The wound caused by my parents’ death never truly healed. On certain days, the pain was too much and the longing to see them again was too strong. They’d died over two years ago, but the pain was still fresh and burned hot in my chest.
I recently suffered through one of these days and decided to have a look through some old photo albums. It always helped to look at old family pictures and reminisce about times long gone. Here I was as an infant in my mother’s arms; there was my first day of school and what followed were pictures of various family trips. I went from page to page until I came upon the pictures of a certain trip to a small town nearby. We never went to different countries. My parents were boring like that, and we always spent our vacations sightseeing in Germany. In the picture, my parents and I were hugging each other in front of a small restaurant. I felt tears coming to my eyes as the memories returned to my mind. It was such a nice trip.
A few minutes later, I decided to take a trip and revisit the place. The town was only about an hour away from here, but when I searched for the restaurant via Google Maps, I noticed that the scenery didn’t fit at all. The small restaurant had been in front of a backdrop of distant factories and industrial areas. Yet there were none in the town I was looking at. At first I was a bit baffled, but then I realized the pictures were most likely from a different trip. Mom must’ve put them in the wrong place or confused the names. God knows she was always scatterbrained. I scanned the picture for anything tangible and soon noticed the restaurant’s name above the door. When I googled it, I got more than a dozen results. Guess it’s a common name. I looked at each of the results, but they were all entirely different places. Great, I thought. Even worse, the picture was from more than a decade ago. The place had probably closed down by now. Even if the restaurant didn’t exist anymore, it would still be nice to pay the town a visit. I continued my search for a while longer, but it was futile.
Eventually, I posted the picture on a German subreddit to see if someone would recognize the place. I had little hope. It had been a small town in the middle of nowhere. When I rechecked the thread about an hour later, I’d gotten a few replies. Some were wild guesses; others were dumb jokes. Well, not like I’d expected anything else. After I’d prepared some dinner, I had a handful of new replies, but none of them were helpful. My hopes returned when I noticed that someone had sent me a message. I opened it and began reading. The message was written by a user somewhere in Germany who stated he had a picture that looked exactly like mine. I wrote back to him and asked what he meant. A reply arrived almost instantly, this time including an imgur-link to the picture he’d been talking about.
When I looked at it, I couldn’t help but be weirded out. Just like he’d written, the picture was almost identical to the one I’d posted. It was taken in front of the same small restaurant, featuring the same backdrop, but with a different family in it. For a moment, I focused, trying to find more differences, but everything else was identical. I shook my head. This had to be some sort of stupid joke. I sent the guy another message, stating he’d almost got me and that his Photoshop skills were pretty impressive. He denied tinkering with my picture, but I didn’t bother to reply. Soon enough, however, another message arrived. He was asking if I had any other pictures from the same trip. I frowned. What the hell was this guy’s problem? Instead of answering, I ignored him. The problem was, the guy didn’t seem to ignore me, and a few minutes later, yet another message arrived. A little annoyed, I opened it, if only to tell the guy to leave me alone. His message, however, made me look up.
Hey, I’m sure you’re a bit creeped out, sorry about that. Do you have any pictures similar to the ones below?
Attached to the message were half a dozen imgur-links. Expecting to find some stupid troll image or a meme, I clicked the first one. The moment I’d opened it, however, recognition flooded over me. The picture on the screen was of a young boy and a woman sitting on a bench in the middle of a park. Leaves littered the ground and a small fountain was visible in the background. In an instant, I opened up my photo album again and soon found it, an exact duplicate of his picture. The only difference was my mom and I. What the fuck was going on? I went and clicked through the rest of the imgur-links, and with each one of them my head spun more. They were all exactly the same as pictures I had in my photo album. The only difference was the people in them. Was this some kind of sick joke? But how would he have gotten a hold of my pictures? I replied, asking how the hell he did this and how he’d gotten a hold of my pictures. The guy only replied that this was what he’s supposed to ask. All right, this was getting weird, really weird.
For a moment, I wondered if this was nothing but a coincidence. Maybe our families had been there the same day. Those things happen, right? I opened his picture again and scanned it for even the tiniest difference, but I found nothing. Then I got an idea. It was an outlandish one, a silly one even, but I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind. I sent him a picture of another trip my parents and I had taken. This one had led us to a town in Southern Germany. I was antsy as I waited for his reply, refreshing the page repeatedly. After a couple of minutes, the red message sign popped up. I clicked it instantly.
There’s something weird going on here. Why do you have that picture as well? I’ve got the same one in front of me right now!
Attached to it was yet another imgur-link. When I clicked it, my eyes grew wide. It was the same picture, only that my dad and I were replaced by him and his dad. I replied, asking him what was going on here. Almost half an hour passed before he replied this time.
We should meet. I’ve got a feeling there’s more to this.
