Before I start this story, you have to know that I was best friends with Sarah (fake name for privacy reasons) since our first year of high school. I knew her. She knew me. We were like sisters. So when I say that the Sarah I know today is not the Sarah I knew, I mean it.
This isn’t a case of a simple misunderstanding or people just drifting apart - this is real. My Sarah was real.
I understand how insane that sounds and, right now, no one believes me. No one listens to me. Everyone tells me I’m insane and that I should seek help, so I’m posting here, where my story can pass as just another horror story, but I know that some of you had this experience too and some of you will believe me. If only a single person reads this and believes me, I will be at peace because then I will know that I am not, in fact, crazy.
To begin, Sarah was ordinary. I couldn’t describe her as anything else. She had the same hobbies as any teenage girl had at the time. We would watch MTV and VH1 for hours while talking about boys or music. We would go out on bike rides around town on the weekends and get ice creams or whatever seasonal snack was available. We used to go out to the mall and meet our friends for the movies. Sleepovers were so frequent that my family thought of her as a part of it. That’s what the early 2000’s were like. We didn’t have mobile phones, we didn’t use the internet as much as today, so when I say I knew Sarah, I mean it.
It’s 2023 today and the last time I met her was in 2016, yet I see her monthly at my parent’s house, but I know that that’s not her.
Sarah had always had dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Her skin was usually pale or lobster red after a day in the sun. She was short and a realist. I’ve never heard her say something optimistic in her entire life. She was always looking at the situation as if she wasn’t part of it, analysing it and deciding only on facts. I suppose this could make her stand out a bit, but I myself think I am a realist too and I don’t feel any special because of it.
When internet became available everywhere, we created social media accounts on myspace, hi5, twitter and, eventually, facebook. We followed the trends - posting webcam photos, statuses that made you cringe with emo music lyrics, sharing memes from 9gag… It sounds so silly to explain this, but I know that not everyone here was there when these websites just popped up. Heck, we even used windows messenger and skype to talk whenever we were apart.
I hope this is enough to make you understand just how close we were and how much 2016 changed me. I feel like I am stuck in that year, I cannot seem to move on, so I am really trying to write my story in hopes that this will help me cope.
It was a birthday of one of our mutual friends. Sarah and I were both in our mid 20ies by this time. She was working already and I was taking my master’s degree in university. Adult life was finally starting to affect our social life, so when an invitation came for us to go out for a dinner and spend time together, it felt like a blessing. Two birds with one stone - isn’t that what they call it? I thought that meeting more people at once and catching up with all of them at the same time was more practical than just meeting them individually despite knowing I would be exhausted by the end of the night. Sarah was the same. Her job barely gave her time off work besides her weekends that were usually full of overtime as every serving job was. You want to work as a waitress, you got to deal with the constant overtime because someone is quitting or needs a day off. But I never heard Sarah complain. To her, her job meant stability and overtime was just more money she could set aside for an apartment of her own.
The night went as ordinarily as you’d expect. We met up with our friends in a good restaurant, had a few drinks and ate before heading out to the bars to celebrate properly. There was nothing unusual as far as I can remember. Nothing special that could pinpoint the moment Sarah “disappeared”. We even left together since we lived on the same line and took the same metro. Everything was fine. Nothing was wrong. My stop was the first one to come up and I asked her to text me when she gets home so I could know she was fine, but in reality, it was just a polite thing to say. I didn’t say it because I was worried - it was just something people say to their friends. At least I always do.
We said our goodbyes and I left. I received no message from her that night, but it didn’t worry me. We have lived in this same town since we were kids and nothing scary ever happened. You could even see kids playing outside until midnight without having anyone concerned over them. So, when I received no text that night, I just went to sleep and assumed Sarah had gotten home fine. She had taken that line home for the biggest part of her life, so why would this time be any different?
By this time we also talked less and less due to our busy schedules, so I expected to hear from her through her social media instead. And this was my first mistake… If I had just checked up on her, maybe none of this would have never happened.
The photos from the birthday party began to pop up one by one on facebook. I got tagged a few times and had even given a like or two to the photos I found funny, paying no attention to the people who were in them. Sarah had also given a few likes, so from my point of view, she was fine.
