u/muffinrecip

It all started seven years ago. I don't know if anyone here has a friend like mine—someone with a nearly pathological obsession with water. He was exceptionally fond of drinking it.

When Avery first introduced me to his passion, we had known each other for less than a month.

I remember it was summer. The dormitory air conditioning was broken, so on my way back, I bought two bottles of chilled mineral water from the convenience store downstairs. I originally intended to press them against my skin to cool down—after all, our dorm had a filtered water dispenser, so there was usually no need to buy bottled water. But when I handed one to Avery, he looked surprised. It was the first time since the school year started that he actually looked me in the eye.

"You like this brand too? Great taste. A wise choice."

I froze for a moment.

"What?"

He didn't elaborate. He silently unscrewed his bottle, took a small sip, and closed his eyes in enjoyment.

"A bit hard on the palate, but the lingering sweetness comes through quickly. The calcium content is a bit high, though this year's new batch is gentler than last year's."

At the time, I thought he probably had some kind of psychological condition, like high-functioning autism. Only later did I learn that he was a "water sommelier"—and the most eccentric person I would ever meet in my life.

After we got closer, I discovered that Avery was actually a minor celebrity in niche online communities and forums for liquid enthusiasts. Most people might think water tasting is just a piece of pretentious, pseudo-scientific upper-middle-class nonsense, but not to him. Avery possessed a nearly miraculous sensitivity in his taste buds; he could accurately distinguish the subtlest differences among dozens of commercial mineral waters. At least, he firmly believed he could.

Regardless, his quirk didn't affect me. It was just drinking water—far better than the heavy drinkers in the next dorm over. On the surface, it seemed like a perfectly healthy hobby, and we got along very well through our four years of college.

Besides, I have to admit this guy was brilliant. He was the only chemical engineering major in our year to graduate with a perfect GPA, and right after graduation, he was hired as a chemical analyst at a major firm with a remarkably generous salary.

By then, we still maintained a comfortable, somewhat distant friendship, though perhaps mostly because I was his only friend. I was just glad Avery hadn't turned into some hermit living in a basement. We still met up occasionally. Every time, Avery would talk endlessly about the waters he had recently sampled, while I nodded along and enjoyed expensive top-shelf whiskies I could never normally afford—courtesy of Avery, of course.

Until one day, Avery suddenly sent me a message.

“Do you know about Tasteless Water?”

Before I could even type a reply, Avery forwarded a post. It came from that same liquid enthusiast forum I had seen on his phone before.

By the time I clicked in, there were already over two hundred replies.

The original poster claimed that many years ago, he had drank a bottle of water with an exquisite taste. He vaguely remembered the brand name being "Taste-less." Recently, he suddenly felt a intense craving to try it again, but he couldn't find any record or purchase information for the brand anywhere online.

An insider in the comments replied that it was a brand distributed exclusively within a very small number of private clinics and sanatoriums in the late 1990s. Its manufacturer existed for only three years before declaring bankruptcy, and by now, all production lines and records had been destroyed.

Aside from that, almost all the other comments were questioning whether the brand ever existed, assuming the poster had made up the story for attention.

Before I could finish reading the thread, the post suddenly showed as deleted. When I returned to our chat window, a new message was waiting for me.

“Do you think Tasteless Water is real?”

“Come on, he deleted the post. It was probably just a joke.”

“It doesn't matter. I saved screenshots.”

He sent over several images, missing not a single detail. The word "sanatorium" in the comments had been circled in red using a digital marker.

“Do you think this could be a breakthrough for an investigation?”

“No...”

“I just looked up several closed private sanatoriums. They all claimed to use some kind of 'natural therapy.' Makes you curious, doesn't it?”

“Avery, DON’T do this.”

“Don't worry, nothing's going to go wrong. I'm just going to take a look.”

“We're still friends, right, Ave? :D”

“I'll reach out to you later.”

But he didn't reach out. From that day on, Avery disappeared for about six months. I tried every way I knew to contact him, to no avail. Then, one day, Avery suddenly showed up at my office door, telling me he had something incredible to show me.

He took me to the basement apartment he was renting. The room was thick with a heavy, musty odor and a strangely indescribable fishy metallic stench. If I hadn't been certain that our friendship was rock solid, I never would have set foot in such a creepy place.

Avery told me that during the months he was gone, he had spent all his savings searching for Tasteless Water. He had even quit his job and moved into this basement, relying solely on odd jobs for basic living expenses.

In the center of a battered wooden table stood a single brown glass bottle. It was tightly sealed, the top fused shut with a black resin-like substance. There were no commercial labels on the bottle, only a single handwritten line in permanent marker, faded with age. A date was barely legible: 1998.04.12.

Avery stroked the bottle with a gentleness that bordered on sickening.

"An old collector kept it as a specimen from some psychiatric treatment. It took all the money I had to buy this one bottle."

That was it—a bottle of twenty-year-old expired mineral water had wiped out my friend's entire life savings, and he couldn't have been happier about it. Maybe he really did have high-functioning autism after all.

He carefully cut through the sealing wax with a small knife and pried the cap off with a bottle opener. There was no hiss of escaping gas, not even the slightest disturbance in the air.

Avery pulled out two spotlessly clean glass tumblers. As if performing an ancient ritual, he evenly poured the liquid from the bottle into the two glasses.

"Drink."

He looked at me with an urgent, coercive intensity in his eyes.

"I have to drink it too?"

"Of course."

He glanced at me oddly, as if wondering why I would even ask such a question.

"We're friends."

Fine. For friendship's sake. It was just a glass of twenty-year-old water; at least it was stored in glass, so there was no plastic degradation to worry about.

We raised our glasses at the same time and swallowed it down in one gulp.

The liquid slid over my tongue and down my throat.
To be honest, I felt nothing special. It was just water—slightly below room temperature, flat, completely tasteless. If I had to name a difference, it was that after swallowing, there seemed to be a tiny, almost imaginary hint of sweetness at the back of my tongue—or maybe that was just a trick played by my own saliva.

"How is it?"

"Pretty... smooth?"

I weighed my words, trying to make his money feel well-spent.

"Maybe a little sweet aftertaste? I suppose the calcium, zinc, and magnesium levels are decent..."

Avery watched me wrack my brain for an answer, then suddenly burst out laughing.

"Don't be so nervous. It's just water."

I let out a sigh of relief. "Right. Just water."

Avery swirled the empty glass in his hand, his tone sounding a bit regretful.

"Although it really is tasteless, it's nothing extraordinary. Looks like my three million dollars went down the drain."

Three million? That was less than I expected; I guessed he still had some savings left. It seemed Avery hadn't completely lost his mind after all.

"How have you been lately? Did I cause you a lot of trouble?"

Avery's expression returned to normal, and he casually started making small talk. I had been worried he might lose his composure, but now he seemed in decent spirits.

"Same as usual. But don't you ever vanish without a word again. We're friends, you know..."

We rattled on about all sorts of mundane things. How's business? Fine, not too bad. You look terrible, you need to get some rest. Doesn't everyone? Do you remember that trip we took in college? Oh, of course, that was a great trip, wasn't it?

I did most of the talking. Looking back, I think I was trying to use those worldly trivialities to pull Avery back into the real world, or at least get his brain to stop thinking exclusively about the subtle differences between a dozen types of mineral water. Avery didn't say much; he just nodded occasionally, his hand constantly gripping the empty glass. Our roles had reversed.

Just as I was rambling on about a bizarre coworker at my office, Avery suddenly interrupted me.

"We've been talking for so long, I'm getting a little thirsty."

"Really? How about we head out and grab a drink? I still have plenty to tell you."

"No, don't bother... There aren't many bars around here, it's a long walk... I mean, you can keep talking, I'll just manage..."

His eyes wandered, his head slightly bowed.

Following his gaze, I looked down at the empty glass in my hand. There was still about a third of the liquid remaining at the bottom.

"I just need to drink a little more of that... I'm really, really thirsty..."

In that split second, I saw a primal, animalistic greed in Avery's eyes. He was a guy with a mild germaphobe streak; usually, if someone so much as bumped into his teacup, he would frown and go wash it. But right now, he was staring intently at the residue in my glass—residue that might well contain my spit.

A sudden wave of intense dread pricked at my spine like a scratchy wool sweater, making my scalp go numb. I hesitated for a moment, then handed the glass over.

Avery practically snatched it from my hand. Without even waiting to align the rim with his lips, he frantically poured that last bit of water down his throat. He greedily sucked at the bottom of the glass, his tongue even licking along the inner walls, desperate to capture every last molecule.

"Are you okay? Jesus, you're parched. If that's not enough, I can go buy you some water—"

" Haah... "

Avery let out a deeply satisfied sigh, as if he had just downed a pint of ice-cold beer. He reached up, wiped the water from the corner of his mouth, and apologized for his sudden rudeness.

