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[removed]

My peers shunned me for my unorthodox methods in art. They were passionate about their work--but so was I! Yet, I was singled out, berated, and ridiculed.

I was labeled as a creep and as a fool. 'A grown man playing with dolls?' is what they would always ask to belittle me. My work is still art, and never did these so-called 'artists,' with their canvas, clay, and marble, consider my craft as equal, simply because I create dolls.

There would be people too, strangers or otherwise, that would praise me. 'Great attention to detail,' but it would always trail off with 'a little creepy though.'

Not a single one out there appreciates my dolls one bit.

I had driven myself to a reclusive life. I eventually began to carve my dolls through the wood I had taken from the trees where I resided. It was a lonely life. It was a maddening life. But eventually, I would meet...what you would say, was my light.

Shirley was the name she had introduced herself with. A lithe woman whose platinum hair flew along with the wind. Her arms were decorated with small tattoos; hearts, flowers, numbers, words. They trailed along all the way up to her shoulder, before her sleeveless top began to obscure the rest. I was scared but there was something different about her. It turns out that she was an artist as well. She carries her sketchpad with her, looking for a nice piece of scenery to draw.

We eventually began to talk, and the hours of that day flew by as if it were seconds. She found out that I made dolls, and for the first time...someone, with all their heart, truly and genuinely appreciated the amount of effort I put into them. The details, the edges, all of it...Shirley loved.

She would begin to buy them off me as well, but I decided to reveal to her my secret first. It was terrifying; I knew there was a chance she would shun me. But she deserved to know. I had based my dolls off of the people I remember, recalling each detail of their face, inscribing it onto the doll. Sadly, hatred is a strong foundation of memory, and thus most of the dolls I had made while in solitude bore the faces of the people who mocked me.

All of this Shirley paid no mind to; she only gave me empathy. She preferred to buy dolls that were made without the burden of disdain, to which I understood and agreed to provide.

I managed to buy myself a few nice things because of Shirley, as well as with her sharing to other people the work that I create. I was no millionaire, but as an artist, it was a big deal.

Things were finally looking up for me.

Then, one day, Shirley brought with her a man. Tall, muscular, and as painful as it is to admit, far more attractive than I am. But surely, he was just someone interested in what I do--sadly, as soon as Shirley mentioned the word fiancé, my heart dropped.

I had no words. Everything went blank and I had gone deaf. I stared at the man, looked into his eyes as deep as I could. Everything about his face just burned into my mind.

Then, I walked back to my house and ignored the banging. The noise of a man and woman who had decided it was finally time to burst the happy little bubble I was in during the last couple of months. Just white noise to me at this point.

I spent the rest of the night carving that man's face on my doll. Then Shirley. Then me. My ears felt hot as I continued my work, my hands shivered, and my teeth clenched. Yet I made sure that the details were there, all of it. I hated that man for taking Shirley away from me. I desired to hurt him, and so I took a stab at my own doll, but the release was far from cathartic. I began to hate Shirley as well; she had led me on and made me believe that this worthless life of mine actually had meaning. And me--the fool, the grand fool, who believed.

At this point, I had lost it. I was so engrossed in my work and hatred that I had forgotten just about everything else around me.

The next day, Shirley and his fiancé came by. We greeted each other and I apologized. I even let them in, although the mess I made last night was still there. The emotions I had that night were still there, too.

And it only grew when they mentioned it again. Then before I knew it, I had struck Shirley's fiancé with one of my carving tools. His face bled all over until he collapsed; Shirley could not do anything but scream. Then, out of a fit of my own anger, she was next.

I stared at the both of them on the ground, collapsed. I soon followed.

A few days later, Shirley, her fiancé and I stood atop the chair where I had left my dolls. We watched the news, all three of us, seeing our bodies on the floor.

For the first time in my life, I was famous. It only took my death to make it happen.

I loved the mad artist vibe and bittersweet ending ❤️

[PI] The last post I had made tagged the public beach a bus ride away from my alma mater.