It didn’t take me long to notice something after seeing all of the posts - there were no photos of Sarah. She was not in any of them. I wondered if it was possible that she just didn’t want to be in the photos or if more were to come, but as the days dragged on, nothing else was posted. I assumed that it was just a situation of my friend not wanting her picture taken and I let it go. We still did not contact each other… My exams were coming after all and I had no time to be online and scroll when my degree depended on getting something above average for once.
I think it was about two weeks later that I got a notification of a comment on one of the birthday photos and it was about how good Sarah looked in her dress. I was confused because I remembered she did not wear a dress to the party and she was not in the photo. I did analyze the photo again and looked at the woman they were talking about - a blonde lady in a black dress seated right beside me. I wondered if there was another person with the same name as my friend that night that I had just forgotten about, but the more I looked, the more I noticed something odd… This woman was sitting in the place Sarah should have been sitting. I did not remember this woman at all from our party. I didn’t know who this woman was, but she was in every single photo we took that night. I wanted to ask if the commentor had the wrong person, but even I realized how stupid that would sound if it turned out that there was another woman at the party called Sarah that I just didn’t notice. Maybe I had been too tipsy to notice - who knew?
Well I wish that were true.
I went to message Sarah just to have a laugh with her about this, but, when I opened her profile, her photos were all different. The person in her profile picture was the blonde woman. Every other picture was of that blonde woman. Did I have the wrong user? I double checked the name and even went to check if we had exchanged any messages - we did. This was definitely MY Sarah’s profile, but I didn’t understand… who was this woman? Was this a glitch? A little anxious, but not enough to panic, I figured there was an explanation, but when I checked Sarah’s other profiles, they all had the same image of this woman from the party. Had she been hacked? Was this some elaborate prank? I felt a little uneasy and ended up messaging my friend. Her reply struck me as odd in the moment… I asked her how was she doing and her usual “Fine. U?” was replaced with “I am doing great! How are you? Haven’t chatted in forever!” or something cheerful along those lines. I am sorry, I cannot remember the details of our message as it’s been so long, but it was unusual. I am sure some of you know the writing patterns of your friends, so if they were to change, you would notice immediately. I made up an excuse to call her, just because it got me worried, but the voice that answered was NOT Sarah. It was definitely her number, but that voice did not belong to my friend. You can tell me that I might have had bad connection or that phonecalls can change your voice, but when your mom calls you, you know it’s your mom, when your aunt or sister calls you, you know it’s them. You can figure out whose voice you are hearing despite there being some difference during the phonecall. So when I say that this was NOT Sarah, please believe me.
I hung up. It was a panic response. I didn’t know where my friend was and who was this person I was talking to. It did struck me later that someone else could have picked up my friend’s phone, but what were the chances? I was scared to call again. I think that I was begining to panic here. I couldn’t rationalize the sitiuation and my mind began assuming the worst slowly…
This might sound cliché, but I called her parents shortly after. I tried to seem calm and ask about Sarah naturally, saying I couldn’t reach her and that I was wondering if she had been around so I could visit and drop some things for her - they said she had just left for work and that she was just fine. I was told to stop by the next day or just meet her at the diner she worked in. Relief washed over me when I heard this and was glad my friend was fine. I remembered she sent me her schedule, so I went through my saved photos to look for it, but this is when I truly felt like I was losing my mind… My phone was filled with photos of that woman. Photos that I was sure had Sarah in them were replaced with the photos of me with this strange woman. I panicked - I truly did. I was certain I was a part of some sort of hacking as well or some very elaborate joke. I can imagine how someone could see it and think it was funny, but not me.
In my panicked state, I did the only thing that made sense in the moment and that was to go to the diner and talk to her, but at my arrival, the blonde woman was there… She was working there. I felt my throat dry and body shake when she saw me and her name tag read “Sarah”… She approached me and greeted me in this cheerful voice that still echoes inside my head whenever I think of her. It was not her voice… this was not Sarah. Her appearance was all wrong. She was taller, her eyes were green… I just knew that there was no way this was her. Rationalizing the situation, I asked to see the my friend, to which the blond lady asked what other friend did I have working there. I asked for Sarah, she didn’t understand. She was Sarah. I asked for MY Sarah, but she didn’t understand. She was Sarah. I raised my voice, I asked for Sarah, but she WAS Sarah…
I don’t remember the details, but her manager came out to sort our conflict and assured me that she was the only Sarah working there. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t understand what was happening. My Sarah was a brunette with hazel eyes and height everyone picked on for fun. This woman was the opposite… In fact, she didn’t even resemble my friend slightly. I wanted to ask about the photos, about the profile, but I was kicked out before I had the chance.
