Rough DraftA Story by ThighsOfZeusNot SureSo, this all started technically about a month ago. Well, it’s been like thirty something days to me, but sometimes days are skipped. I didn’t notice the first couple of times, but then I fell asleep on a Monday and woke up on a Monday. Sorry, I know it’s a bit confusing, believe me, I know. The point is it wasn’t always like this. The last day I had as myself didn’t even seem that special. I just got home after my classes, went to the gym, then picked up my nephew from their school. It was the normal routine. My brother and his wife were home late and asked if I could drop my nephew off, that wasn’t part of the normal routine, but it wasn’t unusual. I picked up some tallboys- Pabsts and Trulys like usual- on my way home from the gas station, said hi to my mom when I got back, then messed around on the computer then Xbox while I drank. I texted some friends after a while, having weird conversations that I’d usually feel embarrassed about in the morning. Well, the embarrassment never really came since I woke up in a stranger’s apartment. At first, I was really disoriented. I don’t know if it made it better or worse that I wasn’t hungover at all. Looking at the open closet next to the bed, I saw suits and ties. This came as a shock, as I was pretty sure that I was straight, and I didn’t even think that I drank enough to blackout the previous night. Out of embarrassment or confusion, I instinctively rubbed my face with both hands, starting at my eyes. That’s when I felt the unfamiliar features and beard. I hope you never have to experience it, but the sensation of rubbing “your face” when it’s not “your face” is downright bizarre. I think the beard made me realize quicker that something was up, but still. Anyway, I fell out of bed and crawled towards a mirror. A thirty something year old (bearded) man crawled back at me. This made me reel back and crawl up against the wall. After the initial shock subsided, the rest of the day went by with me holed up in the apartment, ignoring his phone calls, and watching T.V., mostly the cooking and reality channels, waiting for myself to wake up. I started feeling tired, I realized that maybe falling asleep could wake me up, so I burrito-ed myself in a blanket and fell asleep on the couch. The next day I was a girl in her dorm. After doing a couple of the things that I always imagined I would do in that scenario, I got out of the shower and started to face reality. I was stuck in whatever nightmare I found myself in. I considered diving out the window, but movies like Groundhog Day make that situation seem a lot easier than it would be. Maybe I just wasn’t at the point where possible death seemed like a good escape. The days since the first two have been kind of a blur. I think I’ve learned some things being in this situation. For one, it’s hard to guess phone passwords. The days usually start with me locking whoever I am out of their phone. Also, when dealing with families, usually acting out of it, and saying “I’m just tired” gets me through the morning. Sometimes the husband or wife will get a little mad at me, but the kids don’t really notice. Being a kid again can be weird, but it’s easier to take naps as them, and yeah, people really don’t believe most of what I say, much less that I’m not their kid. Believe me, it's better that I don’t try explaining anything. I tried telling the situation to my guy’s girlfriend once, and we got in a relationship ending fight. Apparently, the guy was “untrustworthy” and “uncaring” lately, and she saw it as a weird Hail Mary to not talk about it. I even told her my original name and she just said she was done with me/him and left. I felt bad after that one, I could have just broken up a couple. I know, I probably should try to convince other people better, but to be honest, I just haven’t felt a sense of urgency enough to get me to really figure out what’s going on here. At least, that was the case until a few days ago. The day after being a middle-class housewife for probably the seventh time, I got some older woman (Carly Anderson, age 68 according to her license) who lived alone with some cats and dogs. More importantly, she didn’t have a password on her computer. At first, out of excitement, I checked up on some YouTube channels. After getting some good dopamine levels, I realized I should probably try something more productive, so I looked up some questions on Google. These questions included, “Body Swap Mental Disorder”, “Different Person Like Syndrome”, “Body Swap Rules”, “Freaky Friday Synopsis”, and things like that. Then I remembered that Facebook existed. I hesitated before looking myself up. What if I didn’t exist? What if I had become a weirdo or outspoken pervert or something? Then I reminded myself that I had set my account to private, so I wouldn’t be able to see anything but my profile picture. I searched it up and yeah, just that picture showed up. I then got a strange feeling when I thought up the idea to Google my name and city. I shook the feeling off, typed it in and pressed enter. After seeing the first few results were news articles, my heart sunk into my stomach. “[My Name] University of Nebraska Student Found Dead at 22”, “Student Found Dead at Parent’s Home”, “Interview With [My Name]’s Family: Any Updates?”, and other titles that failed to get past my state of shock filled the screen. It took me about ten minutes to click on one of them. There were minimal details, just some of my family’s names in some interviews. Nate- my brother, Ethan- my nephew, and Jackson- my dad. My mom “refused to comment, clearly devastated”. I couldn’t read much of that one. The consensus was that there were no updates from the police, no known persons of interest, no cause of death disclosed. People speculated an accident or a suicide or even a murder, as the police hadn’t released details in over a month. College students don’t usually die of natural causes, so I guess I can’t blame them for speculating. I was tempted to check any of my family’s Facebook pages, but I just couldn’t. I know, it probably sounds stupid, not doing everything I can to learn more, but I don’t want to see how they’re doing. I’m not afraid that they didn’t care, I’m afraid because I know they did. I don’t want to see any of that. I stopped checking the articles after a while and played some old Flash games on an archive. Those are usually my comfort food when I feel down or stressed. Still, my mind raced. “I’m dead? Am I a ghost? Is this like hell or something?” I couldn’t think of any religions that described the afterlife like this. Maybe reincarnation, but not a daily reincarnation into other living people. I thought I could be in a coma, but it would be a lot more dreamlike, right? I mean, this didn’t feel like reality, but it definitely was cohesive, besides the daily switches. I tried playing with the lady’s cats and dogs, but I guess she didn’t do that much, since they seem confused to freaked out when I tried. Not wanting to get mauled to death by pets that realized I was an intruder, I gave up. Eventually, my old lady body got tired, and I decided to go to bed. A couple of bodies later, today, I’m a stocky middle aged police officer, Darryl Stetson. I found the badge and decided for once to go into work. I knew it could be risky if I was found out, but I thought I could get some answers in some sort of database. On the way to the station, I remembered that databases probably have passwords. Crap. Still, I thought that I could talk my way into some file room. Police stations still have files, right? It turns out, I didn’t need to do that. A morning meeting was called after I got in, finding the homicide department. The lady next to me asked where my usual morning coffee was and I smoothly said, “it’s on my desk,” hoping to later find the coffee machine and my desk. The guy holding the meeting, I’m guessing some sort of higher up police rank than me, started like how you’d expect him to due to crime shows. “This guy’s a real sick puppy”, “same M.O. as other cases”, “we need them behind bars” etc. His words started to drown out as I focused on the pictures. Carly Anderson’s body, decomposing and almost unrecognizable, was plastered all over the board. “Woah you’re not usually shaken up by this stuff, right Stetson?” coffee lady said, staring at my expression, “It’s really screwed up when it’s elderly though. S**t, I think that the cats nibbled on her before she was found too.” My eyes darted around the board. Found approximately 4 days after death. 