Chapter 8

Find the article.

Three words. The last thing the other me would ever tell me, scratched out in handwriting so shaky it barely qualified as letters. Their final act before fading into whatever comes after you stop existing.

I sat in bed until the sun came up, turning those words over in my head like a coin I couldn't stop flipping. What article? From where? About what?

The obvious answer was the three missing days. Eight months ago, when I'd apparently vanished from my own life and come back as something else. If I'd gone missing, someone might have reported it. Someone might have written about it.

But I'd already searched for that. Back when I was trying to piece together what happened during those seventy-two hours. I'd combed through local news, police reports, anything that might explain where I'd been. Found nothing.

Maybe I'd been looking in the wrong places. Or maybe I'd been looking for the wrong thing.

I got out of bed around 7 AM. Made coffee because my body demanded it, even though my hands were shaking too badly to hold the cup steady. Sat down at my laptop and started searching again.

This time I wasn't looking for missing persons reports. I was looking for anything. Any mention of my name in any context during those three days and the weeks surrounding them.

The first few pages of results were useless. Old social media posts. A work email that had somehow gotten indexed. My name on a conference attendee list from two years ago.

I kept digging. Added more search terms. My name plus the dates. My name plus my city. My name plus "incident" and "accident" and "hospital" and every other word I could think of that might flag something unusual.

Nothing.

I tried searching for the address on the business card. The building I'd visited yesterday, with its walls covered in photographs of my forgotten life. Property records showed it was owned by a holding company with a generic name. The holding company was owned by another holding company. The trail disappeared into corporate paperwork designed to obscure rather than reveal.

Dead end.

I searched for her next. Which was harder because I didn't have a name. Just a face I sort of remembered and a gray coat and the vague sense that I'd known her once, in a life I couldn't access anymore.

I tried describing her in search terms. Dark hair. Average height. Whatever details I could pull from the photographs I'd taken from that room. It was useless. You can't Google someone based on "woman who claims she made me."

By noon I'd hit the wall. That particular kind of frustration where you've been staring at a screen so long the words start swimming and you can't remember what you were looking for in the first place.

I got up. Paced around my apartment. Ended up standing in front of the closet door I'd nailed shut, staring at those nail heads like they might have answers.

Find the article.

The other me had been specific. Not "find information" or "search online" or any other vague instruction. The article. Singular. Like there was one particular piece of writing that would explain everything.

Something I'd missed.

I went back to my laptop and tried a different approach. Instead of searching for myself, I searched for the phenomenon. People who wake at the same time every night. Parallel selves. Reality glitches. The kind of fringe stuff I'd explored eight months ago when this all started.

Most of it was garbage. Reddit posts from people who'd watched too many sci-fi movies. YouTube videos with ominous music and no actual content. The usual internet noise.

But buried on page six of the results, I found a link to a local newspaper archive. Small paper, the kind that covers city council meetings and high school sports and not much else. The headline that had been indexed was unrelated to anything I was searching for.

But below it, in the sidebar of "related articles," my eye caught something.

LOCAL MAN FOUND DISORIENTED AFTER THREE-DAY DISAPPEARANCE

The preview text was cut off. Just enough to see that it was dated eight months ago.

I clicked through to the archive. Hit a paywall. Paid the twelve dollars for a monthly subscription without hesitation. The page loaded.

And there it was.

A photograph of my face. Not a good one. The kind of grainy image that comes from a driver's license or a work ID, blown up past what the resolution could handle. But unmistakably me.

The article was short. Maybe three hundred words. The kind of brief coverage that local papers give to stories that aren't quite interesting enough to pursue but are too strange to ignore entirely.

LOCAL MAN FOUND DISORIENTED AFTER THREE-DAY DISAPPEARANCE

[My name], 32, was found wandering near the intersection of Maple and 5th Street early Saturday morning, three days after being reported missing by concerned coworkers.

According to police spokesperson Janet Mills, [my name] was discovered in a confused state and was unable to account for his whereabouts during the time he was missing. He was taken to St. Margaret's Hospital for evaluation and later released.