As I read the message, I wondered if I should meet this guy. Once more, I tried to convince myself that this was all some sort of joke, but it made no sense. All those pictures here had been taken with an old-fashioned analog camera. They’d never been digitized. No one else could have seen them or could’ve tinkered with them. And yet, this situation was way too bizarre. I had to figure out what the hell was going on here, and so I agreed to meet him. He was quick to send me his address, and we arranged for a time to meet. He also urged me to bring any family pictures similar to the ones I’d sent him. A week later I set out, taking half a dozen photo albums with me. I felt strange and apprehensive the entire three-hour car ride. Who was this guy? For a moment, the idea of a long-lost brother came to my mind, but that made no sense at all. After that, my brain conjured up even weirder ideas. What if he was some sort of doppelganger or alternate version of me? No, calm down you idiot, this is not a freaking science-fiction movie!
When I arrived, I was relieved to see that the guy’s home looked completely different from my own. Still, it took me a while to muster up the courage to get out of my car. After I rang the doorbell, a chubby guy, almost twice my age, opened the door. He was as surprised as I was when he saw how different the two of us were.
“Are you Michael?” I asked.
“You must be Steven, right?”
I nodded.
“Well, come in. Did you bring the pictures?”
“Yeah, I brought an entire stack of them.”
This guy’s place was messy, seriously messy. It looked as if it had been weeks or even months since he’d last cleaned. He didn’t even seem to care, though, and simply led me to his living room. I looked up when I saw an entire side of the room was taken up by a giant desk. Multiple computers, monitors, and an assortment of tools covered it. When he noticed my stare, he showed me an awkward smile.
“Ah, sorry about that. Guess I’m a bit too obsessed with the whole computer and internet thing. It’s where I do most of my work.”
“You’re a programmer?”
“Something like that, yeah,” he grumbled.
“All right, I got the pictures. So what do you think’s going on here?”
Michael laughed.
“To be honest, I’ve got no clue. I thought it might be some weird coincidence, but there are too many things that don’t add up. When did you and your parents visit that restaurant?”
“I think it was back in 2005.”
“Right and you’re how old?”
“Twenty-four. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Well, it’s because I’m thirty-six and I took the same trip back in 1992.”
I heard what he’d said, but it made no sense. How in the hell could the pictures be identical if they were thirteen years apart?
“You got it, right? So how the hell is any of this possible? That other picture you sent me. When were you there?”
“Hold on,” I said and opened my backpack.
I took out all the photo albums and began going through them.
“It should be here somewhere… Ah, yes, here it is. Let me see, that one was back in 2002.”
Michael grimaced.
“Same trip, only in 1990.”
“Freaking hell, what’s going on here?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he rummaged through a cupboard and brought out stacks upon stacks of pictures.
“Well, let’s see if there’s more.”
During the next hours, the two of us went through all our pictures and compared our various family trips. They were all identical. At first, we were utterly horrified and creeped out, but in time, the sheer surreality of the situation pushed us into a state of apathy. Every once in a while, one of us would chuckle or shake his head, but that was about it.
“So, what about your parents? How are they doing?” I asked as I put another picture back in one of my albums.
“Both dead. They died about two years ago.”
“In a car accident?!”
Michael looked up, puzzled.
“No, they both died in a fire.”
“Oh god, for a second I thought—”
I broke off, shaking my head.
“No, what is it?”
“Well, mine died two years ago in a car accident. For a moment, I thought it might have been the same for you. I don’t know, this is all just too weird.”
Michael said nothing.
In the end, there wasn’t much the two of us could do at the moment. We were both way too confused, and we had little to go on about. Our names were different, our birth dates were different, and our parents weren’t related. For a while, we made wild guesses what could be going on, but it was all nonsense. When afternoon turned into evening, I decided it was time to make my way back home. Before I did, though, we exchanged phone numbers and emails, in case one of us would find out anything. Michael also made copies of some of my pictures and told me he’d do some research online. He knew certain people that could find out if any of the images were doctored with. Only on my way home did I realize how truly bizarre all of this was. The more I tried to make sense of it, the more anxious, sweaty, and sick I felt.
Once I’d made it home, I went to bed right away, but sleep didn’t come easy. When it did, my dreams were haunted by doppelgangers and plunged me into weird alternate realities. When morning came, I was more tired and exhausted than the day before. I went to work, but I was barely functioning. In the early evening, I got a text from Michael, telling me to check my email. He’d got some news for me. For the first time all day, I was wide awake.
The moment I was home, I logged into my email account and opened the one Michael had sent me. He wrote that someone had gotten back to him regarding one of the pictures. It was an older man from Russia who used to work in a print media company in the Soviet Union. He remembered the picture right away. I looked up. The Soviet Union? What the hell? It was a scene he’d recognize anywhere because he used to work with the original version. It was a somewhat popular stock photo, often used in propaganda pieces in the late seventies. Michael had also attached a picture to the email, the same one again. This time, however, the family was different again. No, not just the family, I realized after a moment. All the German letters in the picture were replaced by words in the Cyrillic alphabet.
I stared at it, not understanding. How could my parents and I be in a picture from a Russian propaganda piece? Then it clicked. There was only one way. The picture of my parents and me. It had to be…fake. With shaking hands, I took out one of the photo albums again and looked through it. How many of these pictures were real? How many of them were fake? Yet there was something else that slowly creeped into my mind. Who had faked them and, more importantly, why? I was torn from my thoughts when the phone rang. It was Michael.
