You like Jack and all, but obviously you need to break this habit of going for guys that save you and have really complicated baggage.

You head towards the door, open it revealing that it’s almost night already and get out of the building. Your car is still parked in the same location and you waste no time in starting it up and driving away.

You almost don’t want to look back at the building, but you’re compelled to do so anyway. However when you do, you see absolutely nothing in your rear view mirror.

“What the fuck?” you say and then briefly turn your head to look directly and it’s confirmed, the Gray Building is gone. You didn’t see it disappear, but it obviously has. Where, you have no idea, but you feel a little bad for leaving Jack now. You can only imagine what might have happened to him.

“He already knew what that building was, Suzy. He’ll be fine and if he isn’t…well YOU had to get out of there right? In fact HE’S an asshole for not telling you what the hell that damn building was about in the first place…yeah…goddamn it…” you say to yourself.

In your haste to forget about some of the stuff you saw, you absent-mindedly turn the radio on.

“Fuck, it’s going to just be ads for Ground…what the hell?” you say as you hear something you didn’t expect.

“…and talks today were very successful between the President and several other world leaders. It would seem that despite previous disagreements, tensions in the world are lower than they have been in quite some time. In other news, financial experts say things are looking up for the economy ever since…”

You change the station and find actual music on; in fact you do this several times and find no annoying Ground Zero ads at all! Just the normal annoying ones in between the music, but the fact that anything else is on is very surprising to you. No doom and gloom as far the news goes too or at least not as bad as it was when you remember.

What the hell is going on?

You also remember that Jack told you he heard on the radio that your town is under marshal law; maybe that’s no longer the case too? You certainly hope so, because you have no idea where else to go.

As you drive you wonder about the Gray Building and what it might have done. You start forming weird theories, but given what you just went through, maybe they aren’t so weird.

You first wonder if maybe you went through time somehow. Maybe the passage of time goes slower in there or something. You do remember that frightening bit when you aged and then reverted back briefly. (You look in your mirror again to make sure you are indeed still young and of course you are) Maybe all the troubles in the world subsided and things are back to normal? If so, you can’t imagine that it’s just been a couple days and everything would be okay again. You would have had to been gone a long time.

It also occurs to you that maybe you went back in time and maybe this is before the whole world started going to shit (as well as your town).

The immediate hole in either of these theories is the fact that the music playing on the radio stations is current. Of course you could just be listening to the “oldies” station and perhaps a shitload more time has passed than you thought.

Wouldn’t support the going back in time theory though if that’s the case and unless every station is an “oldies” station you quickly start dismissing the idea that you might’ve travelled through time.

You dismiss it altogether when you hear a newsperson on the radio announce today’s date.

So you haven’t travelled through time…maybe you went to a different dimension? You certainly don’t think those things or that bald guy were from your world. Then there was that flickering effect that you experience where you were in a halfway normal location that looked to be an auditorium.

If this is a different dimension though, so far a lot of shit is the same. Same famous musicians on the radio at least. Same world leaders mentioned, same celebrities mentioned that you know of.

Of course things seem to be a lot better as far as the world not nearly being on the verge of blowing itself up. You suppose you won’t really know until you get back to town.

The drive is a long one, and it’s nightfall by the time you reach your town. You aren’t seeing any military trucks or any blockades, so that’s a good sign. As you drive into town, you notice that it isn’t an anarchic mess that it was when you left. It doesn’t even look like there was any riots or disasters at all. Just normal traffic and there isn’t even much of that going on right now.

It is at this time you know this can’t be your reality and while you’re certain glad you aren’t in immediate danger anymore, you can’t help but feel a bit lost.

What are you going to do? Do you still go home? What is home going to be like now? Will you still have the same crappy life? How much is different?

Once again, about the only thing you can do is find out, hell it isn’t like you have much better to do now.

You drive home which is a lot easier to do when there aren’t assholes throwing bricks at your windshield or general chaos in the streets.

When you arrive at what you presume is still home you park on the street and you notice it’s slightly different. The house doesn’t look like it’s in a state of disrepair mainly. It doesn’t look like the lights are on either, which isn’t excessively unusual since Kelly is usually working at this time, Peter’s in the garage and you’re in the basement so there isn’t exactly anyone in the front living room or even upstairs where you might see a light.

Peter’s car isn’t in the driveway either, maybe he’s out or maybe he doesn’t live here, you can’t know. You aren’t even sure if this is your house. Who knows, maybe you don’t even live in this town.

Surprisingly even after all the mess you’ve gone through, you still have your house key so after taking it out of your pocket, you get out of the car an head towards the house.

You walk up to the front door and you’re about to try your key, but then you wonder if maybe you shouldn’t just ring the bell or knock first.
> You ring the bell
Even if your key fits, that’s no guarantee you live here. You could very well be trespassing and if someone is actually in this house right now, you could find yourself in deep shit when the owner finds you and pulls a shotgun on you.

Erring on the side of caution, you ring the bell a couple times and knock.

You wait a few minutes thinking that nobody is home which might mean it’s at least safer to try your key, but then you think you hear footsteps and a voice. Soon you see a light emanating from the front room. Someone has come to answer the door at least.

An older man opens the door and you can hardly believe your eyes.

“It’s damn near midnight who the hell…Suzy?!” your father says mid rant.
“Dad?” you answer back, not really expecting to see him.
“What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t visiting until Saturday.” Your dad asks.

You have no answer except a sudden raising of your arms and a smile.

“Um, well surprise!” you utter and go to hug your father, who returns the hug.

It’s weird, you never really had a close relationship with your father, but somehow seeing him alive AND not being a pathetic drunk that just watches TV pining over your mother makes you a little happier to see him. You wonder what changed?

“Well, okay Suzy. We’re always glad to see you, you know that. Just wish you would’ve called in advance you know?” your father says and invites you in. You notice that the furniture lay out in the living room is different along with the furniture itself. A lot of little things are different really.

The “we” sort of throws you at first since you wonder if your dad is referring to your siblings. However you soon see who he’s referring to and if you couldn’t believe your eyes when seeing your father still alive, you really don’t believe them now.

“George, who is…Suzy? I thought you were visiting Satur…”

You immediately run to hug your mother before she can even complete her sentence. She’s older looking of course, but you’d recognize her anywhere. You can’t believe you’d ever see her alive again. You’re having a hard time holding back tears of joy.

Meanwhile your parents are both a little perplexed by your behavior.

“I love you mom.” You say squeezing her tightly.
“Well of course you do. I know that. I love you too, but why are you here at this late hour? You could have called us first, you know how we like to turn in early.”
“I know, I know, I just…I just wanted to see you guys, you know?” you say finally letting go of your mother, yet still staying close to her.

“I know it’s a long drive from Security City, have you slept at all?” you dad asks.
“A little. Don’t worry, I’m fine. So how are you guys?” you ask.
“We’re good, though there has been a neighborhood burglar skulking about. If he tries coming in here, he’s getting both barrels. It is really late though, and while your mother and I would love to talk, can we do this tomorrow morning? I have to get up to fix this overhead light in the living room which decided to go out today.”
“Oh…yeah sure. Don’t let me keep you up.” You say.
“You can sleep in your old room. It’s pretty much the same as when you left it, still haven’t turned it into a storage room or anything in case you were wondering.” Your mom says.
“Oh good, I want to check on some old things I left here anyway.” You say and start to head towards where the basement is only to have your mother call out.
“Um, Suzy where are you going?” your mom asks.
“I’m going to my room.”
“Don’t you think you should be heading upstairs then and not towards the basement?”

You nearly face palm for not realizing that maybe you had a different sleeping arrangement in this reality. You play it off with a laugh though.

“Oh! Yeah! Hah! I’m sorry, I’ve had a very long drive and I’m a little loopy and tired I suppose.” You say.
“You okay Suzy?” your father asks.
“Yeah, yeah, I really am. Like I said, I’m just really tired. I’ll probably fall asleep soon after I get to my room.”
“Mmm, I told you about driving when that tired before. You could get into an accident.” Your dad says.
“Oh George, don’t lecture the girl now. Let’s just be glad we have a daughter who is still thoughtful enough to visit us.” Your mother says with a smile and pats you on the shoulder. You return the smile.

You are really glad to see her again.

“(Yawn) Alright, well if we’re done here, I’m heading back up, you coming Bertha?” your dad asks.
“Yes, Suzy you heading up too? You said you were tired and wanted to go to your room.” Your mom asks.
“Yeah I will soon, but I also haven’t eaten all day, you don’t mind if I grab something out of the fridge right?”
“You know better than to ask. Help yourself.” Your mom says.
“Don’t make a mess though. Oh and remember, your room is the second door on your right.” Your dad snorts in jest due to your previous confusion. It’s actually a good thing he told you though since you probably would’ve been fumbling into random rooms when you actually went up there.

You dad kisses you on the head before saying goodnight and heading up the stairs. Your mom does as well causing you to hug her once again. You almost don’t want to let go, but you know you need to keep it together.

