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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/muffinrecip on 2026-08-15 15:44:56+00:00.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grace was truly gone.

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

"Here you go, sweetie."

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

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

"Mom... I'm Faith."

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

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

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

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

"Faith, not now."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Alright, sweetheart. Alright."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

−

"Time for your medicine, Grace."

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

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

I reached out and pressed the flush handle.

I had been kept under house arrest for half a month. Dr. Vance had advised them to do so, cl...

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