by S. L. Jordan

Prompt: A person finds new photos of themselves on their cell phone that they didn’t take.

The glow of my cellphone illuminated my face as I snuggled deeper into my couches nook. I had been scrolling my feed for the last twenty minutes, liking the perfectly curated pictures as they rolled up my screen when the notification popped up.

” We’ve made an album for you”

Without hesitation I selected the notification. I loved when my phone made cute little albums with my pictures.

As the album was loading my eyes flickered to the screen, one of my favorite episodes of Criminal Minds played as white noise in the background, and I watched as the BAU team solved the crime. Setting my phone down I went into the kitchen to check on my dinner. By the time I made it back to the couch, the album had loaded.

I sat down and scrolled through. After the fifth picture, I shook my head in confusion. I looked back at the half of the joint I left in the ashtray. How high was I?

I continued to scroll through the album. Not only could I not recall the night, I didn’t even recognize the location. I sat my phone down and laid back on the couch. My heart started to race. I wiped my hands back and forth on the couch. Simultaneously to remove the sweat from my palms and to ground myself to the present. I needed to think.

How could this happen? I thought through the process. The notification is linked to my cloud. My cloud is linked to the photos. The photos are backed up to the cloud from my phone. Those photos come from me. But, I didn’t take those photos. Or did I?

I turned on the lamp nearest the couch. Grabbing my phone I opened the album back up. Searching for the meta data, I found the date and location the photo was taken. I racked my mind. I had never been to this city. The time stamp showed 3:30 a.m. On a week night. There is no way I would have been anywhere at that time on a week night. I reported to work at 6 a.m. I went back to the photo and zoomed in. I broke down every aspect. Yes, those were my clothes.

That was the only thing I could recognize in the photo as my own. The people were strangers, and the place even stranger.

Scrolling through the rest of the album I came to a stop on the one selfie from that night. I stared back in my face. Yes, that was my face. I zoomed in closer. Closer. Closer. Until my right eye took up the whole screen.

Where was my birthmark?

The phone slipped from my hand as I slowly stood and walked to the full length mirror in my bedroom. Standing in silver of light that pierced through my bedroom window, I leaned in as I pried my right eye open. My lids fought to stay closed, as if I was afraid of what I would see there.

My eyeball darted left and right before making direct contact with its reflect.

Stunned, I dropped my hands. It was not there I thought just as a hand reach out of the mirror and grabbed my hand.

Author’s Note: Fellow biSKIT, Kathy, sent over some spooky prompts for October and this one stuck with me. I’ve always wanted to write a super spooky tale. I “pants” this prompt. Literally sat down and let whatever appeared on the page, be what it was.

Be patient with me.