“I’m really glad to be back home, I missed you.” You say.
“Suzy, we just spoke a few days ago.” You mom says.
“I know, but it’s just not the same as seeing you in person, you know?”
“I know sweetheart, we’ll have all day to talk tomorrow. Goodnight.”

You watch as your mom heads upstairs and you’re soon left alone where you continue to hold it together until you go downstairs into the basement where you finally release your tears.

You honestly didn’t realize just how much you missed your mother until you saw her again. You certainly were very sad when she died in your reality and for some time after, but overtime you didn’t just move on, part of you just shut down completely. Maybe that explains some of you problems.

After composing yourself, you actually take a look around the basement and find that it’s much different than your own. For one, “your room” is just a storage space full of old clothes, tools and other junk. You almost get a little nervous looking at all the junk as you’re reminded of the Gray Building. You quickly leave the basement, not wishing to dwell on that which led you here in the first place.

You spend some more time just looking about the house, particularly the pictures which right there is already a major difference since there are barely any in your own house.

You see several happy family photos, which you attempt to use as a quick way to possibly learn what you can about your “family.”

It looks like your dad wasn’t a travelling lightning rod salesman and worked at the meat processing plant in town since you see a few pictures of him in a factory uniform. Him being around probably helped. Your mom seems like she was still a housewife from what you can tell.

Your brother Ben apparently went into the actual military rather than just being a paranoid survivalist nut. You see a lot of his pictures are of him in uniform. Looks like he got a lot of ribbons and honors too. You also see a picture of him with your best friend Julie in a wedding dress… they got married! You can imagine Julie from your reality would have liked that considering she always had a crush on him. (Or maybe she just wanted to fuck him, you don’t know exactly or care to think about it) Looks like they had two children, which you can’t even wrap your head around.

You don’t see as many pictures of your sister Kelly, but they do exist. A lot of her pictures show her in uniform too, but one of a police officer. Seems like your family is really “orderly” in this reality. She looks about the same, just with less scars. She still looks mean and serious business in every photo though, so maybe some things never change. No pictures of a boyfriend (or girlfriend) or children.

One thing you don’t see pictures of are of Donna or Peter. Surely with as many pictures there are displayed, you’d see some. You can only guess your parents stopped having children after you. Which makes you the “baby” you guess. Might explain why your family is a bit more stable too considering there were less kids to give your parents grief.

Finally, you see pictures of yourself. Quite a few of them in fact. (More than Kelly definitely) You look more or less the same as you did at the various ages you see yourself. You also look pretty happy in every photo and you see that you graduated from college in this reality too. You don’t see yourself in any uniform, so you wonder what you do for a living.

It’s at this moment you realize that you can no longer ignore that this reality, this family and these memories are not your own. It’s depressing and you also realize that it’s been mentioned that the Suzy of this reality is supposed to be coming for a visit on Saturday.

You can’t stay here even though you’d like to, you’re going to have to leave before things get weird. You’re also going to have to figure out what you’re going to do with yourself in the long term. In some ways, the fact that the world isn’t going to complete shit, puts the pressure on even more. After all, if the world had ended it wouldn’t have mattered if you figured it out or not.

Still, you’ve got one more day. One more day at least to spend here and enjoy before you figure out what you’re going to do with your life. You deserve that at least right?

And so after grabbing a quick snack, you retire to your “old room.” It’s much brighter than your own old one in the basement, but then that because it’s a proper bedroom and not a dank dark basement.

You look around a bit, but you figure you can better investigate your room tomorrow. Right now you’re too exhausted from today’s events and drained from the emotions of seeing your mother alive and finding out you had a much better life in an alternate reality and how it’s just another example of how life isn’t fair to you even across the fucking multiverse.
> Next day…
FRIDAY

You wake up with the sun shining in on your bedroom. You can safely say you haven’t had that experience in a long time, if ever.

You aren’t sure what time it is, but knowing you, you probably slept through the morning as usual.

Once again, you’re stuck in the same clothes you’ve been wearing since the beginning of the week. While you can certainly shower, you’d really rather change clothes at this point so you go through your room and hope that your alternate self left some old clothes in it.

After going through some drawers you find that your alternate self has about the same fashion sense as you do, meaning pretty simplistic. The clothing itself tends to be a bit brighter though as everything else seems to be in this reality and it’s starting to get on your nerves.

You grab a pair of old jeans and a shirt and head to the bathroom where you wash up and later attempt to brush your teeth using your index finger with toothpaste on it. The jeans and shirt are a slightly tight on you though. It’s not enough that your alternate self has a happier life, but the fucking bitch is apparently a size smaller than you as well.

“Oh well, I guess I’ll just be that much more popular with horny guys (Sigh) …unfucking believable…” you mutter as you squeeze yourself into the clothes.

After getting dressed, you head downstairs. The first thing you see is dad on a small ladder working on the overhead light he mentioned wasn’t working. You don’t think you’ve ever seen your own dad ever fix anything.

“Hey, look who’s finally up. You sleep well? You must have considering it’s the afternoon.” Dad says.
“Yeah, I guess I really needed the sleep. Where’s mom?” you ask.
“She’s in the kitchen. Oh meant to ask you, where’s that silver sports car your drive? I didn’t see it in the driveway or even on the street.”

Silver sports car? Seriously? You own a fucking sports car?

“Oh, um…yeah I decided not to drive that one here, it’s been giving me trouble lately anyway. I got an older car for cheap to just drive around in; it’s that small blue one outside.” You say.
“Oh. Okay. I just thought I’d ask. Like I said, there’s been some burglaries and I was concerned that the criminals had expanded to car theft too. Probably a good idea you didn’t bring it, nobody is likely to steal that thing outside.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” You say and head to the kitchen.

“Fucking sports car…” you whisper shaking your head before you greet mom in a friendly manner.

“Hey sleeping beauty is finally awake! You sleep well I trust in your old bed?” mom asks while she works on cooking something.
“Yeah. Slept fine. What are you cooking.”
“Oh I’m preparing big batch of beef stew. I swear your father would probably not eat anything else. It will take awhile, but I can make you something before then of course.”
“Nah, I’m okay.” You say sitting down.

Your mother smiles at you and you smile back, but you don’t say anything else.

It’s weird, you wanted to talk with her so much yesterday, but now as reality sets in that she’s not really your mother, you’re sort of at a loss for words and awkwardly silent.

Still, you want to make the most of this time so you struggle to think of a topic without being suspicious.

“So…uh…how are Ben and Kelly doing?” you ask.
“Well Ben is still stationed over in Europe. Not exactly sure what he’s doing over there, but it doesn’t seem to be dangerous for once, which I for one am glad about. Julie and the children I imagine are glad about it too. You talk to her recently?
“Not for awhile.” You say which is sort of the truth.
“Oh. Well I did hear you two weren’t on speaking terms any longer. I hope you make up though since the pair of you were always good friends and the both of you probably said words neither of you really meant.”
“Wait, what?” you ask.

You mother stops chopping potatoes for a moment to address you directly.

“A few months ago, Ben told me that Julie told him that you got in argument with her about how she’s too strict with your niece and nephew and she told you not to tell how to raise her kids. I can’t remember the entire exchange of what else happened except I know she ended up calling you a dyke that won’t ever know what it means to be a mother anyway and then you swore at her and hung up. While I can certainly see Julie’s defensiveness about how to raise her children, I don’t think it was right to say such hateful things, just because of your lifestyle choice.”
“Lifestyle choice?” you say a bit confused as you’re attempting to process everything.
“Oh right. I’m sorry Suzy. I know you were born that way. You explained it very well to your father and me when you came out years ago before graduating from college. We’re just still a little old fashioned in our way of thinking and it lapses at times.”

You do not believe this…

“But I’m not a…” you start to say, but then realize why bother correcting her? It would just confuse things for when their real Suzy arrives.

“…I’ll try to make the attempt with Julie, but she really needs to apologize.” You say instead.
“You always were the bigger person. And I wouldn’t give it another thought as far as what she said about being a mother is concerned. There’s always adoption and I also know you people are really big on all that artificial insemination stuff. I’m sure when the time is right you and Heather will…”
“Heather?”
“Yeah, your girlfriend. Wait, you didn’t break up with her did you? She seemed so nice when you brought her here for us to meet her…”
“No…no…I didn’t break up with her, um… so how is Kelly again?” you ask really wanting to change the subject.

“Kelly? Well she’s Kelly. Still one of this town’s finest and doing a good job at it. Wish she’d find a better man to settle down with though. She seems to flip back and forth between these various loser guys that are so far beneath her it isn’t even funny. She really could do so much better and it’s not like there haven’t been several good men that have made genuine attempts to woo her. She doesn’t want to be tied down though and it’s her life I suppose.”

Well now you’ve heard everything. You truly are in bizarro world.

“You okay dear?” mom asks.
“Yeah, yeah I’m just fine mom.” You answer
“Well enough about your siblings, how are you doing? You working on a new book yet?”
“New book?”
“Yeah, you started writing a new book again? I know last time you said you had a bit of writer’s block. Honestly I don’t know how you come up with all the ideas you do. You’ve written like three books already. I know I don’t have the imagination to do that, but you always were creative even as a little girl.”