After months of trying to make my work go viral, and make it as a freelancer, it was clear that success was not in my immediate future. Maybe ten likes. No reblogs. Barely a comment from a distant relative I’ve not seen in years, saying how cute my work is, and then asking if I can draw her cat.

How demotivating.

I wish I could have said I saw it coming. I wish I could have said I’d listened to my mother, and had a backup plan if being an artist didn’t work out. I wish I could have said that I could keep going and get by. But I didn’t say any of those things.

So I took a picture, trying to find something to say, something to post, something that would spark…well, anything. And the picture was perfect. The waves were inching up the sand, soaking the small, eroded crystals, filling the divots in the beach left by my feet as I walked along.

And that’s when the thought struck me.

As I watched my own footprints disappear under the murky saltwater, the idea of disappearing myself swelled with appeal. A viral story in the making.

Life continued somewhat normally. I paid my bills, made my art, and continued. But in secret, I put my plans into action; slowly withdrawing cash, packing minimal essentials, and got ready to leave it all behind. No one questioned me, not my family, or my roommates, or my former peers.

Eventually the time came. Going back to the beach where it all started, a bag in hand, I caught the bus, glancing at the camera as I boarded.

The next part happened quickly. The bag was left on the beach, next to my shoes, phone, wallet, and ID still inside. I left behind $13, taking the stack of bigger bills. I grabbed the biggest pair of sunglasses I owned, and left. I took a taxi, paid in cash, got on a train, and didn’t look back.

I don’t know who to credit more for what happened next; the lifeguard on duty or my roommate.

From what I could piece together, the lifeguard on the beach that day had found my bag, everything still inside and left it in the lost and found bin. My roommate reported me missing after three days. The cops put out a BOLO that evening. The lifeguard’s manager went through the bag after cleaning out the bin at the end of the week, and recognized the name from the report on the news. The cops ruled it a suicide. And the comments started coming in.

Former classmates retweeted my artwork, saying things like “RIP. She will be missed.” or sharing fond memories. I’ll admit, some of them touched me. I hadn’t realized some of them thought of me that way. And then a former professor shared a compilation of my work on social media, going on a tirade about suicide rates and mental health awareness.

The local news covered the story, and then my fun truly began. I left an anonymous tip with the news station.

“I swear, I saw this girl at the beach that day. She got in a taxi, and it looked like she was running from someone.”

Naturally, an overzealous intern followed up, and I laid the groundwork that would cement my story not as a tragic suicide, but that of a curious missing persons case.

The national news covered the updated story, and someone bought a print of an original painting I’d done. Than someone else. My website got more and more traffic as people searched my name, and engagement on my social media sites peaked. This dragged on for weeks, and with every new article, with every new piece of information that dropped, money rolled in, and the attention I had been waiting for was finally directed at me.

I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad. Not when my plan had worked so well. Not when I had gotten what I wanted. As for the people in my life…well, they could mourn the person I was. I didn’t want to be her anymore anyways. I wanted to use her.

And then I emailed my old roommate, from a throwaway email account, under the guise of being a collector, interested in accessing more work than what was available on my website. And my roommate took the bait. Now short the supplemental income that would have been my contribution to the household, and strapped for cash, she sold me my own work, from finished pieces to half-done sketchbooks. And I sold it all for higher and higher, practically generating my own value.

Finally, I’d had enough, ready to start a new life, as a new person, with no worries, no responsibilities, and as an added bonus, no college debt from the fancy art school I’d paid a fortune for for nothing.

And then the body washed up. Waking up to a notification one morning that my own corpse had been discovered was certainly an unusual experience I have no pleasure in describing, but apparently, a Jane Doe had been discovered not far from the train station the taxi had dropped me off at with no shoes, no belongings. Having been dead a while, the police coroner had been all too happy to label her as myself, and just like that, the mystery was over. I had been found, but I had not been found out.