"I'm fine. I just... suddenly felt extremely thirsty. I'm better now."

Avery didn't seem to notice my stare. He lowered his head and slowly sucked off the remaining moisture from his fingertips, his expression calm. The soft, wet sounds echoed with unsettling clarity in the empty basement.

"Ave?"

"Yeah?"

Avery looked up at me, and I realized he was staring at my lips.

"We're still friends, right?"

"Of course. Why do you ask?"

"...Nothing. Just asking."

That was our last conversation. After that day, Avery vanished. He never returned. His phone became a disconnected number, his basement apartment was put back on the market, and his forum account went dormant. I tried going to the police, but they deemed it a voluntary disappearance of an adult with no immediate family, which didn't constitute a missing person case. It was only then that I realized he had never once mentioned his family to me.

I knew nothing about him.

—

Writing up to this point, I don't know whether I should write down what happened next, because I'm not sure if what I saw that day was a hallucination or reality.

After hesitating for a long time, I finally decided to write the whole thing out—or at least write down what I know. If your relatives or friends are also looking for Tasteless Water, please, whatever you do, stop them.

I have always deeply regretted not talking to Avery more that day.

－

After he vanished, I rarely drank plain water anymore, turning instead to a heavy addiction to soft drinks—until my annual checkup doctor warned me to stop drinking so much Coca-Cola unless I wanted diabetes by thirty. So I switched to Diet Coke. Just kidding—now I only drink green tea. It's less bland than plain water.

Two months ago, my company organized a team-building wilderness retreat near the edge of the Appalachian Mountains, deep within an undeveloped section of a national forest in Oregon. It was a treacherous zone where karst topography merged with virgin forest, perpetually shrouded in cold, damp mist. Everyone in the company complained bitterly about the arrangement, but the big boss insisted on going there, claiming we needed to reconnect with nature for our health.

The weather turned terrible that afternoon. The planned hiking route became a muddy disaster following a sudden torrential downpour, and I got separated from the main group. While trying to locate trail markers, I stepped on a rotting tree root, and my footing gave out instantly.

The tumble down was long and chaotic. I grabbed at anything I could reach, trying to break my momentum. Spinning out of control, branches slashed my skin, and jagged rocks battered my bones. Finally, with a sickening snap, my left lower leg bent at a horrific angle, and I slammed hard into the bottom of a deep ravine. The excruciating pain knocked me unconscious.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but when I finally woke up, the sky was pitch black. Around me was an impenetrable canopy of trees, with the occasional night bird uttering a piercing screech. The temperature in the ravine had plummeted, and the biting cold combined with blood loss began to cloud my mind.

My throat felt as if it were lined with dry sandpaper, every breath dragging out a burning sting. Without water, there was no way I would survive until a search team found me.

Just as despair was taking over, I heard it: water.
The survival instinct that kicks in when a person is pushed to the brink is truly unbelievable. Normally, I barely hear my alarm clock going off, but that night, lying in the mud and weeds, I clearly heard the sound of flowing spring water.

It was a delicate, faint rushing sound that pierced through the dead quiet of the night, coming from deep inside a rocky cave a short distance ahead.
Driven by sheer force of life, I gritted my teeth. Using my hands to claw into the damp humus and cold stone, I dragged my useless, numb broken leg, inch by inch, toward the sound of the water.

My clothes were shredded, the palms of my hands torn raw, leaving a gruesome trail of blood mixed with mud behind me. But I didn't care. My eyes were fixed entirely on the shallow pool reflecting faint moonlight just ahead.

I finally crawled into the cave.

The interior was wider than I had imagined. There was no pungent sulfur or musty smell typical of limestone caves; instead, a strange, unnatural silence hung in the air. The sound of water originated from a spring at the center of the cavern.
It was a naturally formed pool of water, impossibly clear. It was so transparent that even in the dim light, the surface was virtually invisible—like an absent, transparent medium.

I struggled to the edge and reached out a trembling hand toward the water. The moment my fingertips touched the stream, a soothing wave of icy coldness rushed straight to my brain. I plunged my entire face into the water, gulping it down like a dog.

There was no earthy tang common in mountain springs, nor the chalky mineral taste of rock seepage. The instant I swallowed, an indescribable sensation spread down my esophagus. It felt as if every cell in my body had stopped screaming at once, smoothed over and dissolved by this liquid.

This taste was identical to the expired mineral water I had drunk in Avery's basement.

I snapped my head up, water droplets falling from my chin and breaking the stillness of the surface. After a brief shock, my stalled brain was suddenly seized by an uncontrollable surge of terror.

If this was the water source Avery had been searching for... then where was Avery?

Enduring the agonizing pain, I leaned over the edge of the pool. Beneath the thin sliver of moonlight filtering through a crack in the cave ceiling, I squinted, trying to peer into the bottom of the pool. It wasn't deep—about two or three meters. Because the water was so unnaturally clear, everything at the bottom was fully exposed to view.

I saw the thing I had subconsciously ignored moments before. Resting quietly on the bed of fine white sand at the bottom of the pool lay a man.

It was Avery.

He was fully clothed, his exposed skin showing an unnatural, translucent white, almost like jade. His hair floated gently with the current, like a patch of black moss growing on the pool floor.

Three years had passed, yet his body showed not the slightest sign of decay. No swelling, no discoloration—even the texture of his skin remained clearly visible. He just lay there at the bottom of the water, a sweet smile resting on his lips.

He had been watching me from under the water all along.

I saw his lips part and close gently. Though no sound reached my ears, I read the shape of his mouth.

Drink.

I watched my own head lower toward the water again, completely out of my control, and caught the increasingly tender smile on Avery's face at the bottom of the pool. The only sound left in my ears was the gentle surging of the spring.

It was the sound of the water breathing.

—

I don't remember much of what happened after that. I was rescued by a search team, and when I woke up, I was lying in a bed at a local emergency hospital. My left leg was saved, but the doctors said my blood work was bizarre—the concentration of electrolytes and all minerals in my body was at a critically low level, far below what should be compatible with life.

I asked the search team members if any of them had seen that pool of water, but they said I was found unconscious directly below where I had fallen—in an open clearing. That was the only reason they located me so quickly. One of the rescuers told me it was completely normal to experience vivid hallucinations under those circumstances.

Today, my body has fully recovered. I am as strong as ever—better, in fact, than I have ever been. I'm full of energy and can run for two hours straight without stopping.

I might set out again soon. Yesterday, I found a small bottle filled with spring water in the side pocket of my backpack. I can taste its flavor. I have no memory of ever filling it, but it means that pool was no hallucination.

Avery is still down there, beneath the surface.

I have to go bring him back. Because we're friends.

Tonight was hands down the worst date of my life.

The first disaster was that I failed to land a table at Anna’s favorite restaurant, so I had to switch to another place that wasn’t quite as high-end. Anna wouldn’t let it go, picking at the issue through the entire dinner. God, does she have any idea how hard it is to get a Saturday night reservation at Dorothy's?

By the time she finally cooled down and was willing to have a decent conversation with me, I called her by the wrong name—and that was disaster number two. She had changed her name six months ago; she goes by Ivy now. I swear it just slipped out. Calling her Anna for ten years makes a habit pretty tough to break.

Ivy looked gorgeous tonight. Her skin was glowing, and her beautifully shaped lips kept opening and closing as she went on and on about how stupid and insufferable I was. She said she regretted accepting my confession because she knew Simon had always been in love with her, ever since we were kids messing around together. If she were with Simon, that guy would treat her like a goddess.

I helped her cut up her steak, picked out the shredded carrots from her salad, and moved the glass away before she could knock it over in her heated gestures. Then I said, "Yeah, right. But Simon would never have the guts to confess to you, and your pride would never let you confess to him. Now can we just get back to eating dinner, please? Sweetheart."

Ivy looked at me and took a deep breath. Her expression softened, and she took a bite of salad right from my hand, chewing like a timid herbivore.

"Sorry, Joe. I didn't mean to snap at you. The girls on the cheer squad... they've been putting a lot of pressure on me."

I knew, because Ivy isn't the type to throw fits for no reason. I’ve always known that. She’s been eating very little lately because we have another game coming up against Hyde High soon, and the cheer squad has been practicing almost every single day. To make time for our camping trip next weekend, Ivy had to make up for that day's practice in advance. She’s been living on nothing but eggs and cucumber slices for a solid week.

But this restaurant is famous for its grilled king prawns, so tonight she planned to indulge just a little. Ivy ate only a third of her steak before pushing the plate toward me, waiting for the main event.

"Did you let Simon know?"

"Of course. Couldn't leave him out."

"Honestly, I really wish he'd make some other friends. He's way too quiet. Joe, do you think..."