So that’s what you do. You’re a writer. Makes sense actually. In fact you almost want to kick yourself of why the hell you never tried your hand at it in your own reality. You certainly procrastinate enough.

“I’ve got a few ideas in my head I suppose. Writing is never an exact science.”

Before you have to make up more shit on the fly, dad comes walking in.

“Smells good in here already. Anyway I fixed the light and now I’m going to the hardware store, I’ll be back later.”
“If you already fixed the light, why do you have to go to the hardware store?” you mother asks.
“I have to replenish all the stuff I used.” He says, but mom doesn’t look convinced.
“Okay I just want to go because I really want a new drill.” Dad breaks down and admits.
“George you’re really silly sometimes when you try to make up stories.”
“Well it’s where Suzy gets her story telling ability from!” dad remarks and pats you on the shoulder giving you a smile, which you return.

“Okay, see you both later.” Dad remarks and leaves the kitchen with Mom still smiling about the silliness.

“You and dad seem very happy.” You remark.
“Of course we are. Why wouldn’t we be? We’re enjoying our elderly years together, we’ve had a successful marriage, we have three successful children that love us, grandchildren, a nice home, what more could one hope for?”

What more indeed. You’re still thinking about what the hell you’re going to do with your own life.

Despite a few major differences in your alternate self, you’d still switch places with her. She’s got everything, a formal higher education, successful career, a fancy car, a significant other and most importantly a loving family.

You begin to get lost in your own head, which is then disrupted by mom.

“Suzy? Suzy?” mom asks.
“Huh? Yeah?” you answer.
“Are you really okay? You’ve been sort of spacing out lately.”
“Oh, yeah. Well like I said, I’ve got a few story ideas in my head and sometimes I get lost in thought.”
“Okay. Well I really have to go to the bathroom, can you finish cutting those carrots?”
“Oh yeah, sure mom.” You reply.

Your mom leaves the kitchen leaving you alone with your thoughts and cutting up carrots. You increasingly become melancholy as you dwell on how things still suck for you and as you’re apt to do, you begin talking to yourself.

“(Sigh) Suzy, Suzy, Suzy, only you could find the negative out of the one relatively positive thing about thing about this fucked up week. Pull yourself together girl. You survived a hell of a lot worse than this. You wanted to be self-sufficient, we this is a good start. A fresh new world is your oyster and you’ve got plenty of opportunity…”

Suddenly you hear a phone ring. It’s the land phone on the kitchen wall. You walk over and nearly grab it immediately, but then you remember you’re not really supposed to be here.

However, you then notice the caller I.D.

Suzy.

You are compelled to pick up.

“Hello?” you answer.
“Hey. Mom? Is that you?” the voice on the other end says.

You pause. You never realized that you and your mother sounded so similar before.

“Yes, of course it’s me honey. Who else would it be?” you say.
“I dunno, you sound a little different. Might be that ratty old land phone you have though, I keep telling you to get a cell!”
“Oh you know me dear, your father and I are a bit set in our ways.”
“Don’t I know it. Ha ha! Nah, I know you guys really do try. So hey, I was just calling to let you know I’m coming a little bit earlier and I’ll probably be there sometime late tonight. Like probably after midnight.”
“You are?”
“Yes, like I said I just wanted to let you know so you guys don’t get too mad when I’m knocking on your door late at night waking you up…unless you want me to stay at the town’s motel until tomorrow morning. I know you guys go to bed early.”

It is at this moment that the dark idea your mind has been dancing around for quite some time isn’t going away and is now in full bloom.

If you just got rid of this Suzy, all your problems would be solved. You just have to muster the fortitude to do it…
> You tell Suzy to go to the motel
If you’re going to do this, it’s better that you do it away from the house. There is exactly one motel in this town anyway so it’ll be real easy to find her.

“I’m sorry dear, but your father has been a bit jumpy lately due to a recent string of burglaries. I wouldn’t want him suddenly pulling a shotgun on you just because you’re knocking on the door in the middle of the night. Nevermind the fact he’ll be pretty grumpy anyway. He hasn’t been sleeping well as you might expect.” You answer.
“Yikes! Well I guess maybe I should stay at the motel then, I don’t want to cause grief. The Jinn Inn is still open right?” she says.
“Yep, as far as I know.” You answer.
“Okay, guess I’m staying there. Ugh, just hate the idea of staying there due to it being so dirty looking. It’s like one step up from that awful trailer park outside of town. I dunno how that place has stayed open so long.”
“Well the hookers in town need to ply their trade somewhere.”
“Mom! I’ve never heard you talk like that before!” She exclaims.
“Well I’m not a prude dear, despite what you might think of me.”
“Mom, I don’t think you’re a prude. I know you’re very open-minded. You’re just usually pretty reserved with how your talk.”
“Well I’m full of surprises, just like you are. Where do you think you got it from?”
“Hah, guess you’re right. Okay then, I suppose I shouldn’t really talk so much while I drive. I guess I’ll be seeing you on Saturday after all. Give my love to dad.”
“I will dear.”
“I love you mom.”
“I love you too Suzy.” You say before hanging up.

You don’t have much time, you have to prepare and make a plan of what you’re going to do.

“Did I hear you on the phone out here?” you mother says walking into the kitchen.
“Huh? Oh, yeah just someone trying to sell something. They were really persistent.” You reply.
“I can tell, you hardly cut up any of the carrots.”
“Sorry, I guess I got caught up in telling them to never call here again. I should have just hung up I suppose.”
“No worries, I’ve gotten directly angry at those telemarketer types too.”
“Hey mom, I’ve got some things I left here that I want to get and I know they’re probably in my room somewhere or maybe even the basement, you don’t mind if I go take care of that do you?”
“No, not at all. We can talk later. Let me know if you’re looking for something in particular. I might know where it is.”
“I will mom.”

You head to your room to try to formulate a plan. You figure the easiest way to do this is to hang out near or around the motel parking lot and watch for a silver sports car. When you see what room she goes to, you can just blitz attack her as she’s attempting to open it up and take care of her in the motel room itself. You just need to be quick.

So, now that you have her, now you have to kill her. You’re going to need something quick and not noisy. A knife you suppose, but that might take more than one stab unless you cut her throat or something. The bat you got from the Gray Building might work, if you smash her in the head multiple times. The thing is you don’t want is to splatter a bunch of blood all over the place. The Jinn Inn might be shady and dirty enough that a few blood spots on their carpets aren’t going to raise an eyebrow, but if you make it look like the chainsaw massacre, you will cause attention and it isn’t like you’re going to have all the time in the world to clean it up. The goal is to make the kill and replace her as efficiently as possible.

Which brings you to the idea of how you’re going to dispose of the body since you can’t just leave a dead doppelganger of yourself in the motel room. You’re definitely going to have to haul it out into the wilderness-surrounding town. Dragging it to one of the trunks of the car is going to be the most difficult part. (You still aren’t sure which one you’ll take) Dragging her body out might be less risky if you at least wrapped it in something; you think you saw some things in the basement that might come in useful.

Once you get the body into the trunk though, you just need to drive far enough away so it isn’t discovered. Even if it is, maybe you should mutilate the face so it can’t be identified. Pull out the teeth?

Your murder plans are temporarily broken up by your thoughts of Bobby. You didn’t often speak to Bobby about his “religious practices”, but in the few times you dared to ask questions, he did explain helpfully about how he went about things. You never dreamed that such knowledge might come in handy.

You make a mental note of everything you might need. You grab an old duffle bag out of the closet and fill it with some of her old clothing from her drawers. You figure you’re probably going to need new clothing to wear after your grim work.

When you head downstairs you find that dad has returned.

“Hey Suzy, where are you off to?”
“Oh just putting some stuff of mine in the car, hey dad I was thinking about painting my place when I get back home. I noticed some old tarps and blankets in the basement, you wouldn’t mind if I took those would you?” you ask.
“Oh no, go ahead. Take whatever you might need.” He says.

You head to your car and throw the duffle bag in, then you return to the house and head down into the basement.

You grab some of the folded up tarps and then you notice some of the old tools and other junk down here. Are you going to need an axe to chop up the body? Maybe you should take a shovel to bury it in the wilderness? You remember they stuffed a body into a luggage case in one movie…

“Fuck it, I’m still not sure what I’m going to do, I better just take all this shit. Dad did say to help myself.” You say and make a couple trips up and down the basement, loading up your car with tools, tape, bags, and tarps in the process. (And being to keep the shovel and axe hidden within the tarps since the last thing you need is a question about why you might need those)

By the time you’re done, you’re about ready to go do the deed right now, but it’s still too early. Besides, you can’t just disappear for all day and night, your parents would wonder. You’re going to have to come up with an excuse of why you’re going to be gone.

As you’re piecing together an excuse, when you get back in the house your mom sees and addresses you again.