“It’s not just that picture,” he said in a shaken voice.
“Wait, hold on, what are you talking about?”
“Remember the trip to the lake? Another stock photo. Same for the one in the museum.”
“But how? Why?”
“God if I know. I’m talking to this guy right now, and he sent me a few more. He says most of the pictures are taken from a series about Soviet towns. The rest he’s got no clue, but he said they all look like stock photos and all of them seem to have been tampered with.”
“You’re trying to tell me that all the pictures here—” I broke off, not able to bring out the words.
“Yeah, they’re all fake,” Michael finished the sentence for me.
“But what the hell does it mean? That’s my life, I mean, that’s our lives! How can someone fake all this?”
“I don’t know, Steven, but I’m going to keep talking to this guy. Maybe he can help me figure this out.”
“Hey, Michael, who the hell—”
I didn’t even get to finish the sentence because he’d already hung up.
“Fucking hell!” I cursed.
For the next days, I couldn’t do anything. I went through all the pictures and photo albums again. If all of them were fake, then why did I have memories of the trips? How the hell could I remember visiting a freaking museum in the middle of Russia if I’ve never even left the country? I took out a picture of my parents and stared at it again. They’d died two years ago. I remembered the police arrive at our door, the funeral, it was all there. Then I thought about the funeral. For the first time, I really thought about it. When had it been? I knew it was two years ago, but what day? What month? Where had it been? It must’ve been in this town, right? I mean, that’s where we lived. I shook my head. All of this was getting to me. I’d barely slept, and my mind was hazy. Of course it had been here. If I went to the graveyard, I’d find their grave right there. Suddenly, a cold shower went down my spine. Where exactly was their grave? I was about to set out when I got another call from Michael.
“You found anything new?”
No answer. All I heard was rough, unsteady breathing and sobbing.
“Hello? Michael? Hey, are you all right?”
“I did, but no, sorry, Steven. Please, just leave this thing alone. It’s not worth it. Just forget we ever talked. Nothing good will come from all this.”
With that, the line went quiet again. When I tried to call him, it went straight to voice mail. I wrote him a message on Reddit, then an email, but I never got a reply. Eventually, I just went to bed.
A few days later, almost by accident, I saw Michael’s picture in a German tabloid. The article talked about a man in his mid-thirties who’d fallen to his death. My jaw dropped, and I stared at the article with wide eyes and began reading. It was short, but stated there was no indication of foul play and they ruled it an accident. I thought back to what he’d told me, the way he’d sounded, the sobbing, and I knew this had been no accident. I felt goosebumps all over my arm, and for a moment, a surge of anxiety washed over me. What the hell had Michael found that drove him to do something like…this?
His last words stayed on my mind for the entire three-hour car ride to his home. The place was dark and quiet but looked the same. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I wanted—no, I needed—answers. The front door was locked as I’d expected, but I soon found a cracked window, which I could open. I snuck inside and made my way through the messy place until I was back in his living room. Half of his computers were trashed. As my eyes wandered over the chaos in the room, I discovered a stack of papers on the floor. Some were printouts of stock photos; others were covered in text. When I picked them up, they looked like scientific documents.
STAGE 7 – MEMORY ALTERATION
Test subjects are infused with artificial memories to create the illusion of a normal life.
What the hell was this? I went through the stack and checked another one.
STAGE 3 – GROWTH ACCELERATION
Gen manipulation ensures maturity of test subjects in only a fraction of normal human growth period.
When I checked the rest, I saw they were all the same.
STAGE 4 – MIND EXHILARATION, STAGE 8 – SOCIAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY, and on it went. I looked through the entire stack until I found the last one.
STAGE 13 – PROJECT TERMINATION AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
Test subjects show insufficient results. Project deemed unsuccessful and to be terminated immediately. Euthanasia of remaining test subjects considered unnecessary. To be kept under surveillance to gather information about adaptability to society and social norms.
I read the words, but I didn’t understand what they meant. When I checked the date, however, I saw this last document was from early 2017. That was two years ago, from around the time my parents died. My head was spinning. This couldn’t be real, could it? I went through the stack once more when I heard something. The front door was opened and the shuffling of heavy feet reached my ears.
“Think he told the other subject?” I heard a voice.
“No. The logs show they were in contact, but he didn’t share any information.”
I froze. Who the hell was this? When their steps got closer, I told myself I had to get out of there. As fast and as quiet as I could, I made my way to the window and got out.
Not even a minute later, I drove off. I told myself over and over that none of this was real. That it all was some sort of sick joke. But then what about all those documents Michael had discovered?
I remember little about my drive home. I was completely out of it, and I still am, even now, days after. Once I was home, I searched through my entire place to find any sort of information about my parents. There’s nothing. They seem to only exist in my memories and in those old family pictures. The more I think about it, the more I realized how much I don’t know about them. When were they born? How old had they been? Did they get married, and if so, when?
I’m sitting here now, not sure what to think. Is any of this real? Are my memories real? Am I even a real person?
