brushing my teeth, I got a text from my twin. “Come down :)” I rolled my eyes. Maybe she walked around the house with muddy shoes. I sighed and went down the stairs, anticipating my inevitable doom of getting my phone taken away.
The smell greeted me first. It was absolutely disgusting. Imagine a homeless man who hasn’t bathed in 40 years got sprayed in the face by a skunk. Ugh. This guaranteed being grounded for a week. I pinched my nose and saw mud smeared all across the tile floors. There was another substance too and as I examined it closer, my heart dropped. Blood. It was all over the floor, the walls, even the ceiling. Phone. Where’s my phone? I gotta call 911.
“I wouldn’t call if I were you.” My twin’s voice was right behind me.
I whirled around, coming face to face with her smirk. Blood was smeared across her face, and even more stained the once pristine white dress she got for her 14th birthday. Alright, my twin was obviously the culprit here. Maybe it was just a joke. I consoled myself, trying to think of the best case scenario. It was just a joke, and the blood isn’t actually blood. Just grape juice! My thoughts kept grasping at straws, trying to convince me that this was all just a ploy gone wrong. But deep down I knew that wasn’t the case. Something terrible had happened and it was my twin who did it.
“What did you do?” I tried to make my voice as un-shaky as possible, but it came out as a whisper. A grin spread across my twin’s face as she started playing with her hair.
“Oh nothing, just that our dear parents ran outside in the middle of the night and tragically fell into a dumpster…” her voice trailed off, and shivers ran down my spine as her grin grew even wider. “…right into trashbags full of knives.”
I don’t remember clearly what happened after that. I think I screamed, a lot of pushing and shoving, alot of blood and the mangled corpses of my mom and dad. I think I blacked out. I’m not sure. What I do know is that when I woke up, the house was clean. Not a speck of dust. Not a single thing out of place. The only thing that told me I hadn’t dreamt the whole thing up was the notably missing presence of my parents.
She didn’t stop there. Next was my boyfriend. Then my best friend. Then the dog. Then the next door neighbor. Some of you might be wondering why I didn’t just call the cops. I tried. I tried so many times. I was even desperate enough to try to reach out to the FBI. Nothing worked. Each time, my twin would lure me to a scene of blood and gore, and each time, the police would arrive at a scene of fresh grass and clear skies. They noticed the missing people of course. But they said they could only file a missing person report. No other evidence suggested that they were dead besides my words. Even if they were dead, I was the number one suspect. After all, all the “missing people” were connected to me in some way, shape, or form. I was the one who kept calling and describing how their guts were spilling out of their stomach or how they were missing fingers and toes. I was the one they discovered blacked out at the supposed scene of crime.
I told them it was my twin of course, but their eyes just grew more and more suspicious. Each time, I got questioned for hours on end about her, and each time, it ended with both me and the police officer frustrated. I became known as the crazy girl suffering from a hyperactive imagination. After the high school principal was killed, or “missing” according to the official records, I was forced to talk to a therapist.
“Now Sylvia, I understand you know what happened to the principal?” Her tone was full of warmth, but her eyes were cold. She seemed to have already passed judgment on me, but that wasn’t gonna stop me from trying to convince her.
“Yes, it was my twin! It started because of a stupid diary I’d written when I was 10 but at this point, I think what I wrote was justified. I mean, just look at the mess we’re in right now. She said she’d make me hate myself to the point of suicide-”
The therapist eyes narrowed and I clammed up. My hands started to sweat as she peered at me over her blue rimmed glasses.
“Can you repeat what you just said?”
“I said, she said she would make me hate myself-”
“‘Myself?’ and not her?”
Shit. “It was just a slip of the tongue. I meant her.” The therapist sighed and pulled out a stack of manilla folders. “I don’t think it was a mere slip, Sylvia. After all, you don’t have a twin.”
I froze. I… didn’t have a twin? Impossible. I grew up with her. She was my twin. We did everything together. She’s lying. She has to be. I grabbed the first folder and flipped through it. One birth certificate. A record of a woman having only one baby. Countless family photos of just me and an empty space where my twin should’ve been.
“No… no no no. THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! I’VE SEEN THIS PHOTO BEFORE. SHE STOOD RIGHT FUCKING THERE. I KNOW WHAT I SAW. I’M NOT FUCKING CRAZY!”
The therapist cleared her throat. “Actually, you used to have a twin.” Oh. She just misspoke. I loosened my grip on the folder and laughed dryly. The therapist picked up the next folder and flipped it open for me to see.
“This isn’t a laughing matter, Sylvia. The doctor confirmed that you ate your twin in the womb.”
-
I was declared insane and was put in a psych ward. But I know I’m not. I know. When I stare off into space, I hear her laughing. I hear her crowing about her victory over me. She eggs me on, telling me that killing a nurse would be a much better pastime than staring at a wall. After all, I already know how to clean up a crime scene.