I use a photo storage service. It’s like Google or Apple Photos, with some AI-powered features and facial recognition. One of the things it does is tag people that it recognizes across multiple photos.
It keeps tagging my friend, Addie Hemsworth.
There’s just one problem—she’s been dead for a year.
She passed our sophomore year. I won’t go into details because I don’t want to doxx myself here. Addie Hemsworth is not her real name. But her death made national news.
(Of course it did—it was the homicide of a white, female college student. The racist mainstream media eats those cases up like crack.)
Anyway, the whole tagging thing started a week ago. I was scrolling through photos from Mike’s birthday party, when I noticed the app was tagging Addie.
The circled area was right over my shoulder. Like Addie was standing right behind me. Except, of course, she wasn’t.
I zoomed in on the darkness and turned the brightness up on my phone, but I couldn’t see anything; just mashed pixels and blobby darkness.
I assumed it was just a glitch, although the app had never tagged anyone wrong before.
But then it happened again.
I took a selfie of myself because I’d done my hair for the frat party later. And the app suggested the same thing. It circled a little space behind me, with the name Addie.
As if she were standing behind my bed.
This time, however, the circle was several feet off the ground. Even if she were alive, even if she were standing behind me—she wouldn’t be anywhere that high. A chill ran down my spine.
I decided I needed to get out. I ran out of the dorm and walked randomly up-campus, towards the language art lecture halls, all held in enormous gothic stone buildings. The first leaves were beginning to turn orange, like the sunlight was singeing just the edges of campus. A couple laughed as they passed me. A bird squawked somewhere. I kept walking, foot over foot.
I found myself standing at the entrance of Addie’s dorm. Denton hall. 12B. I looked up at the window. It was closed. 12B had stayed empty this year, out of respect for Addie.
I lifted my phone—
And took a photo.
I waited for the photo to auto-sync with the photo storage app, and then—holding my breath—I took a peek.
Nothing.
It didn’t say Addie was in the photo.
I let out the breath I’d been holding and started walking back towards my dorm. Halfway back, when I came across a tree half-way orange, in the throes of autumn unlike the others, I lifted my phone and snapped a photo without even thinking about it.
Later that evening, I realized the app said Addie was there.
The circle was on the grass, as if she were lying on the ground.
…Dead?
The most horrible image flashed through my head—of Addie sprawled out on the ground, covered in gashes. Blood pooling on the ground, seeping through the grass. Sightless eyes turned towards me, mouth hanging open.
17 stab wounds, they said.
I shut my eyes and forced the image out of my head. Then I took a screenshot and sent it to our group chat. Lol my phone thinks addie is in this photo, I wrote, trying to pass it off as a joke, as some kind of fucked-up defense mechanism.
Three dots appeared. And then a text from Priyanka:
I thought it was only me.
She sent a screenshot of her iPhone photo app. The most recent photo of Addie, the app claimed, was a photo of Priyanka and Greg standing under one of the gothic archways on campus. No one else was in the photo.
My throat went dry.
It could be a glitch once, maybe twice, on my phone. But if it was happening to my friends’ phones, too…
Before I could reply, another text came in.
From Adam.
It’s happening to me too.
I stared at my phone, feeling chills.
What the fuck?
I got up and walked across the hallway to the girls’ bathroom, every bit of my body shaking. I went to the sink and stared at my reflection.
Deep bags lay under my eyes. My dark hair was tangled and uncombed. I didn’t remember looking this bad earlier. I shut my eyes tight and shook my head, trying to shake the anxiety out of me.
Then I opened my eyes.
All the blood drained out of my face.
There were two feet poking out from under one of the stall doors. Wearing mint green flip-flops.
Her flip-flops.
The polish on her bare toes was chipped. Dark liquid pooled under her flip-flops. It slowly crept over the grout between the tiles, towards the floor drain, towards me.
No no no.
I whipped around.
Nothing was there.
I burst back into the dorm room, my heart hammering. I broke out in sobs, holding myself, shaking. This was the one time I hated not having roommates, hated that I was so introverted I made sure to get a single.
No one to hear me.
When I’d recovered slightly, I picked up my phone to text the group. The floor fell out under me when I saw the notification from the photos app.
Addie Hemsworth was tagged in every single one of my photos.
The phone fell out of my hands and clattered to the floor.
I closed my eyes and cried harder, unable to move. When I finally opened them, through my blurry tears, I noticed something different.
There were two shiny scars slicing up my arms.
I tore off my clothes. There were more. I counted every single one—but I already knew how many there would be.