Something was wrong… Was my friend missing? Should I go to the police? I didn’t have any photos on my phone of Sarah to even be able to report her as a missing person. I am sure there are ways to report a person missing without a picture, but in my distressed state, I figured I couldn’t do it any other way. I can laugh at my naivety now. I thought I had to go home and get a physical photo of her for the police and that’s what I did. I headed home and took out my photo albums to look through them for a photo of Sarah, but even those had been replaced by the blonde woman… I couldn’t understand. Was she inside my home? In my mind this was still an explainable situation.
To my dismay, there was not a single photo of the Sarah I remembered…
Things went downhill from here on. I met Sarah’s parents and they insisted that this blonde woman was their daughter. I tried to play along and ask to see some photos of her as a child, claiming I missed our teenage years, but the photos that were provided were all of this blonde woman. She was in every single one of them - even the ones I was in.
I asked our friends about her, hoping someone would describe the ordinary girl I knew, but instead Sarah was described as an optimist and impulsive. Everyone would frown at me when I mentioned Sarah being a brunette and that she wouldn’t take any sort of risk on an impulse, dismissing me as crazy. But as the time passed, the answers to my questions went from friendly to doors being shut on my face because I was acting like an “insane woman”.
There are no words to describe how I felt and how difficult that year was for me. I didn’t understand how had I just lost my best friend and no one seemed to notice that the person they were meeting with was someone else, completely different from who we knew.
Was it possible that Sarah had done some procedures to look different? Of course! I desired that to be the situation. I prayed that that was it, but nothing explained the new photos. How could they all be different now? How could they have been replaced? How did no one remeber the short brunette girl? I couldn’t get an answer to these questions. To top it all, I was scared. I was terrified, thinking I was going insane. I thought I was losing my mind and I was not sleeping. I dropped out of my masters’ degree because I couldn’t focus on my studies. I quit seeing my friends because I would see her there. The “not” Sarah. I couldn’t take it. I isolated myself for some time and tried to accept that this was whatever it was…
It didn’t help when my parents hosted a Christmas dinner and begged me to come just for me to be faced with the blonde stranger seated at their table, happily chatting with my dad. I tried to explain to my mom what was going on and she too didn’t believe me. Apparently I had caused a big scandal at home that it ended up in me being forced to visit a psychiatrist and a psychologist to talk about this issue. I was told I might have a difficulty recognising some faces even after seeing them often. I wished that this was the truth, but I clearly remembered my Sarah and this Sarah’s faces and I never had issues recognising people I knew.
As you can see, everyone was thinking I was crazy by this point and I was struggling to keep myself together only because I didn’t want to end up in a mental hospital…
I understand my words are becoming scattered here, but it took a lot of energy to summarize and recall some of the scariest moments of my life to write them down - I hope you can be understanding.
In fear of getting hospitalised, I’ve completely tried to isolate myself and shut “Sarah” out of my life. I have met her monthly at my parent’s place as they seem very close to her, but I’ve been trying to move on, to rebuild my life… For years I’ve pretended I am fine and that the whole “my friend is not my friend” situation is in the past. I have even looked for jobs in another countries just so I could move away and start fresh and I have finally succeeded. I thought I was going to be alright. I thought I could do this. I even began to believe that I might have been insane, but, as I was packing up my things, I found an old polaroid. It was of Sarah and I… my Sarah. She was not blonde, she was not tall… she was just right. This photo proves that she existed and that she was real. It’s the only polaroid we ever took and for some reason it’s the only photo that was never replaced… I don’t know how that’s possible, but I have evidence that Sarah was real and that this new woman is not her, but who will believe me?
I am keeping the polaroid as a reminder that I am not crazy and I am moving regardless. I haven’t seen “Sarah” recently and I am glad. I cannot imagine how would I react if I saw her again after this… Is she an impostor? How did she replace Sarah? What happened after the birthday party back in 2016 after I left the metro? Where was my Sarah taken…? These are the questions that will keep me up for many more nights from now on.