Well, I never promised it would be pretty.

"I once saw a forklift lift a crate of forks. And it was way too literal for me." -Mitch Hedberg

This night was a bit unusual for me. I didn't have to work, so I went out with my best friend. We drank a bit, but nothing crazy. We had plans to go hiking the next day. And you bet your sweet ass we went. We were up for awhile, but hit the hay around 3 am or so. We slept in the same bed. I slept quite comfortably, for awhile. Then the dream began.

It is dusk. My best friend's car drops me off at the end of a driveway. She speeds off faster than she should. The driveway is long and pin-straight and gravel. I begin to walk. Trees surround me on either side. The air smells like rain is coming. I'm carrying my red overnight bag. It is heavy and weighing on my shoulder. The walk is long, but familiar. The house is set a good half-mile off of the road. The house itself is small and quaint. Paint is peeling from the wood siding. I walk onto the porch. It sinks down in the middle. The wood creaks beneath my feet. I have a key to the house, which makes me believe that I must live there. I unlock the door and walk in. The light is gold and warm. My roommate is there. The same one I have in real life. I say hi to her. She is reading a book at a small kitchen table that is dark wood. She says hi and asks me if I am hungry. I tell her no thanks, but whatever she's cooking smells good. She tells me she'll leave leftovers in the fridge for me for later on. I nod to her in response. The night is normal. We talk a lot, laugh a lot, drink a lot of wine. We watch a movie, which one I can't recall. I fall asleep on the couch. She goes to her room which is upstairs. We sleep.
Morning comes. I am suddenly awakened by a shrill scream. It comes from upstairs. I run up the stairs, skipping a few at a time. I find my roommate in the bathroom next to her bedroom. I look and there is a body propped against the tub. It is slumped over, but the hair is cut short and blonde. My roommate is screaming. She keeps screaming a name. It is the name of her best friend. I hug her and inch her out of the bathroom. I close the door behind us. We call the police and an ambulance. They arrive and do their thing. The girl is dead they tell us. There is no pulse. They take her out of our house. I call my roommate's family because she's too distraught. I tell myself that she needs her family to be here with her. Her mother comes. Her brother comes as well. (side note- she has no brother in real life) They console her for awhile. I felt comfortable enough to leave her alone with them. Although, I never really liked her brother much, and they weren't all that close.

A few weeks pass. I am with her every night. She isn't handling it the best, but better than I ever thought she would. My best friend comes over as well, and we try to distract her. It works, and weeks later things return to almost normal. Then it happens.

The same scenario, in the morning, in the bathroom. I am there again. I witness the whole thing. I call the police again. Questions are swirling in my mind; Is this real? How can this be? Am I dreaming? I am not dreaming. I close the bathroom door again. The police arrive. They storm the house. I am sitting on the couch with my roommate. She is hysterical. She is shaking. She asks me if this is really happening. I assure her that it is, but I cannot explain. I am holding her hand as the police come back down the stairs to approach us. They have a puzzled look on their faces. Most of them go outside. One of them stands in front of us. He proceeds to sit down next to my roommate. He looks bewildered. He tells us that there was no body in the bathroom. I stand up and yell at him that of course there was... I SAW IT WITH MY OWN EYES! ARE YOU STUPID, BLIND?! WHICH IS IT? He stands up and grabs my hand. He tells me to come see for myself. I follow him up the stairs. We go to the bathroom. The door is open. Sure enough, there is nothing. The bathroom looks completely normal, certainly no body against the tub. I cannot believe my eyes. I rub them. I close them. I rub them again. I look into the bathroom again. There is still nothing. I start to cry. I think to myself that I am losing my mind, and this must all be just a bad dream. The cop puts his hand on my shoulder. He says something to me but I am not really listening. He says something about how much trauma the two of us have been through, and that we must have just freaked out. I guess I accepted it. I composed myself and walked down the stairs to break the news to my roommate. I tell her that we thought we saw something that wasn't really there. I tell her I have taken a lot of psychology classes, and I know that after experiencing devastating trauma it is not unusual for these things to happen. She calms a bit, but I can tell she doesn't buy it. I think to myself that I know what I saw. I also know what I saw when I went upstairs with the cop; nothing at all. We go to sleep.
The same thing keeps happening. Same scenario. I can't explain. People start to call my roommate crazy and insane. Her family doesn't even believe her anymore. We stop calling the police. She tells me I'm the only person she can trust because I see it too. She says that I know she's not crazy. She is not crazy. It doesn't happen every day, but it happens a lot. Sometimes it happens once a week, sometimes it happens several days in a row, and sometimes it happens only once every few months. Whichever the case, it comes to the point where I start helping her bury the body. We bury the body in the back yard. We wrap the body up in a blanket and carry it far into the woods behind our home. Over and over. My roommate is loosing her grip on reality, and she voices it. People keep talking and talking. They're really on the brink of putting her in an asylum. I am scared. I know what I see is real. I can feel it, I can smell the air. I can feel the rain when I'm standing in it, when the body is next to me on the ground, when we're digging. I can feel the dirt hit my feet. I wake up the next day and there is dirt underneath my fingernails. My house permanently smells of bleach because my roommate scrubs the bathroom each and every time after we find the body, again, and again, and again. No one believes her, and I still keep my mouth shut because I'm too afraid. I don't want to be locked up too.
One morning I wake up. It is about 5 am. It is still dark out. I hear something. I lay on the couch for a few minutes. I stand up quietly. Fear fills me like helium in a balloon and I cannot breathe. Someone is in our house. I follow the noise. I realize it is coming from the upstairs, but it is very faint. I sneak up the stairs. As quiet as I can. I see a sliver of light coming from the bathroom, the door is slightly cracked. I hide in the shadows and squint my eyes to see through the crack. I see her brother. I see him propping the body up against the tub. I cover my mouth to stop myself from making any noise. Reluctantly I dial 911. I tell them the exact scenario and tell them that they must move quickly, and very quietly. They come in a matter of minutes. I hide while they swarm the house. They catch him leaving out of the back door. He puts his hands in the air. They cuff him. He screams that he did it out of spite for his sister. He is jealous of her, and he wanted to do nothing but fuck with her head and ruin her life. He is carried away in the back of a cop car.

The girl is alive. He had been giving her medicine to slow her heart down so much that a heartbeat couldn't be detected. He had watched us bury her over and over and immediately dug her out. He had tortured her. He had mutilated her woman parts, over and over again, just to get back at his sister.