Only this lead to a much bigger problem. I knew for sure that the Jane Doe in question wasn’t me. So…who was she?

"This. This is why I told you we needed to leave a body."

"Yes, but the intrigue! We never would have gotten this far if they had closed the case."

"Well, now what? Do you think this will INTRIGUE our collectors!?!"

"Well, at least it was at one of the nicer hotels?"

"Oh yes, the highest class BDSM cult in the basement of a 5 star Hilton definitely just rings with class. The Fuck are we going to do. This is going to absolutely kill demand and I really wanted to pay off Biladio. You know he's getting impatient."

"There is always, well, you know.. we could.."

"Are you fucking serious!?! No. It's been too long. Fuck, I'm pretty sure at this point there's no way this is legal."

"You could claim amnesia?"

"Seriously. That makes no sense at all."

"Well what are we supposed to do."

"We do it again."

"Again? What the hell are you talking about? You're already 'dead', you can't do it again. It's a one shot kind of thing." Wren shifted in frustration, dropping the brush still wet with blue that would be soon known as the next "shocking blue period painting to be discovered" masterpiece. "This is so poorly timed too. I must have over 700 of these completed in the vault. We were going to retire."

"We were" whispered Shade but Wren couldn't hear the raspy cool quip over the rush of blood that sudden gapped from Shades cruel blow.

Months later the news would be flooded with the story of Wren and the years long facade. A book would be written about the dramatic suicide that occurred in a penthouse of the Burj Al Arab and the eloquent suicide manifesto explaining the long scheme and ultimately demise.

Nearly 100 fakes now more famous than the original works would be found in a vault and go to auction. Occasionally new works would appear and go to auction but the story would go down as one of the most unusual and infamous events in the art world.

Hell yeah, anther cool 100k in the bank, should be good for a while, I can't keep doing this shit though, otherwise people will get suspicious. I'm running out of excuses, there aren't many more places a 20 something suicidal art school student would have hidden pieces. I still can't believe they bought the old "inside of his childhood mattress" story. Hook, line, and fuckin suckers, all of em. 

Faking my death was the best thing I ever did, these people will buy anything as long as the "Jackson Douglas" signature is legit. Maybe the next one will just be a segment of log with "JD+HC" carved on it with the ol Hancock. People will eat it up.

Thank God Heather agreed to play along, without her these fifteen years of peace wouldn't have been possible, plus she'd probably enjoy a tribute. She deserves one, that's for sure, I don't think I'd be sane if not for her either. Isolation is difficult, having a link to a world I once knew is nice. Even if only for a couple of weekends a month, I wish she'd leave that shitsack already. Mark doesn't deserve her. 

I feel some celebration is in order. Jack, meet Jack. Oh, here comes my old buddy Weiser, and his parther, Jimmy beam, oooooh Jack drinks alone-"

"This just in, The remains of one Jackson Douglas, well known woodworker, whose posthumous works have been selling for hundreds of thousands at recent auctions, have been found inside of a sycamore tree this morning."

What the fuck?

 "Yes, ladies and gentelmen, you heard that correctly, his skeleton, positively identified by dental records, was found inside the heartwood of a sixteen year old tree this morning, cut up into two inch by four inch sections before anyone noticed anything awry, raising even more questions than his outlandish suicide note."

No it wasn't, my skeleton is placed firmly within my flesh, where I left it,

"How had the tortured artist accomplished this preposperous stunt?"

I haden't, I left a dumb fucking note, and an accomplice who had corroborated that I was depressed,

"Had Heather Collins, his on again off again lover, helped a hopeless man hang himself over a sycamore sprout almost two decades ago to fulfill some sort of macabre vision?"

 No, God damn it, need to call her, now.

"How are his parents taking the news of the discovery of their long lost son, after so long of searching?"