Just as everything was getting back on track, the third disaster struck. After the grilled prawns were served, the waiter brought us a few pairs of plastic gloves. Ivy shot a quick glance at the waiter, then glared resentfully at me. I knew what she meant: See? This place just isn't high-end enough. If you ordered grilled prawns at Dorothy's, they'd have a dedicated server peel them for you instead of handing you disposable gloves like they're handing out cheap trash.

But I was too busy trying to put the glove on to cater to her mood. You pry the edges apart, blow a puff of air inside, and then shove all five fingers in until they get stuck somewhere inexplicable, forcing you to meticulously check what kind of ghost friction is stopping your hand. Alright, now pull hard—

Snap. It ripped wide open. The momentum sent my hand flying forward, knocking over the wine glass in front of me. Wine spilled everywhere—over the salad, the steak, and the very plate of grilled prawns Ivy had been looking forward to all night. Now it was prawns soaked in red wine.

Having been together for ten years, Ivy and I usually have an unusually high tolerance for each other. Despite her earlier mood, seeing this mess, she simply pulled out a few napkins to wipe down the table, rearranged the plates, and told me not to worry. She said she didn't mind her prawns tasting like wine, but I shouldn't think this got me off the hook for peeling them—she was still starving.

If things had ended right there, it would have been nothing more than a minor hiccup followed by a sweet reconciliation.

Ivy always calls me an idiot, and she's right. If I hadn't struck up a conversation with that man, tonight wouldn't have turned into the absolute worst date of my life.

Holding the torn glove, I tried to spot a waiter in the crowded, noisy dining room to ask for a new pair. But they all seemed busy running food back and forth from the kitchen. This place really didn't compare to Dorothy's. That was when I noticed a man sitting at the table next to us. Though not dressed formally, he was very neatly put together, wearing metal-framed glasses, his hair combed without a single strand out of place. He looked to be in his nineties or fifties—around forty, I'd say—exuding an elegant air that felt entirely out of place in this somewhat chaotic restaurant.

In front of him sat an identical plate of grilled prawns. At that moment, he was gracefully slipping his right hand into an impossibly snug glove, preparing to enjoy his meal.

I was honestly just desperate for a quick fix.

"Sir, excuse me, sorry to bother you," I leaned over slightly and said with an embarrassed smile. "Do you happen to have a spare glove? Mine accidentally tore."

Ivy tugged at my sleeve under the table. She never liked interacting with strangers.

He paused what he was doing and slowly turned his head, looking at me—or rather, scanning me—through his metal-framed glasses.

"Oh, certainly."

He shot a brief glance at Ivy before quickly looking back, his voice deep and magnetic.

"It is my honor to assist a gentleman in distress."

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, pulled out a cigarette case, and slid out a glove to hand to me.

Yes, just one single glove.

Ivy gave me an disapproving look. According to her logic, any older, single man who appears completely normal on the surface must harbour some bizarre, hidden quirk. But I didn't care at the time. I thanked him and took the glove. The moment it touched my palm, though, I felt something off.

The glove felt impossibly supple, with an astounding amount of elasticity. My right hand slipped inside effortlessly, with almost zero resistance.

It was like a layer of melted liquid, clinging perfectly to every inch of my fingers. It wrapped so tightly that I could clearly see the outline of my fingernails—even the tiny scar on my right index finger from childhood was visible underneath this thin film.

It felt incredible, almost like a second layer of my own skin.

"Good lord..."

I couldn't help but marvel out loud, looking back at him.

"Your glove is amazing! It fits like a dream. Mind telling me what brand this is? Maybe next time I can prepare in advance..."

He cut off a piece of prawn, placed it in his mouth, chewed slowly, wiped his lips with a napkin, and only then did he speak.

"It's custom-made. By myself."

It took my brain a few seconds to process that. "You can custom-make plastic gloves?"

"No, no. Plastic is terrible for the environment; polyethylene takes centuries to decompose in nature. We all have a duty to be eco-friendly, don't we? This isn't plastic. It's human skin."

Ivy's face instantly turned sour. She knit her brows, stomped hard on my foot, and glared at me to shut up and stop talking to this creep. I choked up for a second too, but looking at the subtle, faint smirk on his lips, I figured he was just joking—a classic piece of "guy humor," pretending to be a cold-blooded psycho to see who flinches first. The guys on the team did that all the time. So I pretended not to be phased at all and played right along with his absurd claim.

"Isn't that a bit crude for a manufacturing process? I thought we'd have better options. Personally, I prefer lambskin... um, much softer..."

His smile widened, as if he had just heard a child say something adorably naive.

"How do you think this is made, son? Do you think I'm some low-class serial killer who grabs random people off the streets late at night, drags them into a basement, and peels the skin off their hands with a knife?"

He shook his head, a chilling sense of pride dripping from his tone.

"This is a civilized era; we moved past such barbaric methods long ago. Listen closely, look at the glove on your hand. Soft, thin... virtually translucent, isn't it? It even captures fingerprints perfectly."

My eyes uncontrollably darted down to my right hand. It was true. Under the dim brass light, the film was nearly colorless, but it carried a faint, milky sheen. I could almost make out the whorls of a thumbprint on my right thumb—wait. That wasn't my thumbprint.

It seemed to be the pattern of the glove itself.

I could feel cold sweat slowly oozing from my pores, trickling down my forehead. Unaware of—or indifferent to—my reaction, he leaned in a bit closer and whispered his secret.

"The method is actually quite simple. First, you must find a willing donor. It must be voluntary, because we live in a civilized society and we are civilized people. Then, using a specialized wavelength of simulated UV light, you bake their hands for an extended period. The ultraviolet rays break down the connection between the dermis and epidermis. After a few days, the skin on their hands begins to peel away in large sheets. That's when you have to be extremely delicate, peeling off that intact layer of epidermal film while preserving the complete shape of the palm."

"Finally, you soak it in a special tanning reagent. This locks in the proteins, allowing it to be preserved indefinitely without tearing, all while maintaining the natural elasticity and suppleness of human skin."

He pushed his glasses back up his nose.

"Or do you happen to have a better method, son?"

"This is disgusting!"

Ivy bolted up from her seat, clutching her handbag tightly to her chest. She grabbed my arm, trying to yank me out of my chair.

"Joe, we're leaving. Right now!"

But my mind was an absolute blank. His story had far too many specific details, making me genuinely start to question what the hell was wrapped around my hand. I desperately wanted to peel this film off right then and there. But Ivy was standing right there; I couldn't show weakness.

"That is... quite a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing, sir."

The moment I forced those words out, I regretted it. My voice sounded weak, pathetic, and completely lacking any backbone. I lost.

He finished the last bite of his prawn and unceremoniously peeled off the glove on his right hand. The moment he pulled it off, I swear I heard a wet, tearing sound, like wet cloth being pulled apart. The removed glove hung limp in his grip, resembling a freshly shed snake skin.

He casually tossed the discarded glove onto the corner of my table.

"I have no further use for it. You may keep it."

He adjusted his jacket, gave me a slight nod, and said, "Farewell."

I stared at the crumpled glove on the corner of the table, then down at my glove-wrapped right hand. A wave of overwhelming nausea surged from my stomach, sending chills straight up my spine. Was this real? Was this actual human skin? And if it was real... whose skin was it?

Lost in a spiral of indescribable horror, I completely failed to notice Ivy calling my name over and over again.

She thought I was playing a prank on her— revenge for when she suggested pulling a prank during our upcoming camping trip and I had refused.

"Jonathan, I am so sick of you!"

Her face pale with rage, she slammed her wine-stained napkin right into my face, grabbed her purse, and stormed out of the restaurant without looking back once. In the ten years we had known each other, this was the very first time she had ever walked out on me in the middle of a date. By the time I snapped out of it and tried to text her on my phone, she had already blocked my number.

You have no idea how many humiliating conditions I had to agree to just to get Ivy to forgive me. It was only afterward that I realized what a ridiculously low-tier scam I had fallen for. That guy had used a creepy, elaborate ghost story to paralyze me with fear, taking advantage of my momentary shock to pull a hit-and-run on his bill.

Seeing how intensely we were chatting, the waiter naturally assumed we were together and tacked that guy's expensive grilled prawns and vintage wine straight onto my tab. I ended up having to pay for two meals—plus two tips.

As for the glove he left behind? I looked it up online later and found the exact same thing: basic PVC medical gloves, a huge box of them for barely ten bucks.

Ivy was right. I really am an idiot—getting scared out of my wits by a disposable glove and ruining a date with my girlfriend in the process.

So go ahead, laugh all you want. But if I can leave you with one piece of advice: never, ever talk to strangers on a date, especially when your girlfriend clearly doesn't want you to. Listening to her will always save you a world of trouble.

