Hello everyone
I don’t know why I am writing this- I guess I`m freaking out! The whole thing is just so weird, and I fear I may be losing my mind.
I don’t even know where to start, but I`ll give it a go. Maybe someone reading this has experienced something similar. Maybe someone knows what’s going on.
It’s about my girlfriend, Michelle. We`ve been together for three years now and have been sharing a flat for around half that time. Things haven’t always been perfect but we`re, or at rather were, happy. I had even been saving up to buy a ring. I`ve been working full time while she`s been working on her PhD in some field of physics I`ve never been able to wrap my head around.
Things were fine.
Until they weren’t.
It began on a dark and stormy night. I had just gotten home from a late shift at work, and I left my boots out in the hallway as Michelle absolutely hates the smell of wet boots. If the neighbors mind the smell they haven’t said so, so I figure they`re fine with it. The hallway is quite well ventilated to begin with.
There were several black trash bags outside of our door. I imagined Michelle had done some thorough cleaning though I didn’t think we had that much trash to begin with. I am a decently tidy person, and she has always been a bit of a neat freak.
As I got inside everything seemed normal. I heard Michelle softly singing her favorite Taylor Swift song in the kitchen, and the delicious smell of a home- cooked meal filled my nostrils. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
The illusion of placid normalcy shattered abruptly as I entered the kitchen. As I entered, I was surprised to find not Michelle but rather a young black woman stirring the pot. I briefly wondered if it was a friend of Michelle I had never met, but as soon as I entered, she stopped singing and smiled at me.
“Welcome home darling!” she said “Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes. I was thinking we could watch some “Manifest” yeah? I want to know if Mike and Saanvi get together”
I was momentarily flabbergasted, but my initial confusion gradually turned to abject fear. The strange woman was dressed in Michelle’s favorite pajamas, a thin pink top with a “My Little Pony” logo and a pair of loose cotton trousers. She was even wearing Michelle’s earrings, two small silver vortexes adorned with deep- blue sapphires that I had purchased at no small expense.
“Hey, what are you staring at?” The woman asked playfully. Even her mannerisms were a pitch perfect replica of Michelle’s, yet this woman was obviously not my freckled, ginger girlfriend.
“Where is Michelle!?” I asked, trying my best to keep an even tone. The woman laughed, covering her mouth with her left hand. Its back had a horizontal scar, one identical to the one Michelle had gotten as a child after a minor surgery.
“Well, I don’t know! Who is this “Michelle” you speak of stranger?” The stranger replied while still smiling. She bent forward, as if leaning in for a kiss. I recoiled instinctively. She looked confused.
“Is something wrong?” She asked, with at concerned frown that was almost impossible like Michelle’s.
“Sorry, I ate some onion earlier. I should probably brush my teeth”
I was too confused about the strangers weird behavior to demand answers., though I spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out what was going on. It soon became obvious the woman was pretending to be Michelle and doing a splendid job of it. Her every expression, idiosyncrasy and gesture were perfect. She spoke about old memories and future plans as if she knew them by heart. Eventually I tried to trip her up, to get some confirmation that this woman wasn’t actually my Michelle if only for the sake of my own sanity.
“Hey, remember that time we went to Japan, and I broke my right arm snowboarding?”
“You weren’t snowboarding, you were skiing, and it was the left arm” She smiled slightly and punched me lightly on the shoulder “Otherwise you couldn’t have played as much Call of Duty as you did while you were recovering”
“Oh… hey, maybe we could take a look at some old vacation pictures?”
“Sure honey, I`d love to”
A chill went through me as our television displayed the first picture. I remembered the picture well and it was identical in every way but for one fact; my Michelle had been substituted for this strange woman. There was still the small smudge of mustard at the corner of her mouth that she had been terribly embarrassed by when she finally noticed it, still the seashell bracelet that had broken only days after buying it, still the breeze blowing our hair; everything was identical save that one of the two people in the picture had been replaced.
We spent the next hour or so going through old pictures. Each one of them had been altered in the same eerie way- identical to how they should be but starring someone else in the role of my girlfriend.
“Is something wrong honey?” The stranger asked. I shook my head and faked a smile. I don’t think she bought it. I was sweating bullets. My insides were in an uproar, and my mouth dry from dread. Somewhere behind my head I heard the buzzing of a fly.
“Actually, I`m not fine. I think I ate something I shouldn’t have”
I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I promptly locked the door. The bathroom was identical, save that Michelle’s large bottle of children’s SPF 50+ Sunscreen that she used almost religiously was gone. I sat on the toilet seat and flipped through the pictures on my phones hard- drive. Every picture starring Michelle was altered. They now featured the stranger sitting in my living room. I went online and checked Michelle’s Facebook account, with the same terrifying yet predictable result.
I checked her parents and sisters accounts. I recognized their names, pictures and even some particularly insane political views espoused by her crazy uncle on his relatives’ timelines, but not a single one of their faces. Each one of Michelle’s family members had been similarly exchanged for a stranger. I stared at the profile picture of her dad, or that should have been of her dad. His policeman’s uniform was the same, as was his Tom Selleck- esque moustache, but the African- American man frowning back at me was decidedly not the gruff Irish- American man I had spent years unsuccessfully trying to get to like me. My friendship request was still at “Sent” by the way.
Almost coming apart, I got a flash on inspiration and checked the shower drain. Michelle’s hair tended to clog it up, but when I lifted the metallic covering, I found not the long red strands I was hoping for, but rather curly black ones. Had the impostor put wet hair in the shower drain? Attention to such a tiny detail seemed almost insane, but clearly, they must have.
I am still sitting in the bathroom, typing furiously at my phone. I am terrified. The stranger has knocked a couple of times and asked in a worried voice if I need anything. I just pretend it’s a normal case of gastroenteritis. I don’t know why I keep playing along, she clearly knows that she isn’t the person she is pretending to be. That was a lie, I do know; I am frightened what she will do once whatever demented game she is playing is over.
I don’t know who could or would have gone to such insane lengths to gaslight me like this. How do you even go about doing it? Whoever did this must have not only been watching us for months or years, trained to mimic Michelle’s mannerisms, kidnapped Michelle, doctored thousands of pictures and hacked several databases. Even a billionaire or a government shouldn’t have that kind of resources. I am scared for my own sake, but also for that of Michelle. What has happened to her?
The person or persons responsible clearly isn’t actually intending for the replacement to be able to impersonate Michelle, or they would have picked someone who looked even remotely like her. They likely would have gotten rid of me as well.
Maybe they still intend to.
If someone is reading this and knows anything, ANYTHING, that might help please let me know. I don’t know what to do.
Please help me