God damn it fingers, find her fucking number

"Find out more, tonight at 10, with jigsaw Jim, only on 104.2 FM, Your hub for metal an-"

'Ring"

'Ring'

'Click'

"Jack, how and why the fuck did you even do that? Do you realize they're probably going to open an investigation? I'm going to be questioned, Jack, Jesus, out of all of the stupid fucking things that you've tried to call art-"

"I see you have the news on"

"Yeah, and you could have at least fuckin warned me before you pulled a stunt like that, jackass!"

"Ah, pulling out our old college nicknames are you? Well, feather, while I'm flattered that you believe me creative enough to dream up this arboreal art piece, it wasn't me. I was hoping it was you."

"And exactly what incentive would I have to putting a Skeleton inside of a tree trunk, after carving it's teath to exactly resemble your mouth, and how would I even know how to do that?" 

"I dunno, I figured your tongue had explored my mouth enough that you could shape it from memory. As for incentive, i don't know, to fuck with me?"

"Jack, can you get your head out of your ass for like five FUCKING minutes"

"okay, sorry"

"So… you really didn't do it?"

"Have I ever lied to you?"

"No, you've done a lot of other things, but 

you've never lied to me. If you didnt do it though, how do you explain the bones?"

"They fucked up, how the hell could they get a good dental imprint if the skill was chopped into boards-"

"Jack, it has the titanium rod that's in your arm"

What?

"And the serial number matches yours"

The fuck…

"Jack?"

I don't feel good…

"Jackson! Answer me"

" I'll call you back later, hea, I'm gonna puke."

"God damn it Jackson, have you been drinking again? Don't you hang up on m-"

'Click'

Garbage can, get over here, I've gotta get this poison out of me, I have to be hallucinating or something, holy shit this isn't happening.

"I'm afraid it is, jackson" 

HOLY SHIT SOMEONE IS IN MY HOUSE, KNIFE, JACK, TOP RIGHT-

"That won't be necessary Jack, you couldn't hurt me if you tried."

Wait, I didn't say that out loud, this has to be another delusion

"Oh, I'm as much delusion as as that cold steel you've just pulled from the drawer Jack."

"Bullshit!"

'Slash'

What the fuck, I can see him, and hear him, and even feel his breath, but I can't touch him.

"That's because I'm only partly on this plane, jack"

"what the fuck does that even mean, douchebag? And how am i supposed to believe that you're not just the booze finally frying my-"

"I put you in the tree."

What

[CONTINUED BELOW]

"I wanted to extend, to you, an invitation. I'm basically what people from your reality would call a God. Hence the mind reading. We're omniscient. You're somewhat of a legend where I'm from."

Yep that's it, I've finally fuckin lost it

"On the contrary jack, you're about to find the truth"

"Stop fuckin doing that"

"I Can't, you humans think so loudly."

"Okay, so if you're not a hallucination, which I still don't believe, then why are you here, and how are bones that resemble mine in a tree?"

"Oh, they're your bones. Well, not the ones you're using right now, but they have your DNA, your lumpy ass skull, the whole nine yards."

"Okay, why?"

"To prove to you that I was real, jack."

…

" wow, stunned silence, didn't think you were capable of that"

"You don't know what the FUCK I'm capable of!"

"Of course I do Jack, you've been watched since you were born. That's pretty much all we do, watch things."

"So you're a gang of fucking incorporial perverts then! INCORPERVERT!"

"Ah there's that Douglas humor that we've grown so fond of. Listen, i want to ask you to come with me to my dimension."

"And why, pray fuckin tell, would i wanna do that?"

"I'm not your enemy Jack, quite the contrary, in my home, time doesn't move, and we can see into your dimension without being seen unless we want to be. We're ghosts, jack. We're not dead people, we're just people that never were. Not here at least. You see, eternity gets boring, so we shake up our little can of bees sometimes. We're trickster gods, Jack, Loki and the Monkey King, Anansi and Eris, all of them. All us"

"And what does that have to do with me?"

"We think you're fucking hilarious."

"Yeah, well, me too, but what does that have to do with anything?" 