If I go to the hospital, the doctor will only increase my dosage. If I try to explain things to my parents again, they’ll just look at me with that sickening, sympathetic, sorrowful gaze that makes me want to scream until my vocal cords tear apart.

Right now, I’m hiding in the closet, typing this on an old, offline laptop. Before my memories are completely wiped clean, I have to write all of this down.

My name is Faith, and I have a twin sister named Grace. Just forty-two days ago, she tragically passed away in a car accident.

Grace was that "perfect" girl—the exact kind of daughter my parents had always hoped for. Gentle, kind, drifting through the mundane details of life like running water, never splashing a drop. She played the cello, and her fingernails were always neatly trimmed.

I was the exact opposite: a short-tempered jerk. I spent half of middle school in detention—either arguing with teachers or beating up girls who talked trash about my friends. We were like day and night, polar opposites, yet neither of us could live without the other.

By any reasonable standard, she was the favored child. I don't mean anything by saying that; it was just a fact of our household, like the squeaky floorboard in the living room or how my mom always burnt the pancakes. Grace was loved in one specific way, and I was loved in another. I accepted that long ago.

It was raining heavily late that night when the police officer knocked on our door. His hat was soaked through, clutched tightly against his chest. Mom passed out on the spot. I still vividly remember the heavy thud of her head hitting the hardwood floor; for a second, I thought I was going to lose two loved ones on the very same day.

I knelt beside her, screaming hysterically at my dad to call an ambulance, but he just stood there numbly, staring blankly at the front door as if Grace might walk in at any second, laughing and saying it was all just a bad joke. But she would never do a thing like that. Only I would. Except for that young officer, there was no one at the door.

Liam was Grace's friend—maybe her boyfriend. She never talked to me about those things. Seeing him cry so inconsolably at the funeral, I assumed it was the latter. I knew I shouldn’t blame him; the police report concluded the other driver was entirely at fault. Yet, a fierce urge screamed inside me to go up and demand answers—

Why did you convince my sister to go out late at night? Why didn't you protect her? Why wasn't it you who died?

But I didn't. Grace liked everything to be calm, peaceful, and according to plan. So I just gritted my teeth tightly and looked away from him. The impact of the crash was almost entirely borne by the passenger seat where Grace sat; we had to place a thick veil over her face. Standing by the casket, I gently touched her hand. It was freezing cold, like a wild sparrow frozen stiff in the winter night. On her left ring finger was a faint scar, left by a broken beaker in seventh-grade chemistry class. I saw that scar and rubbed it repeatedly with my thumb until Dad walked over, telling me softly to return to my seat for the next part of the service.

Grace was truly gone.

It took me more than half a month to barely come to terms with it. At least I wasn't staying up all night anymore. One morning, as I sat at the kitchen island staring blankly into a bowl of soggy, bloated cereal, mom walked in. She poured a glass of orange juice and set it down gently in front of me.

"Here you go, sweetie."

Her expression was soft and warm, as if she had completely forgotten what had happened.

"You need to get some vitamin C, Grace."

"Mom... I'm Faith."

I kept my voice as soft as possible, afraid to startle her. She froze, staring at me with a hollow look in her eyes. A painful, intensely patient smile forced its way onto her haggard face.

"Of course. I'm sorry, I'm just so tired."

She got up to wash her teacup. Grief makes people hallucinate—everyone says so—so I didn't push it. I obediently drank the entire glass of orange juice. While she was cleaning the kitchen, I slipped out into the garage. Dad was in there, repairing his motorcycle.

"Dad, look at me. Who am I?"

"Faith, not now."

He didn't even turn to look at me, continuing to tighten his bolts. Hearing his tone sounded normal, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I sat down on a folding chair nearby, quietly watching him tinker with his auto tools. The smell of motor oil drifted into my nose, bringing a wave of relaxation.

I told Dad what had just happened, phrasing it lightly like a "you won't believe what Mom just did" joke. He didn't laugh; instead, he became deathly serious.

He gripped my shoulders and said, "You have to understand that your mother is going through a lot right now. Be a little more patient with her, okay? She’s really hurting."

Be a little more patient with her. Not "don't worry, I'll go talk to her," nor "I'm sure she didn't mean it." Just you need to be more patient. As if I were the one who had done something wrong.

I stared blankly at his face, suddenly finding it terribly unfamiliar. Who was this man? Was he really my father? A wave of dizziness washed over me, and the smell of motor oil made me feel like throwing up. I wrenched myself free from his grip and sprinted upstairs, locking myself in my room.

A slip of the tongue works like this: it happens once, maybe twice, and then it stops. Because someone corrects it, and the person corrected feels embarrassed and adjusts, making sure it doesn't happen again. But that wasn't what was happening here.

Over the course of the week, Mom kept calling me Grace. She began bringing up "when your sister was still alive" in conversations with me, as if I were the one who had died, not the other way around. Then Dad started doing it too.

At first, I tried to correct them: "I'm Faith. Grace is the one who passed away." I must have repeated similar words two hundred times. Yet every single time, I got the exact same reaction—a flash of pity in their eyes, followed by a gentle, indulgent smile, the kind you give a small child who insists Santa Claus is real.

"Alright, sweetheart. Alright."

They never argued with me, even when I started screaming. That was actually worse for me, because in the past, whenever we disagreed, Faith and them would have a screaming match. They had never argued with Grace.

You rarely realize how much of your self-identity is actually built on other people's consensus of who you are—until that consensus is ripped out from under your feet. When I looked in the mirror, I was certain I knew who I was. Yet five minutes later, Mom would call me "Grace" with absolute confidence—my sister, who had died half a month ago.

I decided to stop arguing with my parents. I needed an outside witness, an uninfected bystander who hadn't been poisoned by my parents' bizarre collective delusion.

So, during my next therapy session, I laid out everything that had been happening to Dr. Vance. How Mom mistook me for my sister, how Dad did the same, and how I was completely helpless against it.

She listened attentively, nodding every now and then to encourage me to keep talking. Right after the session ended, however, she turned to my parents and said, "This is very common. I'll prescribe a bottle of tablets. Make sure she takes them on time, and she will get better."

Mom covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. I stared stupidly at the kindly doctor; just two minutes ago she was comforting me, telling me she believed me. In the blink of an eye, I had become the crazy one. Dr. Vance reached toward her bookshelf and pulled out a thick folder.

"Listen, Grace—maybe you think you're Faith, but surely you remember that every time we had a session, there was a sign-in record?"

"Yes."

She opened it and placed it on the desk between us, spinning it toward me. I saw the overhead fluorescent light cast a cold reflection on the plastic cover of the folder.

In the signature column of every single consultation record, there was only one name written: "Grace Miller."

A beautiful, slanted cursive—Grace's handwriting. My father's stiff writing was on the consent forms, and my mother's flowing script was on others. According to this folder, Grace had been receiving psychological counseling here for over a year.

I could hear my own voice becoming high and shrill. I hated it, because it made me look like a lunatic desperately needing to be calmed down.

"No, I didn't write this! I fucking never wrote this! You guys must have mixed up the medical records—"

The rest of the words jammed in my throat because they were looking at me.

Mom had lowered her hands at some point. There were no tear tracks on her face at all; her sobbing outburst moments ago felt like a figment of my imagination. Mother, Father, Dr. Vance—everyone was expressionless, staring at me without moving a muscle.

−

"Time for your medicine, Grace."

I took the glass of water from my mother, dumped the tablets she handed me into my mouth, and opened wide to show her I had swallowed them. She looked relieved.

The moment she left, I rushed into the bathroom and shoved my fingers down my throat. After a bout of retching, a few white pills floated on the surface of the water before slowly sinking to the bottom.

I reached out and pressed the flush handle.
I had been kept under house arrest for half a month. Dr. Vance had advised them to do so, claiming I was "not quite right" and needed to be watched closely. Twice a day, Mom would bring me two small white pills in a paper cup, like serving a bedridden patient their meals. Then I would smile, drink the water, thank her, and walk into the bathroom to induce vomiting after she left.

Every night, I would stare at myself in the mirror, searching for changes in my own face. I started noticing details that I couldn't tell were real or fake. When I answered my mother, my voice would unconsciously pitch half a note higher, becoming soft and apologetic—just like, well, Grace's voice.
I told myself it was stress. I knew trauma could twist a person in strange ways, but on certain nights, a terrifying doubt would creep in: had I failed to throw up all those pills, causing these changes?

Eventually, my obedient behavior paid off. My parents relaxed their supervision, and I got my phone back.

"As a sign of trust," Mom said, kissing my forehead as if rewarding a well-behaved toddler.

I didn't waste the opportunity, I texted Liam.

He replied almost instantly. We agreed to meet that night at a small park a few blocks away—a place he and Grace used to frequent.

