I grew up in Stevensville, Ohio in a loving family of four. Myself, my older brother Ryan, my mom, and my dad. Stevensville was a small city in the southeastern area in Ohio. It was a great city. Nice people, good food, summer activities, and what not.
But here’s the problem. Stevensville doesn’t exist, at least not in this reality. That was about a year ago. I lived my entire life up until 26 years old knowing home sweet home Stevensville. One day it all changed. I wanted to visit Stevensville for an afternoon lunch and so I punched in the exact same GPS coordinates as I remembered. When I arrived at my destination, I was in the middle of nowhere basically. Not even on a highway, just a long narrow two-way street with massive mountains off in the distance. I am more than one hundred percent sure there were no mountains in the city.
Confusing? Absolutely. But what was even more confusing is that I was the only one who remembered Stevensville. Not my brother, my mom, or my dad. I even tried doing extensive research on the city and gave up short, frustrated and even more confused and eager to solve this mystery.
Fast forward to last week. I had a thought. “If none of my family remembers Stevensville, and there’s no information on the internet, surely there must be strangers who do.” So I conducted an in person survey, asking strangers in my area if they remembered Stevensville. And the results: out of 10,203 people surveyed, not a single person remembered Stevensville.
It couldn’t have been a collective prank played by the 10,203 people no? What are the odds they come together and decide to answer no to my survey question. Stevensville obviously didn’t exist, but I still wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Ryan bro how come you don’t remember. You even have a hoodie that said ‘Home of Stevensville’.”
“You”
I ran up the stairs, bursted into his room, and opened his closet before he could respond.
I saw the same blue hoodie and I nearly confidently yelled “Look!” but just before I read the front of the hoodie, ‘Home of Cambridge’”.
“Th-the fuck.”
“Dude please get out of my room, really man. I’m worried about you bro. You need to see somebody.”
“I d”
Ryan cut me off.
“You need to see somebody. You’re having hallucinations, man. It’s ten thousand versus you. I think it’s obvious who’s right. Plus your hyperfixation on the existence of this city is not healthy.”
The next day I was forced to see a psychiatrist by my family.
“Hello what’s your name and what are you here for?” The psychiatrist said in a robotic tone at least according to me.
“laughs yeah I’m Reed and I’m here for, believe it or not, remembering a city that did not exist. laughs”.
“Ohhh, um that’s a little concerning okay, are you a diagnosed schizophrenic?”
I was infuriated by the comment and by the fact that my brother and parents sent me there, wasting my time.
“No!! Ryan, mom, dad! Seriously! What’s wrong with you guys?! Why’s it such a big deal?”
I ran out the building and into the car. Ryan came out about two minutes later and calmed me down.
“She’s going to prescribe you to take 30mg of vyvanse daily.”
“laughs well what’s that gonna fix?”
“It should help with your hyperfixation and desire to spend all day and up all night doing research trying to find residue of the city.”
“Bro you don’t understand..”
Ryan threw me the bottle of medication.
Later that night I took the required 30mg and fell asleep within minutes.
“Morning Reed. How did you sleep?” My brother asked with a grin on his face.
“Amazing. The last thing I remember was taking the medication.” I replied in a groggy tone.
“That’s good. But oh yeah, I forgot to say but that medication makes you very sleepy.”
“Are you fucking serious.” In the middle of an extreme anger issue episode, I grabbed a kitchen knife and flinged it straight towards my brother. It hit his neck and he started bleeding everywhere. In a flight response I grabbed my keys and made my way to the car and got in and drove away.
“Fuck. FUCK!”
I started realizing how badly I overreacted. I probably killed him but I wasn’t going back. I drove to the closest park and had a mental breakdown.
“Should I turn myself in? Where do I go? How would my parents react? Should I live off the grid? Should I just kill myself?” These thoughts ran through my head like volts of electricity for hours.
The next thing I remembered was waking up in a hospital.
“He’s awake. Thank goodness.” I heard before fully opening my eyes.
“Hey, I’m nurse Sammie. You seem to be doing okay. I’m going to go check on other patients but if you need anything please hit this alarm, okay.”
I nodded. From being so tired, I feel asleep and woke up about an hour later to a TV. I was bored and I wanted to watch TV so I turned on the TV to channel one. What I saw disturbed me, it was a camera of my hospital room. I about got up in a fit of rage to tell the hospital to stop recording me but I turned to channel 2. It got weirder. I saw myself back at the park. Channel three was what looked like a video of my family eating dinner, including myself. Channel 4 was a video of my parents grieving the loss of me. Channel 5 is where the place I remembered, Stevensville, existed.
I went down the list of channels and it only got weirder and more disturbing. Channel 16 was myself bloody on the kitchen floor instead of my brother. Channel 17 was my entire family and I, bloody and dead on the floor. Channel 92 was a video of my hospital room in flames and I was strapped to the chair screaming and crying. Channel 108 was me flying a plane into the World Trade Center. Channel 146 looked like a society in which humans never existed and the world was ruled by dinosaurs.
So you may think this reality is the one and only reality that we know and live in. Take my example as a primary source from an alternate reality