“You going to have dinner with us in a half hour or so?” she asks.
“…yes…of course. I have to leave though afterwards.”
“Leave? You just got here!”
“I don’t mean leave to go back to Security City, I just mean…well I’ve been in contact with a former school friend through the Internet and she’s sort of been going through some tough times. I promised I’d meet up with her when I was visiting.”
“Oh…well I certainly understand. Who was this friend? Do I know her? Though I suppose I only ever remember Julie due to you two hanging together a lot.”

You very briefly blank on making up a name on the spot, however you do come up with one rather quickly.

“Um, Diana. Her name was Diana Morningstar. She never came over here, since her parents were always a bit strict, but I always got along with her in school. She wasn’t very popular, but I always felt a bit sorry for her so I was sort of her only real friend. Though I imagine she probably put more stock into it than I did, I mean I was still just a shallow kid at the time and wanted to hang out with Julie since we could have fun together like normal young teens. I sort of lost contact with her when her parents pulled her out of school altogether and home schooled her. I think they were religious nuts.”

Your mother just shakes her head.

“See, parents like that just shouldn’t have children. That’s a shame. Well I’m glad to hear that you showed that girl a bit of kindness. I’m sure she’s glad you’re in contact again and will be happy to see you. You always were thoughtful.” Your mother says and then mentions that you should take a spare key for the house from the desk in the front room just in case you come home late and they’re already asleep.

Eventually it’s dinnertime and you have dinner with your mom and dad. Through a bit of conversation you do learn a little more about your “life” here and through careful weaving and quick thinking, you manage to navigate through questions you might not otherwise know the answers to. To be honest though, you’re only just barely paying attention to any of it, because you’re so preoccupied.

While you’re apparently calm on the outside, you’re really a ball of nervous energy and as soon as dinner is over you nearly rush out of the house, though you do grab the spare house key for appearances.

You say goodbye to your parents and leave the house. It’s night, but it’s still too early for her to be at the motel yet, well at least you hope that’s the case since that will change up your plans of how to get to her.

You spend a bit of time driving around trying to put yourself in the mind frame to do this. You can’t afford to choke; this is a life or death decision quite literally. You need to do this for your future life here. The life that you deserved…but why are you so much more deserving? Didn’t this Suzy work hard to get what she got even if she had a few advantages? Are you just too overwhelmed with jealousy? How can you genuinely desire to find the inner strength to kill?

“For fuck’s sake Suzy, you were going out with a cultist for fuck’s sake and you had no problem with him killing people! Is this really all that surprising?” you exclaim to yourself.

Maybe this is genetic. Maybe you take after Uncle Ed. (Who you learned didn’t exist in this reality when your mom mentioned being an only child at dinner) Maybe it was your fucked up upbringing. Maybe it was your environment. Maybe there was always darkness in you and you were just too damn lazy for it ever to fully thrive.

Well it’s thriving now. Is it ever. You’ve got more motivation than you ever have before. Maybe it’s because there is so much at stake. Maybe it’s because on some level you actually hate yourself and by killing this Suzy, well it’s like killing yourself without the actual downside of dying.

Whatever the reason, you can’t waste anymore time thinking about whether this is right or wrong. Your life hasn’t exactly been “right” for a very long time, but if everything goes according to plan, your life will be getting there.

Well at least that’s how you’re convincing yourself this time around. Just like you’ve convinced yourself of several other things this week, you succeed in convincing yourself of this too. It’s getting a lot easier.

You stop driving around town and finally head to the motel. You’ll wait the rest of the time out in the parking lot.

When you get to the Jinn Inn, it isn’t quite as bad as the one in your reality, but you definitely see some shady characters popping into the rooms. You see no sign of a silver sports car though and you do take the time to check. She’s not here yet so you just park in a strategic location where you can see all the traffic coming in and out. When she arrives, you’ll definitely see her.

Hours pass, but you never lose focus. And eventually your vigilance pays off. You see a silver sports car. It actually isn’t as fancy as you thought it might be, probably was bought used, but it’s certainly more than you ever had.

You watch her park close to the motel rooms and then you see her get out of the car. She’s dressed in casual clothing and carries a small purse, but when you watch her walk to the motel check in office, you notice she carries herself with an air of self-confidence. It’s like it doesn’t matter that the area she’s around is shit, she knows she’s better and isn’t at all intimidated by the element here.

It is at this moment you grab your baseball bat and get out of the car still keeping an eye out and crouching down behind the vehicles. Fortunately nobody else happens to be lingering around the lot at the moment. Hopefully it stays that way.

You soon see her come out of the check in office and as stealthily as you can you run over behind more cars and get closer. You watch where she walks to and continue to keep a look out for anyone else that might suddenly pop up. You just need to stay hidden as you follow her and then rush her when she finally opens up her room. You silently thank your luck for once since she seems to not be very aware of her surroundings and only focuses on heading towards her room.

“Stupid, arrogant bitch…” you say to yourself.

Your stalking soon ends when you see her reach her room. It’s a perfect opening too. Nobody is around and she fumbles with the keys a bit giving you time to get closer before making that mad sprint as soon as she opens her room… and then you strike.

Your target opens the door and enters her room. She turns around to close the door just in time to see you up close in front of her hitting her with face with the bat. It isn’t a full swing, but rather a hard “poke”, but it’s enough to break her nose and cause her to go falling to the floor.

You quickly slam the door shut behind you and you briefly think about beating her brains in with the bat, but then you realize that will probably be messy.

“You…” is all she manages to get out before you kick her in the face to shut her up. Then you pounce on top of her and after turning her over, you use the bat sideways and you press it up against her throat as hard as you can as you pull back.

She gasps and struggles for her life, but it’s no use, your determination to kill her is much stronger than her abilities to fight for her life.

“Shhhhh…just let go….just let go…everything is going to work out and your parents won’t be losing a daughter at all. Just let go….” You whisper.

Soon you hear a crunching sound of perhaps crushing bones in her neck or her windpipe or something. Whatever it is, her struggle temporarily becomes more violent and jerky with her limbs attempting to flail about. It almost feels like you’re riding her like a wild pony, but soon this outburst is muted and then nothing.

Suzy collapses dying with her face partially in a small puddle of her blood and spital, leaving you sitting on top of a corpse’s back. You eventually stand up taking in what you’ve done. You’re hot and sweaty, but strangely invigorated.

“(Whew) And I thought I was going to choke.” you say and then start to chuckle at your own dark joke.

Well the first part of the deed is done, now comes the more labor inducing part. Getting rid of her body.

You’ve actually managed to keep the mess to a minimum by choking her to death, so you’re wondering if you shouldn’t just grab the tarps from the car, roll her ass up in them, duct tape it together and take her to the trunk.

She might be your size, (Okay slightly lighter) but it isn’t like you’re used to carrying bodies around. While there wasn’t anyone out there, the last thing you need is someone seeing you fumbling around with a body, even one wrapped in a tarp.

If you wanted to play it safe, you suppose you could drag her to the bathroom and chop her up in the bathtub. It will definitely take longer and you might make more of a mess, but you could always carry her out in several pieces in that big luggage bag you brought with you.
> You keep her in one piece
The more you think about it, chopping her up is likely just going to complicate things. Your goal is to get rid of her body as quickly as possible and really all you need to do that is drive her dead ass to the wilderness and dump it. You probably over thought this by bringing all that shit with you.

No matter, better to have it and not need it rather than the other way around.

You quickly search her body, but find nothing of interest. The purse that she dropped on the floor when you smashed her in the face contains all the important stuff, but you figure you’ll have to go through it when you have more time.

You go to the car grabbing the tape and tarps and return to the room. So far it’s still pretty quiet out there, you just hope it stays that way.

You begin rolling her up in one of the tarps and then wrap duct tape around her like mummy. You then roll her up in a second tarp, which you also tape up. It’s not exactly the neatest, but you believe you’ve got her firmly wrapped up tight.

You make the effort to clean up a little bit of the blood that was left on the motel carpet, you only got soap and water from the bathroom to work with, but it isn’t like you’re cleaning up brains and gore so you think you’re good.

You sit on the bed for a little while taking a break from your task thinking about which car you want to use. You suppose it doesn’t matter, though the sports car probably has a smaller trunk, then again you loaded up your own car with a bunch of stuff, so you’re probably going to have to rearrange stuff to make room.

You get up and using the car keys from the purse, you check out the sports car to see just how big the trunk is. After some inspection you decide that it’s probably just big enough for your purposes. It isn’t like it’s a big body after all.

You still think it might be a good idea to bury the body though, so you grab the shovel out of your car and put it in the backseat of the sports car.

“Okay Suzy, let’s do this.” You say to yourself and head back inside to get her body.

You pick up the body and it really isn’t easy. It isn’t like you’re literally carrying “your own weight” on a regular basis, not to mention a dead body is somewhat awkward to attempt to carry even if you do have it wrapped tight.

You get to the trunk of the sports car and start swearing when the body’s weight begins to take its toll and you even up dropping it on the cement before you can even attempt to get it into the trunk.