When the time came, I climbed out of my bedroom window and sprinted all the way to our meeting spot. Liam was already there when I arrived. Seeing me, he immediately stood up from the bench, looking anxious and timid like a child who had done something wrong.

"Hi, Fa—Faith. I thought you wouldn't want to see me again... What happened?"

I rushed over, threw my arms around him, and began to sob uncontrollably.

Once I calmed down a bit, I recounted everything that had happened to me over those days, pouring out every detail. I thought he would look at me the way everyone else did, treating me like a mental patient. But he didn't. He bit his lip hard, waiting until I finally ran out of words before speaking.

"Faith... I know you hate me because of Grace, and you probably wish I were dead. I don't mean to offend you, but... I still have to say this."

Liam was deathly pale, looking like a tubercular mouse. He took a deep breath, as if summoning the courage for what he was about to say next.

"Your parents... do they wish that the one who died was you?"

Did they wish that the one who died was me?

Liam didn't seem to notice my reaction and continued with his theory: "They wished you were the one who died, so they're trying to make you believe you're Grace. Maybe they colluded with that therapist... paper records can be faked, after all..."

I couldn't help but wonder: if Grace had been the one to survive, would things have been better? Grace was so understanding; she would have comforted Mom and Dad so well after Faith died. They would have gradually forgotten the pain and returned to being a perfect family.

If only they could erase the short-tempered, obnoxious Faith.

"Faith? Faith, are you listening?"

I snapped back to reality. Liam was looking at me with deep concern.

"Don't worry, Faith. I'll help you. I promise I'll help you figure this out. No matter who it is, no one will hurt you or change you ever again... So please stop crying, okay?"

Only then did I realize I was crying. I don't think I had ever experienced such a profound sense of relief in my entire life. Just one person—I only needed one single person to confirm that I truly existed, and I had found him.

I managed to sneak back home before my parents noticed the open window. That night, I lay in bed with a dizzying rush of excitement, playing back the sound of Liam calling my name over and over in my mind. Faith. Faith. Of course I was Faith. I always had been.

That sweet relief lasted until the next morning. I walked into the kitchen, and Mom smiled at me warmly.

"Good morning, Grace."

I couldn't take it anymore and screamed at the top of my lungs. I told them I knew everything. I told them Liam recognized me, that Liam knew exactly who I was, and that if they tried to force me into thinking I was Grace again, I would call the police. I would expose their true faces to everyone, I swore it.

Yet they didn't panic like people whose conspiracy had been exposed. They simply exchanged a glance, then turned their eyes back to me.

Mom spoke cautiously: "Grace, sweetie... Liam is dead."

A laugh burst out of my throat almost instantly, because it was so utterly ridiculous. I had just met him last night! Ten hours ago, we were sitting side-by-side on a park bench. He told me he would help me and told me not to worry.

Dad didn't argue with me. He pulled out his phone and pulled up a news article. A photo I knew all too well. A young man killed in a car crash. A name. Liam's name.

I grabbed my own phone and searched "car accident." An identical news report appeared right before my eyes. Liam—the person who died had become Liam. I read that report over and over, and with every pass, every fiber of my being realized with terrifying clarity that the ground beneath my feet simply didn't exist.

And then—this is the part I still cannot fully recall, a blank, blinding white void at the edge of my memory—my parents started telling me that story again. Except it was no longer the original version. Its details had shifted naturally, as if it had been this way all along, and I was the one who remembered it wrong.

In this new version, Grace and Liam went out together that night, and the one who didn't make it back was Liam. Grace survived. It was Liam's funeral. The person whose finger was cut by the broken beaker was also Liam. There had only ever been one girl, and her name was Grace. There was no Faith. Faith didn't exist. Grace had always been an only child.

−

I found a memory card containing a video I recorded when I was a child. Even if all the evidence was forged, even if everyone was lying to me, modifying a ten-year-old video was virtually impossible. This was my last hope.

I plugged it into an old computer and clicked play.

The first thing that came through was my father's cheerful voice: "Look at the camera, girls!"

On the screen appeared a little girl in a pink swimsuit, smiling radiantly at the camera. That was Grace.

I held my breath, waiting for the camera to pan left. I remembered that Faith was sitting on the left side of the picnic mat back then, burying her feet in the wet sand, throwing a tantrum because she had lost her sunglasses.

The camera panned left.

There was nothing there. Only an empty stretch of beach and a blue picnic mat. Little Grace turned her head, looking at that empty spot of sand beside her. She scooped up a handful of sand, threw it into the empty air, and giggled.

Off-camera, Mom's voice drifted in: "Honey, maybe we should take her to see Dr. Vance..."

The video ended.

A sense of tranquility slowly enveloped me. I could no longer feel the rage burning in my chest. I tried to fight back. I swear to God, I really tried.

I've started writing in a beautiful, slanted cursive.
Maybe Faith was nothing more than a ghost sketched out in the mind of a lonely child—a shadow created to bear the negative emotions for Grace. Maybe after being shattered by a car accident, my brain is undergoing some belated self-repair. Erasing those memories that shouldn't exist inch by inch, deleting the delusion named "Faith." Until finally, I am poured back into Grace's body.

But if that's truly the case... then who is the "me" thinking these thoughts right now?

I don't know.

I can feel my emotions drifting away. Those sharp, jagged thoughts are being smoothed down. The anger that drove me to type these words is slipping away like sand through my fingers.

I hear Mom calling me from downstairs.

"Grace? Sweetie, dinner's ready. I made your favorite tomato soup."

Faith hated tomato soup. Just the smell of it made her want to throw up.

But now, sitting here in the dark listening to my mother's voice, my mouth is watering. The voice sounds so warm, so comforting... and so delicious.
I look down at my hands on the keyboard. They are no longer trembling. My fingers relax, nails trimmed neatly.

If you read this, please don't look for Faith anymore.

I don't think she'll be around much longer. I can feel her dissolving, like a pinch of salt melting into warm water. It doesn't even hurt anymore. Instead, I feel... at peace.

If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

I think I'll close this laptop now. I need to go downstairs, wash my hands, and help Mom set the table. I'm going to have the cello lesson in the afternoon.

I know this sounds stupid. I felt stupid just typing out this title. If you're about to tell me in the comments section to go see a psychiatrist, please finish reading the post first.

About a week ago, I started coughing up green stuff. It looked like the shredded remains of some kind of plant with a bit of translucent membrane on it.

Unable to hold back my curiosity, I picked it up with a tissue and took a sniff, and immediately regretted it. It smelled like spinach that had been rotting for months, mixed with damp soil and over-fermented fruit.

Now, some of you might be thinking: "This idiot just doesn't know what tonsil stones are."

No, thank you. I know what tonsil stones are, and I’m not stupid enough to forget what I ate in a day. I haven't eaten broccoli, green peppers, peas, or anything of the sort, and I’m pretty confident three eggs and a liter of coffee wouldn't ferment into green sludge inside my mouth. I’m a model. The most important fashion show of the year is coming up in two weeks, and I’m controlling my weight. So for the past week, I’ve been living almost exclusively on three eggs, a liter of iced coffee, and the occasional vitamin supplement per day.

Zero green food. So that stuff couldn't possibly have come from my stomach.

At first, I suspected I might have caught some strange illness, but that brought up another problem: I couldn't go to the hospital.

It’s not that I hate doctors or hospitals. At the risk of sounding vain, I do have a bit of fame—at least enough that people recognize me on the street. Hospitals are full of people. If I actually coughed up a blob of green unknown substance during an examination and someone snapped a photo to post online, I wouldn't be working for the next few months, or even years.

I checked online and found that extreme stress can cause sleepwalking, and maybe I was eating things in my sleep at night without remembering it the next day. So, I bought a security camera and fixed it to the bookshelf in my bedroom, right where it could capture the entire bed.

Guess what I caught on tape?

You can scroll back up to look at the title of this post. That’s right. Sprites.

Damned, hideous, stupid sprites!

A humanoid creature about ten centimeters tall with two pairs of transparent wings on its back. I don't know what else to call it besides "sprite." It suddenly popped into the frame with a *bang*, with stuff like glitter exploding around it. It flew a few loops around my bed, landed right beside my face, used its tiny hands to pry open my lips and teeth, and dove straight in headfirst.

I watched myself snap my mouth shut like a hungry feral cat, and then start chewing. Through the glass screen, I could almost hear the crunch of snapping bones and the faint squeals as I swallowed.

I immediately sprinted into the bathroom and threw up violently into the toilet until my stomach was completely empty. Even though I knew that poor sprite had probably long been dissolved by my powerful human stomach acid, I still threw up until I was retching pure bile. When I returned to the screen, I saw another sprite fly in—and then it dove in, too.

