Thomas hadn’t planned to sort through the attic, but with the rain hammering down and no other distractions, he found himself amid dusty boxes and old relics of his childhood. Each box seemed to have its own story—faded photographs, forgotten toys, clothes that no longer fit, and the odd piece of memorabilia from family vacations. It was in one of these boxes, buried under an old quilt, that he discovered a folder labeled "Missing Person Files."
A chill ran through him as he opened it. It wasn’t a name he recognized or a familiar address he thought he’d find. Instead, he was staring at a photo of himself—a child’s school portrait from when he was around eight years old. The flyer bore his full name, date of birth, and a simple statement:
MISSING PERSON: Thomas Gray Last Seen: November 5, 1994
He felt a strange pang of confusion. November 5, 1994, was just a normal day from his childhood, one that he barely remembered. He would have been eight at the time, likely playing soccer or doing his homework.
He flipped to the next flyer. This one was from a few years later, with his awkward pre-teen face staring back at him. His gangly frame, oversized glasses, and a forced smile; he recognized it as his school photo from seventh grade. The flyer said he had gone missing again—this time on March 14, 1999.
Thomas’s fingers trembled as he flipped through the folder, each flyer and clipping carrying his face, as he aged through his teens and into adulthood. Every few years, it seemed, his photo appeared on another missing person’s poster, his date of birth and details all consistent, but each listing a different “last seen” date.
The next page contained a newspaper clipping from his high school years: Local Teen Mysteriously Disappears, Last Seen on Family Trip to the Mountains. It was dated in the summer of 2002. Thomas had a dim memory of that trip, a family outing that was overshadowed by a nasty storm. He remembered the days feeling blurry, almost as if they’d faded before he’d even lived them.
He tore through the remaining flyers, finding his own face frozen in time again and again. There were dozens, each from a different year, each detailing a new disappearance. In some, he looked younger than he remembered at that time, with an odd vacancy in his eyes that felt wrong. It was as though he were a ghost in these pictures, his familiar face captured in a way that seemed distant and hollow.
A strange unease twisted in his gut. He tried to dismiss it as some elaborate joke, something his family had put together as a prank. But why? No one he knew had a sense of humor that dark, and there was no reason they’d gone through such trouble. It didn’t make sense.
Clutching a handful of the flyers, he headed downstairs to confront his mother, his head swimming with questions. He found her in the kitchen, stirring a pot of soup with a distant look in her eyes.
“Mom, did you know about these?” he asked, holding the flyers out to her.
His mother looked up, her eyes widening with a flicker of something he hadn’t seen before—fear.
“Where… where did you find those?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“In the attic. They’re all of me, but I don’t understand. They say I went missing, but… I didn’t, right? I’ve been here the whole time.” He laughed, but it sounded forced even to his own ears.
His mother didn’t smile. She turned pale, her eyes darting from the flyers to his face. For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something, but she shook her head instead, her lips pressed tightly together.
“Thomas,” she finally said, her voice trembling. “There are some things better left alone.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded, growing frustrated. “I want to know why there are all these flyers with my face on them. Why do they all say I went missing?”
His mother looked away, as if gathering her thoughts. When she finally spoke, her words were heavy with resignation. “I hoped you’d never find those. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
Her cryptic response sent a shiver down his spine. “What do you mean, ‘wasn’t supposed to happen this way’? What happened to me?”
Her eyes filled with tears as she took a shaky breath. “You’ve always… come back. But we never know how long you’ll stay.”
Thomas felt a sharp pain in his chest. “Come back? What does that mean? I don’t remember leaving. Ever.”
She sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder, her touch cold. “You don’t remember, but we do. You disappear, Thomas. You always have. Every few years, you vanish without a trace. Sometimes for days, sometimes for months. And then, one day, you’re back, like nothing ever happened.”
His heart raced as he struggled to make sense of her words. “But… where do I go? Why can’t I remember any of it?”
She shook her head. “We don’t know, Thomas. Every time you come back, you have no memory of leaving. The doctors couldn’t explain it, and no one believed us. We did our best to keep it hidden, to keep you safe. But the disappearances… they keep happening.”
He backed away, feeling a surge of panic. It was as if the ground beneath him was crumbling, leaving him suspended in a dark, terrifying void. “No, this can’t be true. I would know… I would remember something.”
But deep down, he knew that strange things had always lingered at the edges of his life, memories that seemed out of place, moments of time that felt like gaps he couldn’t account for. There were always those hazy flashes—images of places he couldn’t place, faces he didn’t recognize, and a sensation of drifting, like he’d been plucked out of his life only to be dropped back in.
Desperate for answers, Thomas stormed out of the house, ignoring his mother’s pleading calls. He drove aimlessly, his mind racing as he tried to fit the jagged pieces together. If his mother was telling the truth, it meant his life wasn’t what he thought it was. It meant he had been vanishing and reappearing, slipping through time like sand through fingers.
After hours of driving, he found himself at the edge of town, in a small, forgotten cemetery he’d never noticed before. Something drew him to it, a strange compulsion he couldn’t explain. He parked the car and wandered through the rows of gravestones, feeling the chill of the evening settling in.
Then he saw it—a headstone with his name on it.
Thomas Gray Born: September 9, 1986 Died: March 14, 1999
His legs went weak, and he sank to his knees, his mind reeling. March 14, 1999—that was one of the dates on the missing person flyers. The one from his pre-teen years. He stared at the gravestone, feeling a hollow, sinking sensation as the impossible reality dawned on him.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.
He was dead.
His mind fought against the truth, trying to rationalize it, but he knew that the answer had been staring at him all along. He was a ghost, some twisted remnant of the boy who had gone missing all those years ago. His family had buried him, but for reasons beyond understanding, he had continued to live, reappearing time and time again, unaware of the truth.
The whispers around him grew louder, faint voices calling his name. He looked up, and in the dim light, he saw other figures standing between the gravestones—people with pale, lifeless faces, watching him with expressions of sorrow and understanding.
They were other versions of him, other Thomases who had gone missing and been buried over the years. They stood silently, their eyes empty, each one representing a time he had disappeared, only to come back as a hollow reflection of himself. The truth settled over him like a suffocating weight—he was a lost soul, trapped in an endless cycle of disappearance and reappearance, his memories and identity slipping further away with each return.
The last thing he saw was his own face, staring back at him with a ghostly, vacant gaze, before the world faded into darkness, and he became just another face on a missing person flyer, waiting to be found… again.
And so, the cycle continued, with each version of Thomas bound to repeat his fate, his soul forever tethered to a life that would never truly end, a ghost lost in the annals of time, a name on a headstone in a forgotten cemetery.
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