3 fingers missing on each hand. Autopsy found 2 fingers, a tongue, and pieces of flesh in throat and stomach. “Are you alright?” Snapping out of it, I turned to coffee lady. “Um, yeah, I just realized I forgot something at home.” She smiled, “Haha, yeah sure- wait what are…,” I heard as I quickly left the room, then the building. The officer’s phone started to ring as I got in the car. I threw it in the back seat and started to drive. I made it half a block before I puked in the passenger seat. Long story short, I got back home with a newly bought laptop. I looked everywhere I could for advice on my situation and ended up here. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know if I’ve only died twice or if it's been more. Has it been every single day? All I know is that I don't want to fall asleep. I had a bit of time before I would give in and go to sleep. I’d tried staying up all night in previous days, but I would wake up as a new person after falling asleep the next day. I didn’t go back to the station since I assumed that ghosting the cops burnt that bridge. Instead, I tried browsing the internet with any names I remembered. That kind of fell through since the ones that I did remember were the most generic ones. Adding “death” afterwards didn’t help much either. On top of that, I haven’t been paying much attention to each city I find myself in. I do know that I haven’t left the U.S. yet and that I’ve been circling around the West to Midwest regions. The unsuccessful search made me think that I should probably start keeping track of all that. After that, I went to the gas station to stock up on Red Bulls. I considered getting a case of seven percenters as well but decided that I should be in a sober state of mind in order to start figuring out what the hell is going on. Also, the more physical side of alcohol dependency does not travel between bodies, so it wasn’t too tough to not buy a twelve pack. So, I just got the Red Bulls and a couple Pabst tallboys then headed back to the house. When I got there, I realized that this Officer Stetson could possibly have a desk with some files in it. He was 40 something so it was likely that he used paper over computers. Luckily, I was right, and after prying open some drawers in his office, I found some piles of reports, interviews, and other paperwork. Stetson seemed to be a lot more organized than I am and I was grateful to find that he sorted the documents by date. I grabbed from the beginning of March, near the date of “my” death, and everything between now and then. The first twenty or so didn’t seem to ring any bells, so I took a breather in the backyard to start drinking my Red Bulls and Pabsts while ordering a pizza. When I went back to work on the files, I finally found something interesting. It was an interview done on April 22nd with a woman named Kaitlyn Parker. I wrote down the piece that I found in my new email. Parker: He seemed detached that day. Even more than usual… he was acting weird all morning. When I got home from work my birthday came up. He couldn’t remember the date and acted like he couldn’t even remember the month… and that’s what started the fight. Detective Stetson: Did this confrontation get violent? Parker: No, I got angry, but he didn’t yell or even seem upset. Then he started talking. Detective Stetson: Like incoherently? Parker: He made up some fake name and that he had “woken up as this guy”. Detective Stetson: Would you elaborate on that? Had he said anything like that before during a fight? Parker: No, I mean, he would lie every once in a while, but never that weirdly and unbelievable. He just kept insisting that he wasn’t himself. I don’t remember who he said he was, just that he wasn’t Dustin. Detective Stetson: I’m not sure what to make of that. Did he say or do anything else that stood out? Parker: He was holding drinks with his right hand when I came home. Detective Stetson: Right hand? Parker: Dustin was left-handed. Detective Stetson: Hm. Did anything else happen before you left? Parker: No… I got fed up and I… I told him I had enough and that, that I didn’t want to see him again… That’s the last thing… the last thing I said to him… After copying the interview to my email and sending it to myself, I heard a knock at the front door. I remembered my pizza and guessed that I had lost track of time when I made my discovery. I opened the front door, but no one was there. I looked around to see if the pizza was left on the floor or something but couldn’t see anything out in the darkness. I went back in to find the porch light and when I flipped it on, yeah, no pizza. I went back inside and to the desk to look through more papers. When I picked up the rest of the files for April, the interview sheet was blown off the desk. That’s when I noticed how drafty it felt in the house. I looked to the sliding back door and saw that it was wide open. I felt an awful pain at the back of my head. I saw stars and hit the ground before feeling another strike. I woke up as a woman in one of those memory foam beds on June 1st. I instinctively grabbed the back of my head as soon as I opened my eyes but found a none-broken skull. The pain was gone, though the memory of how it felt remained. It took about five minutes of shuddering and trying to forget the sensation before I could think properly again, wondering what had happened to me “last night.” Nothing like that had happened before and I definitely prefer going to sleep between body swaps over whatever that was. I looked around the room to see if there was a husband or anyone in there with me but the unmade sheets on the other side of the bed told me they were gone. Still shuddering, I got out of bed and started looking for my new body’s purse. I found it hanging next to the front door. After locking myself out of her phone and computer, I got the keys out of the purse and drove to a Walmart to get a new laptop. I also picked up a bottle of Barefoot to get the memory of my head trauma out of my head. A good thing about waking up as a woman is that I usually get a lower tolerance so at least there was that. I registered the laptop and started typing up an email to myself. Laura Turner, age 34, birthday April 8, 1988. [Address] Pueblo, Colorado. 