My mouth started chewing again.

Once I calmed down, I sent the video to my uncle to make sure he could see it too, proving I hadn't lost my mind. He replied almost instantly.

"Hey, looks like they finally caught on."

"What?"

"What do you mean, 'what'?"

"How are you not surprised by sprites?!"

"First off, their official classification is 'Tooth Fairy.' Second, because they come by the association every few years to renew their partnership agreement."

"What association?!"

"The Dental Association, of course. Where else did you think all those pulled teeth went?"

I was certain I wasn't on drugs, and my uncle—a highly respected dentist—wasn't on drugs either. Plus, he couldn't drug me through a phone screen.

Wait, could he really not? I mean, he *is* working with sprites...

Sorry, I'm straying too far off topic. This sprite bullshit is driving me crazy. Anyway, with my uncle's prompt, I finally remembered the stupid thing I did in my childhood.

My parents were always busy with work and didn't even have time to take care of me on weekends, so I spent my weekends throughout primary school at my uncle's clinic. My favorite game back then was "Hunting for Pearls", which was actually just digging plaster teeth off discarded models in the clinic's storeroom one by one. If it had ended there, I wouldn't be in the mess I'm in today. But... but...

My idiot uncle taught me a great way to make pocket money: tricking the sprites with fake teeth.

"I told you that trick only works AFTER you finish losing your baby teeth!"

"I was eight years old!"

That's right. As long as you keep a plaster tooth in your mouth for 15 minutes to coat it in your saliva, and then put it under your pillow before going to sleep, those foolish little sprites will mistake it for a real tooth that recently fell out of your mouth and swap it for a coin. If you do this after you've finished changing teeth, it's just counted as an operational error on the sprites' part for failing to verify your age in time. But if you do it while you're *still* losing baby teeth, these slow-witted sprites won't realize they've been scammed until 16 years later. Then, they'll show up at your bedside every night, trying to pull out your teeth with their tiny hands.

"Oh dear, looks like we have a financial fraudster in the family—a cross-species one, no less."

Like I said, I was eight years old. You can't expect a kid to have the self-control to hold off until they're 14 and done changing teeth just to get some allowance. Besides, I never believed in sprites in the first place; I always thought my parents and uncle were teaming up to tease me. That was why I spent almost every weekend in the storeroom digging out fake teeth, getting plaster dust jammed under my fingernails. After all, if acting cute in front of adults gets you money, who's going to say no to ice cream, gummy candies, and the newest toys?

Anyway, I thought the whole thing would end there. Since my uncle knew the sprites, he should be able to help settle a tiny economic dispute like this. But if that were the case, I wouldn't be sitting at my computer typing this right now.

"Nope, can't do."

"Why? You work with them, shouldn't this be easy?"

"Again, their official classification is Tooth Fairy. Calling them 'sprites' as a blanket term is very rude. Would you like being called a primate?"

"Fine, I apologize! Can we do it now?"

"How should I put this... Tooth Fairies actually have a super hierarchical society. The ones that sign agreements with us belong to the managerial class, possessing intelligence no different from humans. But the ones that fly into kids' bedrooms house by house to collect teeth belong to the very bottom tier. Word is they're dumb as bricks and completely impossible to communicate with."

"Can't you just talk to the management class and have them issue an order? Like, 'This human's debt is settled, stop jumping into his mouth' or something..."

"Still no. Aside from the designated agreement signing times, they're on vacation almost year-round and completely unreachable. Employees working while the bosses enjoying—terrible corporate culture, right?”

"Then when is your next agreement signing?"

"Hold on, let me check my schedule. The next signing is..."
"Next year :D"

So now you know everything. Fifteen minutes before typing this, I decided to break off all ties with my uncle for ten years. Three hours ago, I coughed up another massive blob of sprite body parts.

I tried wearing a mask, and I even tried taping my mouth shut. But those little bastards just called in more backup, and I ended up swallowing even more of these freaky creatures.The number of these sprites is increasing every night. Judging by the wing fragment content in this morning's vomit, the count grew to eight last night. And I don't know what kind of physical structure these sprites have, but their caloric content is terrifyingly high. I've eaten almost nothing this past week, yet I've still gained 8 pounds! If this keeps up, my manager is going to come over and strangle me. Or before that happens, I'll choke to death in my sleep from a mouth full of sprites.

So whether you are a witch, a wizard, a psychic, or a Tooth Fairy manager on vacation—anyone will do. Does anyone know how to get rid of sprites?

I just got discharged from the hospital two hours ago.

I am sitting on the bed in my bedroom, with a brand-new pair of basketball shoes beside me. On sale, size 11.5, Nike. The left foot fits perfectly, but the right side requires me to stuff three layers of thick wool socks inside just to barely keep it from slipping off.

I am writing this not to seek sympathy, nor do I intend to ask you for the police's contact information. The case has probably already made the local news. If you’ve been following the state news over the past two months, you should have seen the headlines about the "Black Pine Woods Camping Massacre." All of my friends are dead.
Regardless of what the police reports say, I just want to tell what happened that night, from my perspective.

Before I talk about what happened that night, I must first explain to you what kind of person I actually am.

−

If you met me for the first time, you probably wouldn't think there was anything wrong with me.

I can walk, I can jog, and I can go up and down the stairs just like anyone else. If I don't actively tell people, no one would notice any difference between me and an ordinary person.

But ever since I was a child, I knew my body was worse than others in certain ways.

I couldn't do sports. Not "not good at it," but completely incapable. The word "clumsy" was stuck to me like a cutie mark, an innate trait. Just like my congenital amblyopia, it was something destined to never change.

I was never a picky eater, yet I remained skinny and weak, as if nutrients just slid right out of my stomach. Even when walking on flat ground, I would trip and bruise myself all over.

Elementary school PE class was practically a public execution for me. While other kids ran wild like horses across the playground, I always shrank into the shadows of the bleachers. I tried training myself, but every attempt ended in failure.

The comment all the teachers wrote on my report cards at the end of the term was always the exact same line: "Quiet, but very creative."

There was a fifty percent lie in that, and you can probably guess which half it was. Adults rarely tell a child directly that he is bad at fitting in with the group. They won't say you don't fit in, they won't say you are too timid, nor will they say you have nothing particularly outstanding about you. They will only say you are quiet, introverted, and add a line about being "very creative" that no one could actually see.

But I still had two friends, Jonathan and Anna. We were neighbors, and from the very first day I moved into this neighborhood, we hung out together. They never mocked me for always falling down or for my ridiculous bright-blue amblyopia glasses. Jonathan would fight off those who picked on me, and Anna would hand me a handkerchief to wipe the water spots off my glasses.

I thought we would be like this forever, until we entered high school, and everything changed.
Jonathan grew tall and strong remarkably fast, and Anna's facial structure began to mature; her face started radiating a unique charm that made anyone like her at first sight. She changed her name during the summer break of eighth grade because the name Anna "didn't match my face ".Her name is Ivy now.

Jonathan became the quarterback of the school football team, and Ivy was the cheerleading captain. They were naturally placed at the top of the school's food chain, becoming part of the popular cool kids, and subsequently started dating.

I thought they would naturally abandon me too. I was already prepared to go find fellow bottom-tier freaks to make friends with, but they didn't. Every time Jonathan ran into me in the hallway, he would shout my name loudly to greet me, and Ivy would smile at me and wave.

Jonathan and Ivy were the king and queen of this school. I was neither nobility nor a commoner, so I was excluded from the food chain altogether. I still only had the two of them as friends. I suppose I was probably just the jester keeping the king and queen entertained.

There were often rumors in school saying that Jonathan and Ivy only used me as a tool to run errands, or simply treated me as a little pet in their boring lives.

But I didn't care, really. They were just occasionally a bit too rough when fooling around. Even if they now doubled over in laughter whenever I fell, I was still grateful to them. In this cruel high school social circle, it was them who shielded me from the worst of the bottom-tier bullying.

If a friendship lasts for more than ten years, it becomes hard to define its decline through simple status gaps. We had been friends for ten years; they wouldn't abandon me.

Until that weekend, when Jonathan proposed that we all go camping together.

The temperature was very low that day, and the forest was filled with the smell of wet, decaying leaves. A total of nine people participated in the trip. Besides the three of us, there were three other football teammates and their girlfriends.

They set up tents at the campsite and lit a campfire. Jonathan brought several cases of beer, while Ivy was in charge of turning on the speakers. Everyone could only listen to her playlist, but it didn't matter; it was full of pop music, so everyone could hum along to a few lines. I sat on a rock a little distance away from the fire, responsible for handing out drinks to everyone.

Jonathan kept telling inside jokes from the football team, and everyone was laughing out loud. Even if I didn't understand them, I laughed along with them. I liked that atmosphere. No matter how terrible a person you were before, knowing that right now you were included in the group made you feel temporarily safe.