"He appeared to be in good physical health but was experiencing significant memory gaps," Mills said. "There's no evidence of foul play at this time."

[My name]'s disappearance was reported on Wednesday after he failed to show up for work for two consecutive days without notice. His car was found in the parking lot of his apartment building, and neighbors reported not seeing him since Tuesday evening.

Anyone with information about [my name]'s whereabouts during the missing period is asked to contact local police.

I read it three times. Then three more.

Reported missing by concerned coworkers. Failed to show up for work. Car in the parking lot. Neighbors hadn't seen me.

I had no memory of any of this. Not the disappearance, not being found, not the hospital. None of it.

But here it was. Documented. Published. Real in a way that couldn't be explained away as planted evidence or manufactured memories.

I'd gone missing. And I'd come back.

And apparently, I'd completely forgotten that any of it happened.

I scrolled down to see if there were any follow-up articles. Found one, dated a week later.

POLICE CLOSE INVESTIGATION INTO LOCAL MAN'S DISAPPEARANCE

The brief investigation into the disappearance of [my name] has been closed, police confirmed Monday.

"We found no evidence of criminal activity," spokesperson Janet Mills stated. "The individual in question was unable to provide information about his whereabouts, and without any witnesses or evidence of wrongdoing, there's nothing further to investigate."

[My name] could not be reached for comment.

That was it. Case closed. Man vanishes for three days, comes back with no memory, and everyone just shrugs and moves on.

I thought about the other me. The way they'd looked at me that first night they were awake, with fear and something like recognition. The messages they'd sent. Don't trust her. The memories are bait. I'm sorry.

They'd known. The whole time, they'd known what I was. Known that I wasn't the person who'd walked into whatever happened eight months ago. Known that I was something else wearing that person's life.

And they'd tried to warn me anyway.

I'm sorry.

Sorry for what? For using me as camouflage, like she'd said? For hiding inside me while I lived their life? Or sorry for what was about to happen now that they were gone and she was almost done with whatever she was building?

I needed more information. The article was a start, but it didn't tell me where I'd been during those three days. Didn't tell me what had happened to change me into whatever I was now.

St. Margaret's Hospital. The article said I'd been taken there for evaluation.

I grabbed my keys.

The hospital was a twenty-minute drive. One of those sprawling medical complexes that had grown organically over decades, with wings and annexes and parking structures that didn't quite connect in ways that made sense. I'd never been there before.

Or I didn't remember being there before.

The woman at the front desk looked up when I approached. She had the expression of someone who'd answered too many stupid questions already today.

"I need to access my medical records," I said. "From about eight months ago. I was brought in for evaluation after a... an incident."

She pointed me toward the records department. Third floor, east wing, follow the colored lines on the floor.

I followed the lines. Found myself in a waiting room with fluorescent lighting and plastic chairs and that particular hospital smell that's equal parts disinfectant and despair. Took a number. Sat down.

The wait gave me time to think. Which wasn't necessarily a good thing.

What was I going to find in those records? Evidence of what had happened to me? Some clinical description of the "confused state" the newspaper mentioned? Or would it be like everything else, scrubbed clean of anything useful?

My number got called. I walked up to another desk, handed over my ID, explained what I was looking for.

The woman behind this desk was older, more efficient. She typed my information into her computer, frowned slightly, typed some more.

"You were admitted on March 15th," she said. "Released the same day. The records are here, but..." She trailed off, still frowning at her screen.

"But what?"

"There's a note. Restricting access to the evaluation documentation." She looked up at me. "It says the records were sealed at the patient's request."

"I'm the patient."

"I understand that, but the restriction is still in place. You'd need to file a formal request to have it lifted. Takes about two weeks to process."

Two weeks. Two weeks of whatever was happening to me continuing to happen. Two weeks of becoming whatever she wanted me to become.

"Can you tell me anything? Anything at all?"

She glanced back at her screen. Hesitated. There was something in her expression that looked almost like sympathy.

"The intake notes aren't restricted," she said finally. "Just the evaluation itself. I can print those for you."

"Please. Yes. Anything."

She clicked a few buttons. A printer hummed somewhere behind her. She handed me a single sheet of paper.