“Shit!” you exclaim and then quickly look around to see if anyone is watching or around. You’re still in luck that nobody is around. (You guess the hookers are really busy with their tricks tonight)

With some effort, you manage to pick the body back up and cram it into the trunk. Cram is definitely the correct word since you miscalculated and the trunk was slightly smaller than your thought. You actually have to lift your leg to stomp the body into the trunk before you can close it properly.

When you’re done with that, you go back into the room to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything and grab her purse before you leave.

As you start up the car and leave you figure you’ll drive north of town, drag her into the woods, find a good spot and start digging a hole. You have no idea how long that’s all going to take, but you imagine you’ll have to come up with another excuse for your parents about why you were out all night. You figure you’ll just make up something about Diana again. Never thought that bitch would come in so handy.

You also figure you’ll have to come back for your own car as well since it will look pretty strange coming back home with the silver one. You suppose when you finally stop “visiting” your parents you can always come back for the silver one and just abandon this one.

It’s all a lot to deal with still, and you’re already partially frustrated and tired from all the dead body lifting.

Thanks to this fatigue and the sports car going slightly faster than when you were driving the other one, you end up going past the designated speed limit in the area and misfortune strikes, you attract the attention of a hidden police vehicle. The sirens and blinking lights soon follow.

You curse loudly and briefly think about just speeding up and getting the hell out of town, but you instead remain calm. You have this Suzy’s ID and everything so as long as you don’t act suspicious, you’ll probably be fine. In fact, knowing the cops in this town, all you’ll have to do is flutter your eye lashes at them a bit and you’ll probably get let go with just a warning.

You slow down and pull over.

“Keep your head Suzy, you’re in the home stretch…” you say closing your eyes and trying to maintain your cool.

A tall and bulky cop soon comes out of the car and walks over to you. At first you figure it’s going to be a guy, but then your heart sinks when you see who it really is.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t baby sister.” Kelly remarks.
“Fuck.” You inadvertently exclaim, losing whatever composure you were attempting to have.
“Fuck? Now is that anyway to greet your big sister? I heard you were in town visiting mom and dad. What are you doing out so late breaking traffic laws?”
“I’m just coming back from an old friend’s house okay? And I wasn’t that much over the speed limit.”
“Rules are rules Suzy, but then you always DID think there was a separate set of rules for you didn’t you? Yeah, always the favorite getting your own way…”

You can’t believe this. Even in this reality, Kelly is still a fucking jealous bullying asshole to you. Some things never change.

Kelly notices you’re looking a little annoyed and anxious by her stop.

“What’s wrong Suzy? No pithy come back college girl?” Kelly asks.
“Look, you win Kelly, you got me. I obviously broke the law and you got me. Just write me the damn ticket already.” You remark.
“Not sure if I like your tone sis…in fact you’re acting a little odd. What old friend might have you been visiting anyway in this town? Figured when you moved away you were glad to leave everyone behind. Not to mention the only person I ever remember you hanging out with was Julie and I hear you’re not on speaking terms anymore.”
“Just some girl from school days I’ve had contact with over the Internet. I promised I would visit her. I’m just on my way back to mom and dad’s.”
“Ohhh, girl huh? This wouldn’t be some midnight booty call for you would it? Some old secret labia-licking friend you had when you were still in the closet? I thought you had a steady girlfriend. Guess more rules that you don’t give a shit about.”

You know you should keep your composure, but Kelly is really getting on your nerves.

“Are you going to give me the ticker or not?” you ask.
“I’ll give you this fucking baton up your ass if you don’t stop giving me shit! In fact why don’t you get the hell out of the car, you’re acting really suspicious.” Kelly remarks.

You sigh and shake your head.

“Of course. Nothing is ever easy for me.” you say and then you quickly turn the car back on.

“HEY! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! STOP!” Kelly shouts and grabs at the wheel while you attempt to drive off.

You manage to actually get a few feet before Kelly manages to grab the key out of the ignition. You punch Kelly in the face multiple times, but she’s undeterred in her job of arresting you.

Kelly returns your punches with a couple elbows to the face and then pulls you out of the car through the window.

“You’re in deep fucking shit now little sister. You just assaulted a goddamn officer of th…ugh!” Kelly grunts when you punch her as hard as you can in the crotch. It slows her down and you attempt to grab her pistol.

You manage to undue the snap of the holster, but Kelly stops you from getting and further with a knee to your face. Now SHE pulls out the pistol and points it directly at you.

“Suzy, I’m telling you to fucking stop or I WILL fucking shoot you!” Kelly warns.

You don’t stop though. Your grand plans have gone to shit once again and you’re a loser here just like you were a loser in your own world. You’re either going to get lucky and wrestle the gun away from Kelly, or she’s going to shoot you. One thing you’re not going to do is go to jail.

Kelly sensing her life is in genuine danger now, ignores all the pain she’s in and no longer treats you like her “sister” and starts treating you like a dangerous criminal which you actually are at this point.

Kelly shoots you once in the chest, dropping you instantly. You strongly get the impression that she COULD have easily stopped you without a fatal shot, but you imagine that Kelly being herself probably saw this as a perfect opportunity.

“I fucking told you sis.” Kelly remarks.
“(cough) I’m not your fucking sister, asshole. She’s in the goddamn trunk…” you laugh while still coughing up blood at the same time.

Your last moments are looking the confused look on Kelly’s face before she radios for back up and an ambulance.


If you’re going to do this, it’s better that you do it away from the house. There is exactly one motel in this town anyway so it’ll be real easy to find her.

“I’m sorry dear, but your father has been a bit jumpy lately due to a recent string of burglaries. I wouldn’t want him suddenly pulling a shotgun on you just because you’re knocking on the door in the middle of the night. Nevermind the fact he’ll be pretty grumpy anyway. He hasn’t been sleeping well as you might expect.” You answer.
“Yikes! Well I guess maybe I should stay at the motel then, I don’t want to cause grief. The Jinn Inn is still open right?” she says.
“Yep, as far as I know.” You answer.
“Okay, guess I’m staying there. Ugh, just hate the idea of staying there due to it being so dirty looking. It’s like one step up from that awful trailer park outside of town. I dunno how that place has stayed open so long.”
“Well the hookers in town need to ply their trade somewhere.”
“Mom! I’ve never heard you talk like that before!” She exclaims.
“Well I’m not a prude dear, despite what you might think of me.”
“Mom, I don’t think you’re a prude. I know you’re very open-minded. You’re just usually pretty reserved with how your talk.”
“Well I’m full of surprises, just like you are. Where do you think you got it from?”
“Hah, guess you’re right. Okay then, I suppose I shouldn’t really talk so much while I drive. I guess I’ll be seeing you on Saturday after all. Give my love to dad.”
“I will dear.”
“I love you mom.”
“I love you too Suzy.” You say before hanging up.

You don’t have much time, you have to prepare and make a plan of what you’re going to do.

“Did I hear you on the phone out here?” you mother says walking into the kitchen.
“Huh? Oh, yeah just someone trying to sell something. They were really persistent.” You reply.
“I can tell, you hardly cut up any of the carrots.”
“Sorry, I guess I got caught up in telling them to never call here again. I should have just hung up I suppose.”
“No worries, I’ve gotten directly angry at those telemarketer types too.”
“Hey mom, I’ve got some things I left here that I want to get and I know they’re probably in my room somewhere or maybe even the basement, you don’t mind if I go take care of that do you?”
“No, not at all. We can talk later. Let me know if you’re looking for something in particular. I might know where it is.”
“I will mom.”

You head to your room to try to formulate a plan. You figure the easiest way to do this is to hang out near or around the motel parking lot and watch for a silver sports car. When you see what room she goes to, you can just blitz attack her as she’s attempting to open it up and take care of her in the motel room itself. You just need to be quick.

So, now that you have her, now you have to kill her. You’re going to need something quick and not noisy. A knife you suppose, but that might take more than one stab unless you cut her throat or something. The bat you got from the Gray Building might work, if you smash her in the head multiple times. The thing is you don’t want is to splatter a bunch of blood all over the place. The Jinn Inn might be shady and dirty enough that a few blood spots on their carpets aren’t going to raise an eyebrow, but if you make it look like the chainsaw massacre, you will cause attention and it isn’t like you’re going to have all the time in the world to clean it up. The goal is to make the kill and replace her as efficiently as possible.

Which brings you to the idea of how you’re going to dispose of the body since you can’t just leave a dead doppelganger of yourself in the motel room. You’re definitely going to have to haul it out into the wilderness-surrounding town. Dragging it to one of the trunks of the car is going to be the most difficult part. (You still aren’t sure which one you’ll take) Dragging her body out might be less risky if you at least wrapped it in something; you think you saw some things in the basement that might come in useful.

Once you get the body into the trunk though, you just need to drive far enough away so it isn’t discovered. Even if it is, maybe you should mutilate the face so it can’t be identified. Pull out the teeth?

Your murder plans are temporarily broken up by your thoughts of Bobby. You didn’t often speak to Bobby about his “religious practices”, but in the few times you dared to ask questions, he did explain helpfully about how he went about things. You never dreamed that such knowledge might come in handy.