2020 Toyota Corolla [Plate Number]. Last night ended with Stetson’s head, ah man. Really hurt. Really hurt like hell. I stopped typing and realized I should Google “Detective Darryl Stetson South Dakota.” I searched it and clicked on “News.” Missing detective, Signs of a house robbery, and similar articles filled the screen. I copied some information to the email then let myself panic. “It’s every single day isn’t it? It’s going to happen again. What do I do?” I stared straight ahead, realizing that it’s likely that I have died over thirty times. I sat with that thought for a while. “I’ve been sons, fathers, mothers, daughters, husbands, wives. I’ve been leaving holes in the lives of the families.” I snapped out of it and decided that I needed to work harder to stop this. I was thinking of how to keep myself awake as long as possible when the memory of the pain from the previous night came back. It was happening during sleep, but I was awake that time. I did not want that to happen again. That line of thinking is what gave me the idea that I wish I had thought through more. I figured that if it happens during sleep usually, I could pretend to go to sleep and see what happens. Maybe I could catch whatever was coming for me off guard and put an end to this. It was about 1pm by that time, so an after-lunch nap at 2 seemed like a promising idea. I logged off the laptop after sending the email to myself and went to the kitchen to throw together a turkey sandwich. After eating, I looked through the drawers and found a knife. I slipped it under the pillow next to mine in the bedroom. I also took a shower curtain rod from the bedroom bathroom and stood it up against the closed door. I turned off the light, got into bed and waited. For what felt like an hour, I laid there with only my thoughts. I tried to avoid thinking about the previous night and all the people I had been. That left me with little else. I thought about my original life. I could hardly remember what my body had felt like. Funnily enough, at this point, the easiest things to remember are times of pain. I remembered what the day I broke my arm in sixth grade felt like. I also remembered the feelings of falling off my bike or the time I came back from Texas with horrible sunburn. That made me think of my mom bringing me wet towels to lay on myself as I groaned on the balcony. I shook that line of thinking away. I’m not sure if remembering who I was is the best idea. It might be selfish, but that was even worse than thinking of all the other families I left behind. I’m going to have to weigh the pros and cons of keeping my previous life in my head. Anyway, as I was thinking through all that, I heard a door creaking. I slowly reached under the pillow, waiting to hear the curtain rod fall on the ground. My plan was to rush the door as soon as that happened. I felt around under the pillow, looking for the knife. I reached further under and touched something. Confused, I stroked the object. That’s when I realized I was stroking someone’s hand. I looked up and saw the outline of a figure throwing itself over me, and I felt the knife go through the middle of my chest. I gasped as I experienced that pain 4 more times in rapid succession. My head fell back and to the side. The last thing I saw was that the closet door was open. I woke up clutching my chest and gasping for air. That really freaked out the girl lying next to me in bed. I just said “sorry nightmare” as I grabbed my clothes, dashed for the bathroom, and got into the shower. One good shower cry later, I left the dorm room with the keys and wallet I found in the guy’s pockets while she stared wide eyed at me. Today I’m Brandon Sterling, 21, college student at the University of Texas at Austin. I spent the day pretty much in shock and then panicking and shuddering. I got someone at the library to log me into their account. I guess I’m going to sleep tonight, I’m not trying that again. Just, what do I do after that? It’s interesting how quickly you can get sick of something that you once found tolerable. Be it a toxic relationship, pain from a life altering injury, or eating sandwiches every day, being completely over something can really sneak up on you. Despite the recently discovered disturbing context of my strange experience, the beginning of it really was okay. I got to walk a mile in other people’s shoes, though most of the time I spent inhabiting these people’s bodies was just me trying to make it through the day to move on to the next one. After finding out that I had been waking up as these people only for them to die that day, this experience has been a lot more sobering than surreal, as I first found it. To be honest, maybe I would have been okay with it, knowing what I know now. I would like to say that it was the sadness of so many lives lost that got to me, but that would be a lie. Instead, the last few days of actually being conscious while dying has me in the most desperate state I have been to leave the situation I’ve found myself in. Last time I checked, I was a student attending the University of Texas at Austin. I don’t want to talk much about that night. Once again, I want to lie and say that I acted noble, but there wouldn’t be much of a point, and it wouldn’t make me feel any better. Instead, I panicked. I sat there freaking out in the library until it was closing time and they kicked me out. I kept thinking of the previous nights. The pain of probably having my head bashed open. The pain of being stabbed several times in the chest. I should have tried to fight it again, but instead I chose the easier path. I bought some Nyquil and a six pack on my way back to the dorm. The girl who was there in the morning was gone, so when arriving there, there was nothing to stop me from simply going to bed. I opened my eyes the “next morning” to find myself under fancy looking sheets in an expensive looking bed. I’ve gotten pretty good at guessing the age, sex, and overall health of whomever I wake up as. Well, the sex is pretty evident right away most days, and I found myself to be a middle aged man in decent health. After a shower, his wallet told me that he/I was Theodore Lipsky (though he probably preferred “Ted”), a resident of Oklahoma. I sent his information to my email and checked the comments under my last post, thinking through the likeliness of success for each suggestion. I finally settled on one that I should have found obvious. Instead of getting arrested, I decided to check myself into a mental hospital. I thought it would be the safer option, as my death for the day could be just getting shanked by an angry inmate. It would also be more likely that I would be sleeping alone, which would alleviate any guilt I would have for falling asleep to avoid any pain. I rehearsed my story on the drive to the hospital. At first, I considered just telling them my situation and having them admit me for having paranoid delusions, but I could end up too coherent to be considered an emergency case. Despite a lack of knowledge on mental health and psychology, I landed on just describing flashing lights and noises that weren’t there, acting super distressed about all of it. Arriving there, my performance worked like a charm. After some paperwork on their part and waiting on mine, I arrived in a room to be placed under observation. Being careful to not let up on the ruse, I switched to a catatonic like state in order to relax. I felt a small tinge of guilt for getting my new body into the custody of a mental hospital, but it subsided