I thought I was lucky.

Then, an ridiculously tall man walked out from the shadows of the woods.

He wore a dirt-covered black apron and held a large machete. Over his face was a leather mask with crude stitching, featuring two small holes cut out for eyes.

That's right, his outfit was entirely a hodgepodge from low-budget 80s slasher films——so much so that when I first noticed him, I inappropriately thought of Jason Voorhees.

Mike, the teammate standing on the outermost side, didn't even have time to fight back before Jason swung the blade at his neck. He screamed frantically, trying to cover the wound with his hands, but it was in vain. Blood sprayed onto the tent canvas like a high-pressure water gun, making the sound of rain falling on an umbrella.

My brain was screaming at me to run, but my legs were heavy as iron. I saw Jonathan try to fight back, only to be kicked flying by Jason, slamming heavily against a tree trunk.

No one could fight back against him. He looked so strong, so invincible. He chopped through everyone like vegetables. There were bodies everywhere, along with severed limbs and bright red blood.

When I was finally able to move my feet and back away trembling, just like all the stupid side characters in horror movies, I was tripped by a tree branch.

I fell beside a tent, my glasses dropping to the ground. Through the gap in the tent zipper, I saw a terrified face staring at me. It was Ivy.

Her makeup was ruined by tears, or perhaps sweat. Her black eyeliner had smudged into a large blotch, looking somewhat absurd. She stared at me with pleading eyes, shaking her head at me, begging me not to expose her.

This was the first time Ivy had ever looked at me like that, so I dragged myself up from the ground with all my strength, shouting and screaming as I ran in the other direction, attempting to draw the killer's attention. But he ignored me completely, walking straight toward Ivy's tent.

He unzipped it and stepped inside. A brief scream echoed out——the voice was very raspy and didn't sound much like Ivy's. Then came the dull thud of a sharp weapon plunging into flesh, and a slender figure collapsed, the arc of spraying blood showing exceptionally clear under the firelight.

Now, I was the only one left.

I slumped onto the ground, my back drenched in cold sweat. He dropped the blood-stained blade and stopped in front of me, heavy, turbid breathing coming from behind the mask.

"Hey, hero. Stand up, let's play a game."

His voice was very hoarse, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other. I was shaking violently all over, using every ounce of strength just to prop myself up against a nearby wooden stake to stand steady.

"Stand on one foot for me. If you can hold it for ten seconds, I'll let you go."

The cadence of his voice arched upward in a bizarre way at the end, just like a little girl who had found a beloved toy.

"Three... two... one..."

He began to count. I took a deep breath and slowly raised my left foot. Although wobbly, I tried my best to stay balanced.

He watched my performance with great interest, then said, "Now switch to standing on your left foot."

No.

I have always felt that there are very strange things inside the human body. They don't affect your normal life, so you rarely notice them, eventually even forgetting they exist. Not until one day someone suddenly magnifies these hidden defects in your body, making them the key to deciding your life or death, do you realize how much you shouldn't have ignored them.

I couldn't stand using only my left foot.

My left leg was abnormally weak and frail. Aside from my parents, only Jonathan and Ivy knew about this. I didn't know if this killer acted on a whim or what, but clearly, I was going to die now because of this stupid flaw.

Regardless, I had to try. But almost the instant my right foot left the ground, an intense sense of imbalance washed over me——my left ankle felt as if it were made of Play-Doh, completely unable to support my weight.

Before even two seconds had passed, I fell down.

"Again."

I scrambled up in a panic to try again. This time I held on for four seconds, but my ankle twisted unnaturally once more, sending me crashing sideways into the fire pit next to me, burning several holes into my clothes with sparks.

"Again."

I tried again and again, falling time after time, as dirt, blood, and tears mixed on my face. I knew I must look hilariously foolish right now. My left ankle was already sprained, throbbing with excruciating pain. But I didn't dare to stop, because that large machete was hovering right above my head.

When I fell yet again, Jason dropped the machete and burst out laughing.

"God! I can't hold it in anymore, how can someone be this clumsy!"

"I told you he couldn't do it."

A familiar voice suddenly came from behind me. I turned my head——it was Ivy. She was covered in bloodstains, but standing there completely fine.
Immediately after, more laughter rang out from the surrounding shadows.

"See, I told you! This guy can't even hold it for three seconds, even with a knife pointed at his head!"

Jonathan, who had originally been lying slumped against the tree, stood up, wiped the fake blood off his face, and laughed so hard he could barely catch his breath. The other "dead" friends also picked themselves up from the ground one after another, high-fiving and cheering.

Jason Voorhees took off his mask——he wasn't Jason, he was Jonathan's cousin, Andy.

This was a meticulously planned prank aimed solely at me. The blood was a mix of red ink and corn syrup, the machete had a retractable blade, and those severed limbs were Halloween props they bought for a few dozen dollars.

The sky was dark, and immersed in terror, I had been completely unable to tell the difference.
They went through all this effort simply to verify a joke Jonathan had made: even under the threat of death, I wouldn't be able to stand on one foot for more than ten seconds.

They won.

Ivy gave me a hug, thanking me for not exposing her earlier, though she hadn't expected that I wouldn't even realize it wasn't her voice. For theatrical effect, Andy had volunteered to perform that scream for her.

Jonathan patted my shoulder: "Hey man, you know what the most amazing part is?"

"…what?"

"All of us thought that in a situation like this, you would definitely burst out with some hidden potential… Like suddenly becoming super badass and knocking the killer out with one punch."

The muscles on his face twitched strangely as he tried desperately to hold back his laughter.

"Turns out you're still the exact same."

The spot Jonathan had patted throbbed with a dull ache. I stood in place, hearing my own voice come out of my mouth.

"That really is... pretty funny."

Jonathan spread his arms wide, making weird noises while wildly flailing his hands in the air, mimicking the posture I had just used when trying to balance my body.

"Oh god, please don't kill me, I'm a massive loser, I can't even stand straight..."

He looked both stupid and ridiculous, and I couldn't help laughing out loud too. I sat on the ground laughing along with them, at my own stupidity, clumsiness, and absurdity.

As Jonathan moved closer and closer to me, his movements suddenly became somewhat stiff. His eyes opened wide, and the laughter in his throat turned into a bubbling, gurgling sound squeezed from deep within.

I wanted to say that his acting was really good, so good that I couldn't recreate it this perfectly myself, so stop it, don't come any closer to me. Until I saw a real machete pierce straight out through his chest, hot blood dripping down the tip of the blade, landing right on the toe of my shoe.

Jonathan collapsed heavily at my feet like a heavy sack of potatoes.

Standing behind him was a stranger. He wore clean grey overalls and an old newsboy cap, with thick metal-framed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He looked very ordinary, just like a biology teacher preparing to start a lesson.

"Don't kids these days know anything about 'manners'?"

He sighed, his gaze sweeping across everyone's face.

"Ten... still nine left. Alright then."

This time it was definitely not a prank, because Ivy began screaming for real.

He didn't run around chasing people with a machete like Andy did. He kicked Jonathan aside, then raised the shotgun in his hands and took aim.

Everything ended very quickly. I sat paralyzed next to Jonathan, watching it all happen. The campsite finally fell silent. Nothing remained except the crackling of the campfire and the sound of blood gurgling into the dirt.

He squatted down in front of me. I was surprised that I could still notice his clothes weren't stained with much blood, with only a few tiny specks of blood splattered on his glasses lenses.

"Stand on one foot for me."

He looked at me, speaking in an extremely gentle, almost encouraging tone.

Perhaps because I was too desperate, or perhaps because the prank earlier had already exhausted all my fear, I actually felt a long-absent sense of calm at this moment.

I said, "No, I can't."

"Stand up. Left foot only."

I used my hands to support myself as I stood up, trying to raise my right foot, but my body lost balance once again. I fell right at his feet.

"I can't do it... I really can't..."

I lay on the ground, burying my face deep into the dirt. Even now, I can still recall that smell of earth mixed with blood, and the feeling of waiting for him to blow the back of my head off with his gun.

"I've never been good at sports... my coordination is terrible... I'm a loser, I can't do it..."

I could feel his gaze watching me, and he let out a sigh. I quietly raised my head and found him sitting on top of Jonathan. Jonathan was very close to me, not quite dead yet. His lung seemed to have been punctured, blood bubbles overflowing from the corners of his mouth, every breath sounding like a broken bellows.

The man gently patted my shoulder, pulled me up from the ground, and wiped the dirt off my face.

"Good boy, take off your shoes and socks."

I knew this request sounded very strange, but I didn't dare disobey him. Whatever was going to happen next, I was already prepared, as long as I could survive.