You make a mental note of everything you might need. You grab an old duffle bag out of the closet and fill it with some of her old clothing from her drawers. You figure you’re probably going to need new clothing to wear after your grim work.

When you head downstairs you find that dad has returned.

“Hey Suzy, where are you off to?”
“Oh just putting some stuff of mine in the car, hey dad I was thinking about painting my place when I get back home. I noticed some old tarps and blankets in the basement, you wouldn’t mind if I took those would you?” you ask.
“Oh no, go ahead. Take whatever you might need.” He says.

You head to your car and throw the duffle bag in, then you return to the house and head down into the basement.

You grab some of the folded up tarps and then you notice some of the old tools and other junk down here. Are you going to need an axe to chop up the body? Maybe you should take a shovel to bury it in the wilderness? You remember they stuffed a body into a luggage case in one movie…

“Fuck it, I’m still not sure what I’m going to do, I better just take all this shit. Dad did say to help myself.” You say and make a couple trips up and down the basement, loading up your car with tools, tape, bags, and tarps in the process. (And being to keep the shovel and axe hidden within the tarps since the last thing you need is a question about why you might need those)

By the time you’re done, you’re about ready to go do the deed right now, but it’s still too early. Besides, you can’t just disappear for all day and night, your parents would wonder. You’re going to have to come up with an excuse of why you’re going to be gone.

As you’re piecing together an excuse, when you get back in the house your mom sees and addresses you again.

“You going to have dinner with us in a half hour or so?” she asks.
“…yes…of course. I have to leave though afterwards.”
“Leave? You just got here!”
“I don’t mean leave to go back to Security City, I just mean…well I’ve been in contact with a former school friend through the Internet and she’s sort of been going through some tough times. I promised I’d meet up with her when I was visiting.”
“Oh…well I certainly understand. Who was this friend? Do I know her? Though I suppose I only ever remember Julie due to you two hanging together a lot.”

You very briefly blank on making up a name on the spot, however you do come up with one rather quickly.

“Um, Diana. Her name was Diana Morningstar. She never came over here, since her parents were always a bit strict, but I always got along with her in school. She wasn’t very popular, but I always felt a bit sorry for her so I was sort of her only real friend. Though I imagine she probably put more stock into it than I did, I mean I was still just a shallow kid at the time and wanted to hang out with Julie since we could have fun together like normal young teens. I sort of lost contact with her when her parents pulled her out of school altogether and home schooled her. I think they were religious nuts.”

Your mother just shakes her head.

“See, parents like that just shouldn’t have children. That’s a shame. Well I’m glad to hear that you showed that girl a bit of kindness. I’m sure she’s glad you’re in contact again and will be happy to see you. You always were thoughtful.” Your mother says and then mentions that you should take a spare key for the house from the desk in the front room just in case you come home late and they’re already asleep.

Eventually it’s dinnertime and you have dinner with your mom and dad. Through a bit of conversation you do learn a little more about your “life” here and through careful weaving and quick thinking, you manage to navigate through questions you might not otherwise know the answers to. To be honest though, you’re only just barely paying attention to any of it, because you’re so preoccupied.

While you’re apparently calm on the outside, you’re really a ball of nervous energy and as soon as dinner is over you nearly rush out of the house, though you do grab the spare house key for appearances.

You say goodbye to your parents and leave the house. It’s night, but it’s still too early for her to be at the motel yet, well at least you hope that’s the case since that will change up your plans of how to get to her.

You spend a bit of time driving around trying to put yourself in the mind frame to do this. You can’t afford to choke; this is a life or death decision quite literally. You need to do this for your future life here. The life that you deserved…but why are you so much more deserving? Didn’t this Suzy work hard to get what she got even if she had a few advantages? Are you just too overwhelmed with jealousy? How can you genuinely desire to find the inner strength to kill?

“For fuck’s sake Suzy, you were going out with a cultist for fuck’s sake and you had no problem with him killing people! Is this really all that surprising?” you exclaim to yourself.

Maybe this is genetic. Maybe you take after Uncle Ed. (Who you learned didn’t exist in this reality when your mom mentioned being an only child at dinner) Maybe it was your fucked up upbringing. Maybe it was your environment. Maybe there was always darkness in you and you were just too damn lazy for it ever to fully thrive.

Well it’s thriving now. Is it ever. You’ve got more motivation than you ever have before. Maybe it’s because there is so much at stake. Maybe it’s because on some level you actually hate yourself and by killing this Suzy, well it’s like killing yourself without the actual downside of dying.

Whatever the reason, you can’t waste anymore time thinking about whether this is right or wrong. Your life hasn’t exactly been “right” for a very long time, but if everything goes according to plan, your life will be getting there.

Well at least that’s how you’re convincing yourself this time around. Just like you’ve convinced yourself of several other things this week, you succeed in convincing yourself of this too. It’s getting a lot easier.

You stop driving around town and finally head to the motel. You’ll wait the rest of the time out in the parking lot.

When you get to the Jinn Inn, it isn’t quite as bad as the one in your reality, but you definitely see some shady characters popping into the rooms. You see no sign of a silver sports car though and you do take the time to check. She’s not here yet so you just park in a strategic location where you can see all the traffic coming in and out. When she arrives, you’ll definitely see her.

Hours pass, but you never lose focus. And eventually your vigilance pays off. You see a silver sports car. It actually isn’t as fancy as you thought it might be, probably was bought used, but it’s certainly more than you ever had.

You watch her park close to the motel rooms and then you see her get out of the car. She’s dressed in casual clothing and carries a small purse, but when you watch her walk to the motel check in office, you notice she carries herself with an air of self-confidence. It’s like it doesn’t matter that the area she’s around is shit, she knows she’s better and isn’t at all intimidated by the element here.

It is at this moment you grab your baseball bat and get out of the car still keeping an eye out and crouching down behind the vehicles. Fortunately nobody else happens to be lingering around the lot at the moment. Hopefully it stays that way.

You soon see her come out of the check in office and as stealthily as you can you run over behind more cars and get closer. You watch where she walks to and continue to keep a look out for anyone else that might suddenly pop up. You just need to stay hidden as you follow her and then rush her when she finally opens up her room. You silently thank your luck for once since she seems to not be very aware of her surroundings and only focuses on heading towards her room.

“Stupid, arrogant bitch…” you say to yourself.

Your stalking soon ends when you see her reach her room. It’s a perfect opening too. Nobody is around and she fumbles with the keys a bit giving you time to get closer before making that mad sprint as soon as she opens her room… and then you strike.

Your target opens the door and enters her room. She turns around to close the door just in time to see you up close in front of her hitting her with face with the bat. It isn’t a full swing, but rather a hard “poke”, but it’s enough to break her nose and cause her to go falling to the floor.

You quickly slam the door shut behind you and you briefly think about beating her brains in with the bat, but then you realize that will probably be messy.

“You…” is all she manages to get out before you kick her in the face to shut her up. Then you pounce on top of her and after turning her over, you use the bat sideways and you press it up against her throat as hard as you can as you pull back.

She gasps and struggles for her life, but it’s no use, your determination to kill her is much stronger than her abilities to fight for her life.

“Shhhhh…just let go….just let go…everything is going to work out and your parents won’t be losing a daughter at all. Just let go….” You whisper.

Soon you hear a crunching sound of perhaps crushing bones in her neck or her windpipe or something. Whatever it is, her struggle temporarily becomes more violent and jerky with her limbs attempting to flail about. It almost feels like you’re riding her like a wild pony, but soon this outburst is muted and then nothing.

Suzy collapses dying with her face partially in a small puddle of her blood and spital, leaving you sitting on top of a corpse’s back. You eventually stand up taking in what you’ve done. You’re hot and sweaty, but strangely invigorated.

“(Whew) And I thought I was going to choke.” you say and then start to chuckle at your own dark joke.

Well the first part of the deed is done, now comes the more labor inducing part. Getting rid of her body.

You’ve actually managed to keep the mess to a minimum by choking her to death, so you’re wondering if you shouldn’t just grab the tarps from the car, roll her ass up in them, duct tape it together and take her to the trunk.

She might be your size, (Okay slightly lighter) but it isn’t like you’re used to carrying bodies around. While there wasn’t anyone out there, the last thing you need is someone seeing you fumbling around with a body, even one wrapped in a tarp.

If you wanted to play it safe, you suppose you could drag her to the bathroom and chop her up in the bathtub. It will definitely take longer and you might make more of a mess, but you could always carry her out in several pieces in that big luggage bag you brought with you.
> You chop her up
If you’re going to do this, you need to do this right. In fact the more you think about it, this isn’t going to be done in one day. However, you can get some of it done tonight if you stay focused.

Sure, you’re going to have to come up with a few excuses to your parents of why you were out all night, but you can think them up while you’re taking care of this.

You quickly search her body, but find nothing of interest. The purse that she dropped on the floor when you smashed her in the face contains all the important stuff, but you figure you can go through it more thoroughly later.