when the excitement of success rushed over me. For once, I would either leave someone’s body with them being alive, or I would continue on, able to wake up as the same person I was the previous night. While basking in the anticipation of being free from my fate, an orderly came into the room. He was a brunette male, maybe mid-twenties, and he had a friendly but concerned smile as he asked if there was anything he could get me. When he mentioned a “meal”, I gave a grunt and twitch to affirm that I wanted to eat. I suppressed any indication that I was happy that I finally got to eat on top of my previous excitement as he walked to the door. As he pulled on the door handle, the lights went out. I didn’t panic right away. Instead, I dumbly thought “oh, a power outage, I didn’t know that could happen in a hospital”. Then I heard the door slam open. I heard a couple grunts, some thumping sounds, and then nothing but gurgling. Then I heard someone take a step, then another toward me. As my eyes tried to adjust to the complete darkness, I realized that all my excitement had been in vain. I fell out of my chair and crawled away from the footsteps, hitting the wall on the other side of the room. I froze and listened for any more footsteps. For what felt like five minutes, I stayed there still as I could. Then, I heard the chair I was in be thrown aside and against the wall, followed by several quick footsteps getting louder. I hardly had time to raise my arms up before I felt it. This was the worst pain I have ever felt, even above the previous nights. I have always hated the feeling of anything touching my throat. I can not sleep in a shirt, and from a young age, one of my biggest fears was retaining the sensation of feeling after death. I imagined being in a coffin, with my collar resting lightly against my neck, unable to readjust the fabric or rub my throat. This is all to say, the feeling of that spot being struck by something sharp was extremely unpleasant. I immediately tried to scream but couldn’t. I reached for my throat, only to find a gap between the top of my chest and bottom of my neck. More pain spread as I grasped it, feeling the ripped flesh lightly fall on top of my hand. This time, I woke up in the middle of vomiting. I fell out of bed, grasping at my throat while wincing. I stayed there for a couple of minutes, crying and moaning. Later that day, I would discover that I was Madison Reilly, a 20-year-old girl living with her parents who were thankfully at work already. This let me stay there for a while longer, as the moaning turned into screams of desperation and eventually anger. Before going through this whole ordeal and had my own body, I was a bit prone to anger. There would be days where I bumped my toes into tables and corners, dropped things, or bumped my head frequently. I would get fed up and think that the world itself was just trying to inflict pain on me for no reason. I remember how angry that thought would make me. That was nothing compared to the rage that I felt at the idea that I would painfully die each day that I tried to avoid simply going to sleep. It didn’t, and still doesn’t, seem fair that this is happening to me. That and the animalistic anger that type of pain brings mixed into the feeling that I was justified in freaking out on the floor that morning. After getting some of the frustration out, I finally got off the floor and tried to get my head in the right space in order to figure out what to attempt next. Despite my admittedly “less than okay” state, I did feel a brief sensation of good fortune when I found that Madison had left her laptop open and plugged in. It looked like she was working on a paper for her biopsychology class, filled with words and pictures of chemical compounds that I had no clue how to read. That left me wishing that I were smarter in order to figure out how to break whatever curse this body swap thing was. I noticed she left several other tabs open. I avoided staring at any of the website titles too long, not wanting to know more about this girl who had likely lived her last day. I did find a Facebook tab open, however. I thought about looking up my family but shook the feeling off. On top of being afraid of any emotions that seeing them would bring, I rationalized that I might drag them into this if I sent a reply or accidentally liked a picture. I opened up another tab to check my previous posts here. That’s when a name stuck out to me. Even though I had the previous hesitation of bringing my family into this, I justified a different line of thinking to this similar situation. Since her boyfriend was already more dead than me (that felt strange typing, but I think you get it), contacting her could lead to some actual closure. With that, I clicked on the message button on Kaitlyn Parker’s page. After doing so, I found that I really didn’t know what to say. “Hey, I was your boyfriend his last day alive, remember how I acted like a psychopath?” That might’ve been a hard sell. I kept writing and backspacing in the message box. “Hello, you don’t know me, and this will sound strange”, no that sounded a bit too much like spam right off the bat. I thought a bit harder and decided to check Madison’s purse for her driver’s license. After copying her information to my email, I did the proper searches and found that Illinois, Kaitlyn Parker’s state, was a 19-hour drive from Santa Fe, where my current body was. Thinking that I was too far away to not get run off the road and bludgeoned or something, I decided against trying to track her down that day. Instead, I thought that I would probably be closer to her in my next body. Not learning more about Madison helped me out, since I accepted that I would not end this on that day. That decision came a lot easier than I would hope, and I typed my message, wanting to first lay the groundwork to get Kaitlyn to believe me. I pressed send on, “Google my name, Madison Reilly, and Santa Fe, followed by ‘missing’ or ‘death’. I’m sorry about Dustin,” swallowing the feeling of guilt. Then I started preparing for another suggestion I found on my previous post. I got a rudimentary knowledge of Twitch and made an account, saving the details to my email. After remembering the last time that I attempted a trap, I searched the closet and rooms around “mine” for any intruders. Luckily, I didn’t find anyone. Unluckily, I saw a picture of Madison’s parents in the hall. I imagined them finding the blood or her body in bed. My guilt resurfaced, making me hesitate on going through with the plan at that moment. I changed my mind, grabbing Madison’s purse and open laptop before heading out to the car. Checking the back seat and trunk first, I got into the driver’s seat and backed out, starting my search for a nearby motel. On the way, I picked up an assortment of sleeping pills. I pushed any feeling of guilt down with the memory of the previous nights, making me jerk on the steering wheel a couple of times. Finally, I reached a motel, checked myself in, and started to set up. I opened up Twitch and prepared to stream, making sure to turn on the automatic saving features. I also made sure to log out of my email and Madison’s Facebook. I took a sleeping pill, then set up the laptop in the closet, leaving the door cracked for a view of the bed. Lastly, I turned on the bathroom light, shut off the rest, and climbed under the covers. It took me a while to get to sleep. This time, I let