"That's all I can give you without the formal request."

I thanked her more times than was probably normal and walked back to the waiting area to read what she'd given me.

Patient Name: [my name] DOB: [my birthdate] Date of Admission: March 15 Time of Admission: 6:47 AM Brought in by: Police transport Reason for Visit: Evaluation following reported disorientation

Initial Assessment Notes: Patient found wandering at Maple/5th intersection, appeared confused but not distressed. Responding to questions but answers inconsistent. Unable to state current date or account for past 72 hours. No visible injuries. Vitals normal. Patient cooperative but affect notably flat.

Note from transporting officer: Patient was found standing motionless at intersection, did not respond to initial contact. When officer approached, patient stated "She's almost done" before becoming responsive. Patient then appeared confused and asked where he was.

I stopped reading.

Read that last part again.

Patient stated "She's almost done" before becoming responsive.

The same words. The exact same words I'd whispered at 3:33 AM, captured on my own recording. Eight months apart, but the same phrase.

She's almost done.

Whatever process she'd started eight months ago, it was still happening. Still running. I'd been saying those words for eight months without knowing it, reporting on her progress like some kind of involuntary messenger.

And now, according to her, she was almost finished.

I left the hospital. Sat in my car in the parking garage for a long time, that single sheet of paper sitting on my passenger seat like it might explode.

The other me had wanted me to find this. Had used their last moments of existence to point me toward evidence that I'd been saying her words since the beginning. That whatever I was had been in progress this whole time, running in the background while I lived my life and thought I was normal.

But why? What good did knowing do? The other me was gone. I couldn't ask them questions anymore. Couldn't get clarification on what any of this meant or how to stop it.

Unless knowing was enough. Unless understanding what I was could change what I was becoming.

The intake notes mentioned I'd been found at Maple and 5th. I pulled up maps on my phone. The intersection was only about ten minutes away.

I drove there. Not sure what I expected to find. The spot where I'd been reassembled eight months ago? A portal to wherever I'd actually been? Some kind of evidence that would make this all make sense?

It was just an intersection. A stoplight. A gas station on one corner, a strip mall on another. Cars passing through without stopping. Nothing special at all.

I parked at the gas station and walked to the corner where the officer had found me standing motionless. Stood there myself, feeling stupid, looking around for anything that might trigger a memory.

Nothing.

Just concrete and traffic and the particular emptiness of a place that exists only to be passed through on the way to somewhere else.

I was about to leave when I noticed the woman.

Not her. Not the gray coat and dark hair I'd come to dread. This was someone else. Older, with a shopping bag on her arm. She'd stopped on the opposite corner and was staring at me with an expression I couldn't quite identify.

I stared back.

She crossed the street. Walked right up to me. The expression on her face resolved into something like wonder mixed with fear.

"It's you," she said. "Oh my god. It's actually you."

I didn't recognize her. Not even vaguely.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"I was there. Eight months ago. I was the one who called the police." She was clutching her shopping bag like it was the only thing keeping her upright. "You were standing right here, in the middle of the intersection. Cars were honking, going around you. And you just stood there."

My mouth had gone dry. "What did you see?"

"That's the thing." Her voice dropped, like she was telling me a secret. "That's what I've been trying to figure out for months. Because you weren't standing there when I first looked. I would have seen you. I was waiting for the light. And then I looked up and you were just... there. In the middle of the street. Like you'd appeared out of thin air."

She looked at me with those wondering, frightened eyes.

"Where did you come from? Where did you go for those three days? Because I've thought about it every day since then, and I can't figure it out. People don't just appear out of nowhere."

I didn't have an answer for her.

But standing there, on the corner where I'd materialized eight months ago, speaking words I didn't remember learning, I was starting to understand what the other me had been trying to tell me.

They weren't the parallel universe version.

They weren't the copy.

They were the original. The real person who'd lived in my apartment and worked my job and dated Sarah and chosen gray curtains over blue.

And eight months ago, something had overwritten them with me.

I was the replacement. The thing that appeared out of nowhere. The construct that she had been building, patiently, over years of photographs and planning.

And now I was almost done.