The first thing you do is leave the room and head directly to the check in office. When you enter you see a slovenly man watching a tv. His leering eyes turn your way and you have no doubt he thinks you’re the same woman from earlier.

“Hey, I’m gonna need that room a little longer.” You say.
“Business that good huh?” he snorts.
“Very funny, look how much for two more days?”
“Same price you see on the fucking sign above my head.”
“Oh, well I guess I didn’t see it since I was so mesmerized what with you being such a stud and all.” You say sarcastically while pulling out a couple hundreds out of your pocket.

You toss the money at him dismissively, but he takes it without question.

“Keep the change and I don’t want anyone disturbing me until its time to check out, got it? That means no house keeping ladies or shit knocking at my door.” You say.
“House keeping ladies? Pfft, no problem there. I got one and she barely does her fucking job as it is. If I wasn’t married to her I would’ve fired her years ago.” The man says and returns to his show.

You then head to your car where you start bringing in several of the various objects you brought from the house. Takes you a couple trips, but you don’t have any trouble.

The motel bathroom is fortunately bigger than you expected it to be, it’s also a lot dirtier than you expected it to be. Of course now you’re not so much worried about making a mess so much as you’re afraid you’re going to catch hepatitis just being in the damn place.

You lay down tarps on the floor and in the bathtub then you drag her body in. You go grab the axe and study it a bit; hoping that it’s sharp enough that you won’t need to struggle with the whole dismemberment task.

Standing over her body with an axe is a little surreal to you, but you need to stop dwelling on how weird this all is and get on with it.

“Here we go.” You say and swing the axe…

Chopping up the body is a mixed feeling. On one hand you’re completely at peace with the deed and everything that goes along with it. The blood and gore isn’t even all that bad since you’ve gotten a bit accustomed to that, but it’s the smell that’s making you feel a little sick.

You actually have to stop chopping for a moment because you can’t stop gagging. Eventually you just give in and throw up in the toilet nearby. Afterwards, you’re more or less fine. It still isn’t nearly as bad as that fucked up reality warping tentacle monster shadow abominations you had to endure during your time in the Gray Building. You never want to experience something like that again.

By the time you’re finished, you’ve got severed parts waiting to be wrapped up. You got most of the bloody mess on the tarps, so that’s one less thing to worry about you suppose. You’ll have to dispose of the bloody clothing you’re wearing though.

Getting naked, you return to your large luggage case, which you placed on the bed and open it up to retrieve all the trash bags you took along with the duct tape.

The wrapping and taping is probably more time consuming than the chopping up part. You don’t really have too many problems except when it comes to the torso which is not fun to deal with since it’s still heavy and blood is leaking everywhere from it.

Eventually you get everything in order and before you know it, you’ve got several body parts wrapped fairly tightly in bags and they don’t seem to be leaking either. After washing your hands and arms a bit, you grab the luggage case from the next room.

It takes some effort and squeezing, but you just barely manage to fit all of the parts in the case. After carefully moving the tarps to drain the blood in the tub, you then fold them up and squeeze them in too, along with your blood drenched clothing. The luggage case itself is made of solid material and you’re confident there won’t be any leakage, but just dragging it back into the main room takes some effort. It definitely isn’t going to be easy to shove into the car trunk.

Next you spend a little time cleaning up a few places where the blood spilled on the floor or splattered on the wall. Most of this was in the bathroom and is relativity easy to get rid of, though you do spend some time scrubbing the carpet a bit where you first choked her out.

After you’re done with all of that, you take a shower, which also gets rid of the blood already in the tub. You briefly feel a little like that infamous countess that bathed in the blood of young girls to maintain her youth.

Getting dressed in a new set of clothing you brought in the duffle bag, you finally collapse on the bed not caring how filthy it may or may not be.

“Ahhh…shit…” you say to yourself as fatigue sets in.

You take this opportunity to go a bit through the purse now, starting with the phone. You check the time and see that it’s practically getting up for morning.

You figure you’ll sleep here for what remains of the night and tomorrow you’ll take the remains to the wilderness and find a good spot to bury them. You imagine your mom will call you at some point, possibly even waking you up. You figure you’ll tell her you had a few drinks with Diana and you didn’t want to risk driving home. She’ll understand that even if she might not approve.

You also figure you’ll take the blue car when you drive. The shovel is still in that one and you might very well have to stop off at your parent’s house first for some reason anyway if they really make a fuss to want to see you immediately. Better you don’t have to park around the block or something just so you don’t arouse suspicion. You’ll definitely be abandoning the blue one and taking the silver one back when you leave town and head back to Security City though.

And that’s just some of what you have to do for tomorrow. You’ll be able to do it though as long as you stay focused on your goals like you have been doing.

As you begin to drift off, your thoughts briefly focus on Bobby. Seems weird to think of him even now after all you’ve been through this week. You wonder if his family lives in town? Are they still cultists or are they normal?

You have no idea, there is going to be a lot to learn from this reality, but you can only dwell on “your” Bobby and what he might think. You certainly are a far cry from that “good girl” he rescued so long ago. He probably would be proud of you right now.

You know he’s out of your life forever now, but you still can’t help feel a little sad about it.

“I still wonder if being with you influenced me or what I just did was within me all along. Either way I guess if I stayed with you earlier this week…maybe…maybe… we could have made it work after all. Another reality perhaps…” you say and close your eyes.
> Next day…
SATURDAY

You wake up to the cell phone ringing. You’re very tired, but when you see who it is, this call isn’t unexpected.

“Hey mom…” you groggily reply.
“Hey mom? Where are you? I thought you would’ve come back last night!” your mom exclaims.
“What time is it now?”
“It’s almost noon! Are you okay?”
“Mom, mom, mom, calm down. I’m fine. I just…well I drank a little too much…”
“Drink? You don’t drink!” your mom exclaims.
“Yeah, I know hence why I’ve been more or less out of it. Diana was really distraught last night and she was already drinking a bit when I got over to her place. She got an eviction notice, she broke up with her boyfriend, she lost her job and just a whole bunch of other drama in genera hit her this week. She really needed a friend to speak with and well, I ended up drinking with her since she was sort of insistent and I wanted to be there for her. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I think she felt better as the night went on. Of course that might have just been the drink…I dunno…I’m sorry for worrying you though.”

There is a pause after you give your excuse.

“Okay Suzy. I get it. (Sigh) I’m just glad you had the sense not to drive if you really got that drunk though. I do hope this isn’t a habit though, I know you’re an adult, but you’re still my baby and I don’t like to think of you as being some falling down lush.”
“Oh mom, that’s not going to happen. Seriously, like I said, I only did it so Diana would feel better. I fully intend to tell her when she wakes up that this won’t be happening again.”
“Glad to hear it. So when do you think you’ll be home? Your father and I would still like to see you since you actually came here to visit us remember?”
“I know, I’ll be home in a few hours I suppose. I still feel woozy from last night. Did you need me over immediately though? Because I can do that if you want.”
“No, no, you take care of everything you need to over there and come over when you’re feeling up to driving. Don’t want you getting into an accident because you’re not feeling one hundred percent.”
“Okay, I will be over as soon as I can though.”
“Alright, we’ll see you then. Love you Suzy.”
“I love you mom.”

You hang up and rub your eyes a bit.

“Well that’s one thing out of the way. Better get on with the more important task.” You say.

You open up the door to your room and see a closer parking spot to your room, which is good since you really don’t want to drag that case too far.

You go to your car and bring it in closer and then head back to your room to gather up everything.

You gather up the bat and axe (which you also wash off in the tub) and toss them in the trunk. Next, you grab the luggage case. With some effort, you drag it to the trunk and lift it inside. You’re really glad you decided to chop her up, you can’t imagine how awkward it would’ve been to carry her intact.

You take your new purse and duffle bag and leave the room. You’ll come back for the sports car later. The only danger of leaving it here is someone stealing the thing, but then it wasn’t really your car to begin with.

Believing you’ve taken care of everything you need to here, you start up your car and drive off for north of town.

A few hours later and you’re just finishing up digging a good-sized hole in the ground to shove the case in. You really think you were better off doing this in the day time since you neglected to bring a flashlight which would have made digging in the middle of the woods at night a little more difficult.

You were a little concerned about some random campers stumbling upon you, or maybe some redneck hunters, but so far you haven’t seen a single thing, which is good.

You look at the luggage case.

“Well Suzy, now is where we part ways. I wish I could say I didn’t want things to be this way, but I’d be lying. You had a better life and I wanted that so I took it. Maybe that makes me a fucking sociopath or evil or something, I don’t know and I don’t care. All I can say is I’m going to make the most of it and not waste your life the way I wasted my life.”

You grab the case and shove it into the hole.

“Thanks Suzy and goodbye.” You say and then fill up the hole.

After your deed you make the mildly long walk out of the woods and to your car. You throw your shovel in the trunk and sit in the car for a while not doing anything except resting. Digging a hole for a body is some tiring business even if it’s neatly tucked in a case.

You grab your new phone out of the purse to call your mom so you can let her know you’ll be home soon and that’s when you notice someone else has called while you were out digging.