myself fantasize. I imagined waking up in my old body, in a Wizard of Oz type situation with my family and friends surrounding me. I had been asleep for days in a rare, but non-threatening mini coma. After spending time with my family at breakfast, I Googled the names of the people I remember being and came up with no results matching them. I was kinder to the people around me, grateful to be “back”, and worked hard to better myself in any way I could. I drifted off to sleep. Feeling body being shaken awake, I opened my eyes again. Still feeling extremely tired, I opened my eyes. Two more eyes stared back at me behind holes in what looked like a morph suit mask. They were wide open, looking at my face, in what seemed like surprise at first. I noticed it looked more like they were studying my confused expression, as if trying to find something important. A hand belonging to the same body that the eyes did was clamped over my mouth. I remembered my predicament and jerked my hands to find the figure was pinning my arms down with their knees. I tried kicking with my legs, to find them bound down to the legs of the bed. I looked back at the eyes still studying me intensely. Another hand wrapped around my throat slowly, squeezing harder and harder. I tried to shake the figure off of me, failing to move an inch. As their grip tightened around my neck, I finally stopped trying. I looked into those eyes, and rage bubbled up inside of me. “I was asleep, you piece of s**t”, rang through my head. At last, everything went black. I regained consciousness, jolting awake, starting another day grasping at my throat. The feeling went away quicker from my mind than the previous days, as I remembered about the stream. I tried to jump out of bed, immediately feeling my age. Upon noticing the strain and sharp pains in my legs as well as my body shape, I could tell that I was an elderly woman this time. Still, as quick as I could, I made my way out of the room, a lot slower than I would’ve liked. A great thing about the elderly is that they normally leave their computer password within inches of the computer screen, and this lady was no exception. I found a sticky note next to the keyboard with what seemed like a grandchild’s name and birthdate. Sweet. I logged into Twitch and found the stream, posted 4 days before then. Shivering with anticipation, I started the video. I fast forwarded through me setting up the position of the laptop and then me falling asleep. After that, I started to skim every five minutes. Finally, three hours into the video, I saw someone pinning Madison to the bed. What was strange that it was near the end of the stream, but I guessed that it must have shut off automatically. I re-winded through the footage, starting a couple seconds before the figure’s feet came into view. I heard slow footsteps coming nearer to the mic. One boot, then another stepped in front of the camera. After that, I heard breathing, light gasps, then I saw a bag drop beside them, blocking the view of the bed. They reached into the bag, pulling out a mask, then what sounded like them cutting the fabric came through the speakers. They moved slowly, almost deliberately throughout the video. After putting on the mask, they moved the bag a little bit forward, until I could see Madison sleeping again. Then they took out a cord and leisurely tied her feet to the legs of the bed. Then the figure crawled over the bed and started to shake her/me awake. You already know what happened next. After they were done, they got up, picked up the bag and walked past the closet door. Next, the door opened slightly, and I saw the laptop camera rise and move through the room, focusing on Madison’s face for a second, then it rested on the side of the bed, facing away from the body. A chair from the table in the motel room was pushed into view. The figure sat down, though I could only see their black hoodie and jeans in the video. Then, I heard a long deep sigh. The sigh turned into a deep but childish chuckle, making my blood boil once more. Finally, they spoke, as slowly as they moved. “So… weird. I thought something was happening… but nothing like what… this is. I saw… you’re recording… and you were angry. Anger is not what… I’m used to when I’m… you know… don’t you?” Confused, I kept watching. “I admit… I’m not sure what is happening. I’ll find out though. Next time.” They pushed the laptop screen back, so that their face was visible. The last thing I saw was their wide eyes scrunch from the bottom, and the video cut off. I don’t know why I’m still writing. It’s nice to think others are listening I guess, and it’s also nice to get some suggestions, but I don’t know anymore. Each day feels a little more distant. It’s a feeling like I’m getting further away from something that’s important. It might be the pain of dying every night, or perhaps people just weren’t meant to have multiple bodies. It’s probably a mix of everything that’s going on. I guess all that doesn’t matter. I just need to get out of whatever this is. I don’t know what will happen when or if I do, but it can’t be any worse than this. I think I could have gotten out of it if I was just a bit smarter, took more advice, tried harder. Anyway, let’s just get this over with. Right, so I stopped the update last time when I was an old lady, watching a video of my old body being murdered. I remember the anger of staring at the masked a*****e who had just taunted me after choking me to death. Really, he wanted to “find out” “next time”? I’ve been desperately trying to figure this all out and now his curiosity is piqued? That pissed me off so much that it made my old lady heart race until it hurt. I attempted to calm down and re-winded the video, looking for any clue to tell me who he was. He was obviously a guy; the voice was really deep. That being said, it was definitely a voice he was putting on. No one goes through life sounding like that while ordering food or sitting down at Thanksgiving dinner. I tried to extrapolate his height compared to me/Madison. Madison was about 5’5”, and he was clearly taller than her, but didn’t dwarf her. I decided on about 6’0”. I stopped for a second. Madison, now this old lady. Real big guy, huh, killing people weaker than him. Sure, I was still scared of possibly having to die again at this point, but I kept getting angrier. All that rage at the universe, my situation, and it seemed that I had this guy to thank. I wondered if he had killed me every single time. Forty something people. I had accepted that these people had all very likely died, but all killed by one person? That definitely gave me more motivation to stop him. Remembering I was an old lady, fear took back over. I shouted for help to see if anyone else was home. Great, no one. I looked around the computer then up and down the walls. Finally, I found what I was looking for. Like most elderly people, there was a list of phone numbers, with her family and caretakers. I wondered which number could come faster, while picking up the phone (one of those wireless ones but still a landline, of course). While thinking hard about it, I finally realized that I wasn’t the smartest person. With that figured out, I dialed 9-1-1. “Wichita 911. What’s the location of your emergency?” I remembered that I didn’t know who I was yet and started looking around the room for a purse or anything to identify myself. “Uh, sorry, I don’t know where I am.” “That’s okay ma’am, what