I’m posting this from a dead woman’s phone.
Her name wasn’t really Annie. My name isn’t really Brian. I suppose she was trying to switch out some details for privacy, so she changed our names. She changed other things, too. She’s allergic to almonds, not sesame. Her mother died, not her father. And we never broke up. I’ve had a ring hidden in my sock drawer for months, just waiting for the right time. I know all about her past and it never bothered me. I think she was exaggerating a little anyway.
I hope she was exaggerating. I have a hard time picturing Annie stabbing a guy in a restaurant. I suppose he had it coming.
She didn’t mention that she sent me a message before she posted here, telling me her coordinates so I could find her and “Skyler.” She was sparse on details but she did say she was hurt and she was trapped, so I don’t think I’ve ever been more afraid. I could hardly breathe, even when I was running. I really should have sent someone else to get her, because I was way too close to the situation, but I was literally “close” and no one else could get there faster.
I couldn’t get there fast enough either. I suppose she knew that. If I accept her story, she got me to try over and over and I never make it in time. I never save my Annie.
I didn’t know that when I went for her. She marked her trail, just like we’re supposed to. She sent me everything I needed to find her, so it only took me a few hours to get to her and find the crevasse she and Skyler fell into. It’s easy to miss, tucked up at the edge of some thick underbrush. If I wasn’t hyper-aware of the danger, I might have stumbled in too. I don’t blame her for not seeing it.
I tied off to a sturdy tree, radioed in and reported what I was doing, and started climbing down. It was a tight fit, but I’m a big guy. Skyler was small even for twelve (another detail Annie changed) and Annie is five feet tall and 100 lbs soaking wet.
Was.
I think I knew what I was climbing down to find. I called out a couple of times, but I wasn’t really expecting an answer.
It was early evening and the light was fading, but I had a headlamp. I remember the reflection glinting off something at the bottom. I guess that was Skyler’s mirror.
I don’t have the right words for what happened when I got to the bottom. Skyler was cold and long gone. Annie was…
Nevermind. I’ve known Annie since we were eleven and I was going to marry her. I woke up with her feet stuck under me that morning, just like every other morning for the past two years. I’m not going to go into gory detail about what Annie was like when I found her. It’s enough that you know she’s dead.
Her phone locks automatically after ten minutes but she set it up so my thumbprint unlocks it, just like hers. That’s how I found her post and how I’m posting on her account.
“AnniesDeadAgain” is so like her. Staring death in the face - maybe for the hundredth time in a row - and she was still making jokes at her own expense.
I stayed in the bottom of the crevasse with Annie and Skyler until the rest of my team got there. Two hours in the cold and dark with the body of an innocent kid and the woman I loved. That would be the worst time in my whole life if I didn’t unlock Annie’s phone yesterday and find her post.
Do I believe her? It’s crazy, right? She lied about little things, so did she lie about all of it?
But why in God’s name would Annie spend the last hours of her life making up a story to post on reddit? She never posted online. Annie was a voracious reader of all things gossip and gore, but she only consumed content. I’ve got a chat history full of links to dumb memes and drama from strangers. Annie was a particular fan of those “Best Of” subreddits where people repost stories with follow-ups, especially when the subject is a terrible relationship. She also liked to pick wildly inappropriate times to send me pictures from a subreddit where guys dress up their junk in little costumes and post snapshots. Frigging internet, man. It takes all kinds.
That was Annie. She loved stupid jokes, other peoples’ drama, and penis puppets. She was weird and funny and absolutely fearless.
If I believe what she posted, I understand now why she was fearless. She used to scare the juice out of me with the stuff she would do on the job, but she never told me why she felt safe. I remember when she saved that kid from the river. We all marveled at how she managed to not only find him, but get him out of a half-submerged tree without even hesitating to get her bearings. I suspect she didn’t just die once figuring out how to do it just right. She clearly didn’t mind bending a few details, so I wouldn’t put it past her to downplay how much work she put into perfecting that save.
If I believe her.
I don’t want to believe her. Losing Annie is hell and I feel like screaming or sobbing or drinking myself senseless. Or all three. But losing her is still better than thinking she’s still out there in some way, dying over and over, alone and scared forever. I can live without Annie, I think. I can’t live with knowing she’s suffering like that.
Fear isn’t tearing through the woods trying to get to your trapped and injured girlfriend so you can help her. Fear isn’t climbing down into a pit, knowing there’s nothing but grief waiting at the bottom. Fear isn’t even sitting in the dark with the broken remains of the woman you were supposed to spend your life with.
Fear is knowing that Annie wouldn’t make up a story like this.
I’m posting here under Annie’s account because I can’t leave things this way. I have to save her. I read all the comments on her story and I stole the mirror from the box we were saving to give back to Skyler’s parents so that I could smash it. Nothing changed. I need more ideas. I need somewhere to even start.
I’m not going to give up on her. Even if I can’t get her back, I will not leave her where she is.
One of the side effects of working in Search and Rescue for eight years is more exposure than anyone needs to the local collection of psychics, occultists, and crackpots. I don’t believe in any of that crap, but before yesterday I would not have believed that my girlfriend has some kind of quantum immortality (I might have been an idiot when I was seventeen but I didn’t spend my college years pickling myself like Annie). I am going to turn over every wild and implausible rock I can find until I come up with a way to save Annie.
And I’m going to look at myself in the mirror every morning before I leave the house, just in case.