It’s your “girlfriend.” Apparently her name is Heather and she left you a voice message which out of curiosity you listen to.

“Hey Suzy, I hope you’re having a good time visiting your family. I just wanted to call though and see how you were. I know you haven’t been gone long, but you know I always miss you when you’re not around. Anyway, call me back when you have time. Oh and I sent you some pictures to keep you occupied when you’re alone! (Giggle!)”

You go through the phone and see that Heather has indeed sent you more than a few pictures. You see a raven haired girl of small physique with lipstick and eye make up wearing lingerie and making sexy poses. You have to admit, she’s actually very pretty in a slightly goth sort of way.

“Damn, maybe I shouldn’t break up with her immediately.” you chuckle.

You turn the car on and begin making the journey back to your parent’s house. Along the way you think about everything that’s happened this week and how this is just beginning of your new life. You weren’t joking about making the most of it when you said those words out loud in the woods. You meant that, well except you’re not going to be making the most out of her life, you’re going to be making the most out of YOUR life.

While the “transformation” is far from complete, you think the hardest part is over and even if there are challenges or you to overcome, you’ll succeed in surviving and conquering them.

Because that’s all you’ve done during this Hell week, survived and ultimately conquered it.
> …
Mirror rorriM

The Future…

Your siblings, spouses, children, and you all stand in your mother’s bedroom. It probably won’t be long now.

You always knew the day would come when you’d lose her again and that day is today. While you might have been more prepared for it this time, it doesn’t make it any less sad. You didn’t even feel this sad when your dad died years ago and you loved him very much, though maybe that’s because you always still had the tainted memory of your crappy alternate one.

Your mother though in both realities was always there for you and you’ve never forgotten that.

“Now that I’ve said my goodbyes to everyone…I want….I want to speak to Suzy…alone…” your mother utters.

Everyone is a little surprised by this unexpected request. You are too, since you thought everyone was going to be in her room until the end.

“What? But mother…” Kelly starts to say looking almost a little offended.
“Kelly. Not now. Not today.” Ben says with a stern voice.

Kelly looks at Ben like she wants to argue, but he’s about the only person that can make her back down. She does however give you the stare of death.

Kelly never changes no matter what reality. She always hates you. There actually was a slightly comforting consistency when you first encountered her.

“Fine. She’s all yours, just like she always is.” Kelly snaps and storms out the room.

Ben exhales and shrugs with a slight widening of his eyes looking at you.

“It’s okay…I’m used to it.” You say.
“Alright, everyone come on let’s leave these two alone to talk.” Ben replies.

Ben escorts his children out of the room while Julie goes up and gives you a quick hug before following them.

You kiss and hug your husband and tell your daughter that you’ll see them later.

After they leave it’s just you and mom. You pull up your chair as close as you can to the bed and sit near her and hold her hand.

“I’m here mom.” You say.
“Yes…yes you are. You’ve always been here. (Cough) Even when you weren’t.”

Your mom at this point turns to look directly at you and despite her very weak state you feel her hand squeeze yours somewhat strongly and she gives you a sudden intense look.

“I know you’re not Suzy…or rather you’re not the Suzy I gave birth to…” she says with a tone that you’ve never heard before. It isn’t anger or anything negative, but it is one that puts you so off guard that you get a chill down your back.

“Mom, I…” you begin to sputter before she interrupts you.
“Don’t. I know. I’ve known for a very long time now. A mother always knows her own child.”

You don’t know how to react. You look down and away from your “mother. You actually feel a little sick and you start to tremble a bit. You have never once in all these years felt bad about what you did, but now you’re not so sure. You begin to sniffle and tears start to form.

“Shhhh, Suzy. Save your tears for when I’m truly gone because it doesn’t matter. You’re still my daughter, but I couldn’t go to my grave without letting you know that I knew. I also thought I’d tell you for your sake. Now (cough) I don’t want to know the gruesome details…about HOW this came to be, but if its been weighing on your conscience at all, you didn’t actually replace the Suzy I gave birth to anyway.”

This is beyond unexpected. How is it possible that she knows all this just on instinct? You look up at your mother.

“My Suzy…the Suzy I knew as the daughter I gave birth to? Something happened to her a long time ago. (cough cough) Something changed soon after she went to college. I never could place my finger on it, but first time she visited I knew something was different. And it wasn’t just due to experimenting with new ideas and sexuality in college. SHE was different and I KNEW she was. As I said, a mother knows, but the frequent little inconsistencies in her memories and such made it certain. Just as I learned with you.”

You just continue holding your mother’s hand as she speaks.

“But what could I do? What could I say? Who would believe such a fantastic tale? Sure this new Suzy was a little more full of herself, but she still loved me just like my Suzy did. I couldn’t lose my baby daughter twice so I never spoke up. Never (cough) dreamed it would happen again though. I suppose in some ways I might have even been glad though. You replaced the one who replaced mine.”

Never did you ever believe that your mother knew. To learn this now is just as overwhelming as when you had to deal with the situation so long ago.

“Why…why didn’t you say anything before?” you ask looking up.
“Why ruin a good relationship? You never disrespected me and treated me kindly. You always visited when you could and you even moved back to town with your family when your father died so you could be closer to me. You obviously loved me very much. Could I really ask for a better daughter?” your mother says with a faint smile.

The feelings are almost overwhelming you at this point. You’re completely at a loss. At this point your mom gives your hand another squeeze, but weaker this time.

“You’re my daughter. My baby and I always loved you. Never doubt that.” She says.
“I don’t…(Sob)” you say and attempt to hold it together.

Your mother’s grip is becoming less firm now.

“Soon none of this will matter, but before I go…I want to know a couple things…” your mother says weakly.
“Of course.” You reply.
“What…(cough) was your other mother like?”
“She…(sniffle) was very much like you. She was kind and was the only one who ever truly cared when I was growing up. I…(sob) was still little when she died…I missed her very much…” you say trying to keep from crying completely.

Your mother nods.

“I see…I suppose…(cough cough) that answer might partially answer my other question then…”
“What’s that?”
“How many other Suzys were there after you?”

You’re silent for a moment.

“Three that I know of. I think you may have even met one of them.”
“Mm…considering you were never replaced… I suppose…you just wanted this life more than they did then…”
“It…(sob) has been a good life…(sob)”

Your mother pats your hand.

“And you’ll still have a good life Suzy, even after I’m gone…” she says.

At this point your mother’s eyes begin to flutter and then shut completely and her breathing becomes shallow.

You stay until the end and then sadness is completely released. You cry over your loss and head towards the door, not wishing to be in the same room with the empty shell that was your mother any longer.

When you exit, your husband immediately sees had distraught you are and goes to comfort you. Your daughter has been visibly crying as well. Ben, says that he’ll start making the arrangements for the funeral, meanwhile Kelly takes it upon herself to call medical personnel.

Later, the drive back home is quieter, with your daughter Sally sleeping in the backseat and your husband Roger just paying attention to the road.

It’s been an emotional roller coaster for you today. More than you even thought it would be, but you’re sort of glad your mother knew. Somehow her knowing and still loving and accepting you anyway made it just as real as how your reality’s mom felt towards you.

You also wonder if this means you won’t have to put up with any other reality hopping Suzys any longer. That might be a little too much to hope for though, after all your life is still a good one and you have much to be happy about in the scheme of things. Your mother was right about that.

Doesn’t matter, you’ll continue to fight for it just like you always have because now you truly have a life worth fighting for.

“You okay over there honey?” Roger asks.
“Yes, well no, but I guess I’m just trying to think about all the good times I had with mom. You know, focus on the positive.”
“That’s good Suzy. I think that’s a healthy approach.” He replies.

Roger always has been a supportive husband to you. You never would have thought you would have fallen for a soldier type before. You sometimes wonder if you and Roger ever met in another reality.

“Yeah, it’s odd, but I think I’m also coming up with an idea for a new book. Figure maybe I should re-channel all this negativity into something productive.” You say.
“Oh? What idea?”
“Well I suppose my mind is still a bit fragmented for a solid idea, but I’m thinking of doing a sequel to Mirrors.”
“Oh, your scifi book about parallel dimensions? That one was pretty popular. I know I certainly liked it better than that one your wrote about that inbred cultist family. That one was a little too gruesome for my tastes.”
“Well I had to make a dramatic break from my first three books. Up until then, all people thought I could write was lesbian pirate erotica.”
“Hey I liked Treasure Chest. I thought it was a pretty deep love story.” Roger says.
“Oh I know why YOU liked it.” You say chuckling a little bit and allowing yourself to feel a little better.
“Well okay I liked the obvious too, well anyway do you have any idea on what the new story might involve?”
“It will probably just pick up a few years after Mirror left off and I’ll see how it goes from there. Like I said, it’s just in the idea stages now, but whatever I come up with, I’ll definitely be dedicating it in the memory of mom.”
“Well I think that’s a very good way to honor her. She certainly has contributed to your inspiration.”

You nod.

“In more ways than one Roger. In more ways than one.”