is your name?” I started to panic. “I… I don’t know that either” “Okay… is there a problem?” Okay, that I did know. “Yes! There is a problem and I need help! I- uh I fell! Please send help!” I moaned to sell it. “Alright, we are determining your location from your num-” the phone fell silent. “Hello?” I asked. I didn’t hear a tone or anything to tell me that they hung up. “Hey, are you there?” No answer. I looked at the phone to see a blank screen. Throwing the phone down, I looked at the time on the computer in a panic to see it was still 8 a.m. “No, it’s still too early, why?” I thought as I heard a thump on the other side of the house. Slow footsteps grew louder and louder as I sat at the computer frozen. I snapped out of it and quickly yanked the cord of the computer out from the wall. I rummaged throw the old lady’s drawers until I found a pair of scissors. I had grasped them in my hands when the footsteps stopped. I turned towards the door and saw the man in the same mask and outfit that he wore in the video. His raised his hand and gave a small wave. I threw the scissors, which in turn pathetically bounced off of his chest. I span around and tried to run, feeling my legs strain and buckle below me. I got two steps out before I fell to the ground. Pain shot up from my legs and hips, and I let out a probably more convincing moan than I had faked on the phone. I heard a couple more footsteps coming towards me. “Just do it… you big cowardly piece…” I managed to force out as I felt a sharp prick on my neck and the world around me went blurry. I spent the next couple of hours in a daze. I could tell that he bound my hands and feet before I ended up in what appeared to be the trunk of a car. Each bump sent shivers through my body. The pain was dulled but I could tell that my hip and legs were either broken or at least sprained. I tried to sleep but that turned out to be easier said than done. I don’t recommend trying to take a nap in the back of a moving car, especially during a bumpy ride. Finally, the shaking stopped, and I saw a bright light. I was led through what appeared to be a forest, into an empty room with a chair and concrete walls. I stayed there, tied to a chair, getting water splashed on my face every time that I tried to nod off. Finally, I came to my senses. The man in the mask was pacing in front of me when my vision cleared up and my head stopped fuzzing up so much. He stopped and turned to me, looking into my eyes. I did my best to glare back at him. He sat down on the floor across from me. “Finally! That was quite a while. How are you feeling?” His slow deep voice was replaced by a casual tone with a more regular cadence and pitch. My expression likely turned to confusion as he continued, “Oh, the voice. Sorry, I was nervous, and I just panicked. Anyway, you didn’t answer me. Are you okay?” I struggled to collect saliva in my mouth in order to spit on him. He must have noticed, since he took a rag, pried my lips apart, and stuck it in. He stopped after I gagged and then duct taped over the rag. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he smiled. “Here’s the thing. I’ve figured out a bit of what is going on. I think you know a bit more. I’m going to ask questions now and you’re going to answer. Right?” I tried to move my arms and legs, which reminded me that I had fallen earlier. “Hey, whoa, don’t struggle, you’ve got a broken hip. Just blink once for yes and twice for no.” I continued to try to get my arms free. I stopped when he reached towards me. He clasped his hand around my hip and gave a small squeeze. A searing pain rang up my body as I tried to scream. “See? Broken,” he repeated, “Once for yes, twice for no.” I nodded and he let go. “So, first thing is first. Are you okay? Fully conscious now?” One blink. “Nice. So… you knew I was coming? Today and last time?” I tried to look confused. He reached for my hip again and I gave him another blink. “How many times have I- you know,” he made a choking motion with his hands. “Oh right, yes or no. So, I’m correct in assuming you’ve been coming back for a while now?” One blink. He gave a small chuckle. “Oh my God. I’ve never seen nothing like this. I mean, it was hard to believe at first. Wait, wait. Okay, so Pabsts?” He smiled. My face dropped but I blinked before he rose his hand again. “It was weird. Following people for a couple of days and then all of a sudden, bam, a different personality. Even active people who I haven’t seen drink once go get a case of beers and stay inside all day. You’re quite the aspirational person, aren’t you?” I glared back at him again. His hand shot up and he squeezed my hip again. A worse pain than before spread throughout my bones. I tried to curse through my gag but couldn’t. “Just kidding, that was rhetorical,” he laughed. “Mfffmmmk mmoo,” I managed to whine through the duct tape. “So, boy or girl? Girl?” I breathed heavily through my nose and blinked twice. “Aw man, well that’s a little disappointing. I like girls better you know,” he winked at me. “Still, we have something special going on here, you know?” I blinked twice and he snorted. “Sorry, I feel like I just unwrapped the new hot toy of Christmas or something like that. Really though,” his smile left his face. “We get to know each other. It’s nice to be known.” I looked back at him, worried that a glare would result in more pain. “That’s the sad part of my hobby. I can’t share it with anyone, or I won’t be able to do it anymore. Well, now, I don’t have to worry about that.” He sighed. “I mean, I never really wanted that. That’s why I always did it when they were asleep. Or when you were asleep, huh?” I could see his brow furrow under his mask. “Wait, I do have it right? How many have you been? More than 20?” I blinked once. “Wow, this is great. And do you think it will stop any time soon?” I blinked twice. He got up. “Okay, so we don’t have to rush this!” He walked outside the door. I tried to get loose, ignoring the pain in my legs. He came back in with a drill. “So, like today, when you called for help? Don’t do that again,” he winked again at me. “Heads?” he pointed the back of it towards me, “Or tails?” He flipped it around. I woke up grabbing at my forehead, with my ears still ringing from the previous body. I was slightly relieved to not feel any pain in my legs and be relatively young again. The feeling I got was that I was an around 30-year-old male. I’ve decided to stop looking at the names on the IDs for now; it’s easier that way. Anyway, I was definitely more paranoid than ever at this point. This a*****e could come at any time, and now he was interested in “knowing me”. I searched my new home for signs of a family. It seemed to be a bachelor pad, an apartment on the fourth floor with minimal decoration or furnishing. That seemed fortunate, I knew it was empty pretty quickly and guessed that there was only one way he could come in. I still kept my eye on the balcony though, half expecting him to climb up or drop down onto it. I pushed a shelf in front of the front door. Then another bigger shelf, and then a table. Satisfied, I faced the couch towards the balcony and waited. My plan was that as soon as I saw him, I was going to tackle him, taking him with me to the parking lot below. I sat there for a while. Images of him laughing and teasing me filled my head. I was angry once again, but then I remembered all the pain. I tried to think back to when I felt an emotion