I untied my shoelaces and took off my shoes and socks. He reached out a heavily calloused hand and grabbed my left ankle. His hand was very cold, like ice.

He began forcefully twisting my ankle, clockwise, counterclockwise.

"Stand up, try again."

His tone was no longer gentle. I endured the excruciating pain in my ankle to stand up again, only to fall once more. But this time he caught me, then sat me down on the ground.

"I know where the problem is."

He pointed below my ankle.

"Your talus has a congenital deformity, and the medial ligament of your ankle joint is extremely loose. This isn't a coordination issue; it's an anatomical defect. Your body structure is limiting you."

He raised his head and looked at me with absolute seriousness.

"It's not your fault. But don't worry... I will fix this ."

That was the last sentence he said to me under the dim firelight. That is the entirety of my memory.

−

When I woke up again, I was already lying in a hospital room. Countless people walked back and forth in front of my hospital bed, constantly asking questions and arguing about something. They told me that when the police found the campsite, two officers even threw up. Most of the victims had missing limbs to varying degrees, and the missing body parts were not found at the scene; it was tentatively speculated that he took them away.

Everyone died, and I survived.

The nurse told me to mentally prepare myself, then pulled back the blanket covering my lower body.

"It's a miracle... it's an absolute miracle. When we found you at the scene, your lower left leg had already been severed."

The lead doctor stood by my bed, speaking quickly and softly, making me try very hard to hear what he was saying.

No wonder I had no sensation in my left leg. But to be able to survive was already lucky enough.

I looked down at my lower body. My right leg was completely intact, while my left leg——

About five centimeters above the ankle bone, there was a gruesome ring of dark purple sutures. Two pieces of flesh were forcibly bound together by the stitching; one-tenth of my body had turned into Frankenstein.

The foot below the sutures was two whole sizes larger than my right foot. Its skin tone was wheat-colored, and there was a distinct callus worn onto the edge of the right big toe——a mark left by wearing cleated shoes for a long time.

That was Jonathan's foot.

He had cut off Jonathan's left foot and sewn it onto me.

"We were actually prepared to perform a second, higher-level amputation on you. In that kind of outdoor environment with zero sterile conditions, the infection rate and rejection reaction for an allogeneic limb transplant are almost one hundred percent fatal. But for some reason..."

The doctor pointed to the place where I was sewn together; he looked like he really wanted to reach out and touch it.

"You recovered exceptionally well. Your immune system seems to have completely accepted this foot."

The doctor said he had never seen anyone survive such a crazy transplant surgery without any lingering side effects. He even asked me to be a volunteer for his new research project, but I declined.

For two full months, I was busy being questioned by the police: What did he look like? What happened that day? Why did he spare you? And my answer never changed: Very ordinary. A prank and a massacre. I don't know.

Of course I chose to tell the truth, I told them every piece of information I knew. I don't know why this case remains unsolved even after I fully recovered. Maybe they spent the taxpayers' money somewhere else.

At any rate, after finishing all the psychological therapy and rehabilitation training, I completed my discharge procedures today. The psychologist suggested I find someone to talk to and not keep everything bottled up inside. I went to the store, bought two bottles of milk and a pair of new sneakers, then came home and opened my computer. Ta-da, and here I am.

I've recovered very well, and I feel great.

Aside from the two feet being completely asymmetrical in size, forcing me to buy two pairs of shoes in different sizes, Jonathan's foot is really great to use. It's strong, powerful, and springy. I can even feel the blood circulating smoothly through those five thick toes.

By the way, I can stand on one foot now. I can stand for a long time, and I can even stand with my eyes closed for over a minute.

Goodnight, Anna. Goodnight, Jonathan. May you rest in peace in heaven.

And thank you, for everything.

I was twenty-five at the time, newly divorced, and had brought my four-year-old daughter, Sarah, with me from a small town to the big city. We rented the top floor of an apartment building, hoping I could find a new job before the money we had ran out.

The rent was half of what the other floors cost because nearly a third of the apartment had been sectioned off as a storage room, where the landlord kept all sorts of old belongings and miscellaneous junk. In exchange for the cheaper rent, I had to go in and clean it three times a month. I thought it was a pretty good deal. The landlord told me that, aside from a few pieces of furniture that couldn’t be moved, I was free to take anything I found in the storage room.

Once I had finished settling into the apartment, I decided to start cleaning the storage room. I unlocked the door with the key the landlord had given me, only to be greeted by a cloud of dust that made me sneeze. Sarah followed close behind, eager to help Mommy. She had always been a good girl.

The job itself was simple enough. I just had to go around with the vacuum cleaner and, while I was at it, see if there was anything useful among the clutter. Sarah clearly hadn’t expected the mysterious room to be quite so filthy. She followed me everywhere, carefully stepping only on the spots I had already cleaned.

I soon found something worth keeping. Tucked inside a gift basket was a brown teddy bear wearing a top hat and a bow tie. It looked almost brand new and would probably make a nice playmate for Sarah once it had been washed. But Sarah didn’t seem particularly interested. She was much too busy playing with a bundle of colored yarn.

Still, I brought Mr. Bear out of the storage room with me. After I washed and dried him, he joined the army of stuffed animals that lived beside Sarah’s pillow. Sarah still didn’t like him. Every night, when I went in to tuck her back under the covers after she had kicked them off, I would find Mr. Bear lying on the floor. Sarah also complained that Mr. Bear pulled at her blankets during the night and pressed his furry face against her, which made her uncomfortable. Since she clearly wanted nothing to do with him, I reluctantly put Mr. Bear back on the bench and tossed him into the gift basket.

I soon forgot all about the little incident because I found a new job. I was busier than I’d ever been, but the pay was good enough for Sarah and me to move out of that cramped apartment.

Little by little, everything in our lives began to get better. Sarah settled into her new school and was praised by her teachers time and time again. My career was going well, too. My female supervisor was very kind to me, and she promoted me three times, in my third, fifth, and tenth years on the job. I stayed there until I retired.

When I was forty-five, I met the person who would become the true partner of my life. I went from being Clara Brown to Clara Evans.

Miller was eight years older than me, but he was a gentle, kind man. As it turned out, he was the grandson of the landlord of the very first apartment I’d ever rented. He confessed that he’d actually fallen in love with me a long time ago, but his family hadn’t thought much of a young single mother, and he hadn’t had the courage to approach me. Fortunately, God brought us together again twenty years later.

By then, Sarah had found a job and moved out. She no longer lived with me. For some reason, our relationship had grown somewhat distant. It wasn’t that Sarah had become rebellious. If anything, she was almost too polite with me, as though I were a stranger. She still called me “Mom,” but she continued to address Miller as “Mr. Evans.” My therapist told me it might have been because Sarah felt abandoned by me after we stopped sharing the same surname.

At first, I was deeply saddened by it, but I couldn't choose between my daughter and my husband. All I could do was tell myself that this was simply part of growing up, and that I had to learn to let go. Miller understood, too. He never seemed to mind when Sarah gave him the cold shoulder, whether deliberately or otherwise, whenever she came home. Every holiday, he would even send gifts to Sarah and her family.

I'm sixty-two this year, and I don't think there's much about my life that I regret. After Miller passed away this year, he left me the apartment building I had once rented. I decided to move back into the top-floor apartment where I'd originally lived, while continuing to rent out the other floors so I could put some money aside for Sarah. Her two children are about to start college.

To be honest, I was surprised to find that I still had the key to the storage room on my keyring. After all these years, I'd assumed I'd lost it somewhere along the way. So I decided to clear out everything inside and sell whatever I could, then renovate the room so Sarah would have somewhere to stay whenever she came to visit.

After putting on a mask, I began carrying things out of the dusty room one by one. Eventually, I found a gift basket packed to the brim with old belongings. The moment I caught sight of a piece of brown fabric sticking out from beneath the pile, memories from long ago came rushing back—Sarah had been four years old then, always following close behind me, kicking off her blankets every night. Her bed had been crowded with stuffed animals, but she had never liked Mr. Bear.

Ah, Mr. Bear. A strange warmth rose inside my chest, so intense that it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I decided to keep the toy as a little reminder of the past. Bracing my tired body against the wall, I reached as far as I could and tried to grab the piece of fabric, pulling at it in an attempt to free it from beneath the pile of junk. It was exhausting work for an old woman like me. It took me a long time to finally get hold of it, and I nearly lost my balance in the process.

But I managed to steady myself against the wall. When I finally had a chance to take a proper look at what I was holding, the warmth in my chest suddenly froze. A sharp, prickling sensation spread across my skin.

It wasn't the stuffed animal I had thought it was.It was an entire teddy bear costume.

The dry-cleaning tag read: “1989.04.12 Mr. Evans.”

That was the first year I moved into the apartment.

I think I'd better forget about this.