other than fear, anger, or just simply the wait in between them. I’ve felt hope, whenever I’ve found something that might help me but that was even worse than fear or anger. At least the fear and anger were real, genuine; the hope turned out to all be false. I didn’t let myself feel hope at my plan of taking him off the building with me. It was like trying to dodge a bullet aimed right at you. Yeah, you’ll try but do you expect to succeed? That’s when I smelled the smoke. I looked over to the door to see smoke rolling under it before it caught on fire, with the shelves and table bursting into flame shortly after. I scanned the walls for a fire extinguisher, remembering seeing one in the closet. I grabbed it, read the instructions in a panic, then attempted to put the fire out. The white stuff came out for about a second before it sputtered. It was empty. I looked around trying to find something that could carry enough water to splash on the fire. The room got hotter and hotter. I went outside to the balcony and leaned over the railing, climbing over it. I slowly lowered myself down, trying to reach the apartment below me. I made it past the railing and held onto the concrete floor. I looked down and attempted to swing my legs so that when I dropped, I would fall onto the balcony. I swung and let go. My back hit the rail as I rolled onto the floor. I laid there wheezing for a few seconds. The sliding glass door opened. “Sorry I-” I started to apologize to the guy’s downstairs neighbors. The body of a woman was thrown on top of me. I lifted her head to see the wound on her throat and her glazed over eyes. I yelled and tried to push her off me but froze when I saw a man standing in the doorway, wearing an N95 mask and a hoodie. I only noticed the axe when he raised it up and it came down towards me. So, this is where I am at now. 4 bodies later: Housewife- throat slit. College student- tied up and drowned. Family man- caught in a bear trap and shot. Teenage girl- bludgeoned. I’m stuck being murdered by the same b*****d every single day. He hasn’t talked to me again, just this annoying game of “wake up, get killed”. It seems like he’s at least letting me write this today at least. All I know is that as soon as I try to kill him or escape, I’m going to be murdered again. After our first “conversation”, he would just play with me, letting me wake up, I’d attempt to do something different, and he would kill me. He seems to like knives, or at least sharp weapons. Maybe just painful methods, I guess. Sometimes he would taunt me, and I’d wake up within a block of a police station. He would make those some of the most excruciating, as if to say, “don’t even try to get out of this”. I had been guessing he had a reason of switching up his M.O., probably to break me. He confirmed it when he started talking to me again. I had gotten pretty sedentary in the days leading up to it. I was at a point where there wasn’t anything new to try, and some pain was better than a lot more pain, so I just started letting it happen. I guess that’s either what he wanted, or he got bored, but that’s when he changed his M.O. again. I woke up seated up, tied to a chair. Elderly once again, I guess that coward really didn’t want to risk anything. The first thing I saw was his eyes widely and curiously peering into mine. He was wearing full PPE, a full body suit, and a full-face mask, that one that has a window to the face and a filtered particulate respirator over the mouth. I immediately started panicking, kicking, and screaming that he was a piece of s**t, thinking that he was going to bludgeon me as a good morning surprise. His eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, or at least a kid who got an animal to torture. “Hey wait, wait,” he said, annoying gleeful, “I just want to talk right now, just talk, okay?” I still tried jerking away from him, expecting a hammer or hatchet to come at my face. “Calm down! I’m sorry okay, I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, grabbing my knee and giving it a gentle squeeze. I stopped squirming, dumbfounded at what he had just said. “I’ve been kind of a jerk, I know, I was just having my fun, you know?” Any ounce of dignity I had in me screamed to spit in his face, but I swallowed the urge and finally spoke. “What do you want from me?” “Right now, or in general?” he chuckled. “Well right now, I really do want to say sorry, but it had to be done.” “Sorry for… killing me? Over and over again?” I asked, exasperated. “Well, no. I meant for these last few times. I just needed you to calm down and not try and ruin this.” Ruin this? I went back on my decision and spat in his face, only getting a small glob on the outside of his mask. He wiped it away, seemingly smiling, and proceeded to duct tape my mouth shut. “See?” he said, “I knew you would see it that way, I can’t blame you.” He swallowed, and his face relaxed as a more serious demeanor took over. “For me, this has not been the fun you probably think I’ve been having. I’m not sadistic. I needed to make you see that I can be though. I cannot have you ruin this.” He paused scanning my face. “Before I saw you and what you were, I only took lives as they were sleeping. Peaceful, how everyone wants to die. Sure, I would mess with their bodies, but that doesn’t hurt them. The only part I like about this, is that now, I feel known.” Once again, he took a longer look at me, making me feel disgusted. “This last month has felt like nothing I have ever known. I have someone to see me. The real me. I must admit, that feels so good.” His eyes smiled at me. I felt disgusted at the quasi-romanticism he was describing. Oh, so intimate to have this a*****e torture me every single day. He must have seen the anger in my eyes as he went on. “I suppose you wouldn’t be too happy to know me. I have time to make you see me in a better light though. I thought I would start with a gift. Go on as before, not panicking and running away. Live these days and go to sleep at night. Then I will be there to painlessly take you to another body.” He lightly grabbed my knee again. “We’ll keep like that for a trial period and regroup after a while. It’s okay, you don’t need to feel guilt over taking this deal. These people’s lives I’m ending are not something that you should feel the need to protect. Think exactly about who you have been.” I shook my knee, heavily breathing through my nose. At that moment I would have rather had him kill me again just so I could stop listening. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen a pattern,” he sighed disappointedly, “Okay, so you’ve been elderly grandparents, forgotten by their family.” He reached over and poked my chest as he said that. “You’ve been promiscuous mothers, searching for attention from anything but their husbands and children. What about the money driven fathers, letting their careers dictate their lives? Or those ambitious daughters that want to leave it all behind to ‘make something of themselves’.” He rolled his eyes and looked into mine once more. “And you’ve been lazy sons, wasting their lives as their families try to move forward without their burden.” He smiled. “That’s you huh? You said you were a man? I don’t see ambition or the tiredness of old age in your eyes.” I could feel the rage bubble into my face. “It doesn’t matter much, who you were, to me. I just want you to know, none of those people were really missed. That’s what I like to see the most. The fake tears from their oh so special loved ones, hiding that relief that they really feel.” His face faded from seriousness back into a delighted grin. “I just think that it’s important that people realize that some parts of their little family are dead weight.” He reached over and touched my cheek. “Think about it though, we can go on how things were. Just live out these days as you had been, and it will be painless. Talk later?” His other hand reached up, pinching a razor that he quickly dragged across my throat. My head tilted to the side and the world blurred out. I woke up as a middle-aged man living alone. I looked at my nightstand and saw an unopened can of Pabst. I reached out and felt it was still cold. On the other side of it, I felt a post-it note. I span it around and saw written, “A Gift For You”. Dejected, I got up and took a shower. I drank my “gift” afterwards and found more in the fridge. After spending the better part of the morning eating and drinking while watching T.V., I searched the house, half expecting to be killed as I entered every room. Finally, I found a computer room. The computer was logged into, and the desktop had only two icons on the desktop. One was the internet browser, and the other was a notepad document marked “Rules”. The notepad document pretty much said that any future attempts to contact the police would be met with increasingly violent results, which he described in graphic detail. As I’m typing this, I’m expecting for the door to burst open and another day to begin with a new body. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to post it, but I’m also not sure if it matters whether or not I do. I’m sorry to say that afterwards, I’m going to go about my day drinking and playing old Flash games. I’ll go to sleep and wake up again as someone else. Just make sure you guys reach out to any estranged or distant family members. I’ll try to figure something out eventually, but for now, I’m going to take a break. Thanks for listening. Writing. Yes. So a year? ago, I was alone, and died. Guess he killed me? Is this hell? Anyways I think I’ve been 100s of people now. So I think I’m ready to talk. Anyways yeah same rules as before. Like groundhog day ending in my death! At the hands of some jerk who thinks he’s smarter than me. Lecture me? You killed 100s. Idiot. So yeah here’s the plan. He dies tonight. He will come into my room when I sleep and kill me. He’s got the advantage in my opinion. But to lecture me? That’s where he messed up. Anyway yeah, I’ll update you guys if it goes well! Lecturing each other isn’t going to help. I guess what this is, is a conversation? Transactional as s**t but that's the way of the world. Anyway last night I was a kid. Like 16 years old man. But I lost that fight. Sorry guys. Hope it wasn’t one of your people. I really didn’t get it until now. So I guess I have to outsmart this guy if I want out? Is there a way out? Hopefully lol. Okay yesterday I was a guy again thirties? I tried to talk to him more and he said go back to sleep. Knife in the chest. At least it was quick, well after a little bit. I will not die a monster. On My Name. To my beautiful mother in Heaven, who died while I was away. I have to wake up now. I woke up as my Nephew. I will let her tell my story. I don't care how she tells it, but this ends tonight. I guess if this is confession time, I have to be ready. I do not want my life. I do not want this. I have never wanted this. The pain has grown to a point where I can not go on. But I must. I could have saved my mom. I could have saved my life. I chose not to and this is the result. Anything that happens now, is on me. I get it. I can think. I understand a lot around me. He’s just copying Arthur Mitchell from Dexter. I’m just copying Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Well, there’s only one thing that can kill a monster. We. Whatever happens tonight, I will not be waking up. If I lose anything, I will not be the same. Okay. I’m almost done. Let me find some sort of piece. A silver Bulette. Gum Gum. Mystery Beatdown. - Katie - I don’t know when I met him and even if I did. All I know is that, if what he said is true, I’m not sure what to say. The first sign was the day my boyfriend went missing. He had been a complete dick, but something was wrong, this was not him. And then he was gone. I started to receive some emails then texts. And finally, a call. He said his name was Kevin and he knew my ex who had died. He said it was an escape room or something. He didn’t make much sense. He was a child. So, I met him in public. He seemed frantic, Goldblooming and Elfabetting all over the place. He kept getting up, then immediately sitting back down, look into my eyes, then hold his closed for way too long. Looking back at it, he looked me in the eyes a lot. And the twitching was more like nodding. And the yells were more like cries. I couldn’t understand. The short of it was that he needed help. I talked to him and led him back home to drop him off. I drove down the street, thinking about how anyone can cook and a dress I saw and a witch’s hat and a yellow man and uh fifty-five… Ratatouille, clueless, wicked, smiling friends, I think I should leave. So, I turned around and knocked on the door after calling 911. Five minutes later I broke the window. Each step was covered in glass as my slippers ate the pieces. I kicked off the slippers and ran up the stairs. There was a commotion. I could smell fire, taste iron, and hear everything. I took one breath before opening the door. There was a boy. 13 years old. His fingertips were peeled back in several places and blood was everywhere. He was on the floor; I took a towel and placed it over his throat gently then held it there as I sobbed. I heard the closet door creak open, and a man stood behind me. His eyes empty except for his stare, his face burnt against the back of my head and his shadow held a long jagged knife. I took a deep breath and placed a piece of glass in the boy’s hand. “Josh?” His eyes shot open. Spirit gum and corn syrup surrounded him and with a shining glass in one hand, he pushed me aside with the other. He took the shard and placed it straight through the man’s chin. The man started to speak, “You still don’t get anything look at the… danger…. This girl… in,” through a throat filling with blood. The boy blew a raspberry. “Suck a dick, Nutso-Futso.” He grabbed the knife the man was holding and plunged it into the owner’s ribcage. “Long and hard,” he winked. As the man started to stumble and reach out for something to hold, the boy put his arms around me, then used both of us to tackle him out the window. The man, blonde, skinny, and eyes bloodshot, slipped on the oil that Josh had poured (he called it anointment) on the floor under the unbroken glass. And the glass was broken. The man’s body lay on the ground below, clearly an accident of self-defense. I glanced at the boy, seeing that he hit his head in the scuffle. I got down on the ground and checked his pulse. Then he opened his eyes and cried for his mom. If it was a curse, then it was broken. The boy continued to cry for his mom until the police came to pick him up. © 2024 ThighsOfZeusAuthor's Note
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Added on December 30, 2024 Last Updated on December 30, 2024 Tags: Horror, Body Swap, Groundhog, Serial Killers Author
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