"I think your talents are wasted here jack. A woodworkers suicide note being written to the rythem of Rush's "The trees"? And the fact that they actually bought it? Cmooooon, classic."

"I was so fuckin proud of that one,"

"As you should be, so what do you say jack, want to come wreak havoc as an immortal, omniscient, prankster?"

"Nah, I'll pass.

…

Hah ha! Whose been stunned into scilence this time, fuckin incorpervert!"

"But, why?"

"You said that the shit I do amuses even you guys, right?"

"Yeah,"

"So that means I've made it. I've got even the eyes of the unknown pointed in my direction, everybody knows Jackson motherfuckin Douglas! Why would I need to actually live forever if my name will never be forgotten? All the positives with none of the pain!"

"… you really are an asshole, are you"

"Well if you were watching me, you'd know that, wouldn't you, ecto-cocksucker?"

Good one, jack

"Did you just compliment your own shitty insult in your head?"

"Fuck, I forgot you could do that"

"Let me get this straight though, you, jackson Douglas, would rather stay in this hellhole of an existence as a mortal, then come with me and live forever, fucking with people indiscrinately with no reprocussions?"

"Yep." 

"Wow."

"Yeeeeeep. So, uh, we done here?"

"I'm not taking the bones back"

"Which bones?"

"The ones in the tree."

" Oh I was hoping you wouldn't, imagine the shitstorm after they find my body a second time? Ooooooh, I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do."

"So, um, yeah, I'll see you I guess. You won't see me, as is the nature of things, but, enjoy mortality, or, something"

"Will do"

Man thank christ, or loki, or whatever the fuck is going on, that he's gone, I finally have the best company I can ask for back, my inner monolouge

I should call Heather, she's probably even more passed than she was

'Ring'

'Click'

"You better have a real good expl-"

"I put the bones in the tree. I'm a motherfucking legend!"

"Jack!"

When I was younger, I had always fantasized about what it would be like to fake my death, and oftentimes I found myself wondering if there was anything after death.

So, when my life had finally reached rock bottom after getting fired from my part-time job, my girlfriend cheating on me before taking all my stuff, and my career as an artist failing beyond imaginable, I couldn't help but think, what if?

I worked on getting a new job and slowly deposited low amounts of money in cash and continued on with life as normal without letting my roommate know anything was up. Eventually, I got a new phone, and I worked on art more often while minimizing my contact with my friends and family as much as possible.

The process took a couple of months, but the end result was worth it.

I ended up leaving a purse of my ID, wallet, license, my phone, and my credit card on a bench in a public park. At first, I was worried about a druggie or a thief taking all my stuff but I decided "fuck it, I've been planning this for too long to worry about something happening to my belongings after I disappear" and on the bench, it was left.

I remember boarding a bus later as if nothing happened, yet the thrill of doing something I wasn't supposed to exhilarate me, and the adrenaline pumping through my veins did nothing to help.

The bus driver grumbled about insomniacs always boarding the bus late as I made my way to a seat. Checking the time on my new phone it read 11:57 PM, so it would be about another eight hours until my roommate woke up and realize I'm missing, and probably another day until realizing I wouldn't be coming back.

Few other people were on the bus, and they sure as hell weren't paying attention to me at all. I rode the bus for the longest 43 minutes of my life before getting to the outskirts of the city before I finally deemed it safe to get off the bus. I nodded my thanks to the bus driver and stepped onto the curb, the bus's low hum of the engine roaring to life again before gaining speed and leaving me all alone.

I ended up walking for another 28 minutes before reaching a hotel, not overly fancy and the look of the outside made it look cheap. I shuffled my hand into my back pocket, pulling out a decent amount of cash, "How much for a night?" I asked, my eyes dragging down slightly to her name tag which read Carol.

The attendant looked at the money before drawing her eyes up to me, "$63 per night."

I grumbled at what seemed a high price for such a run-down hotel but nonetheless agreed.

I stayed two nights after that until my name finally came up on the news, the reporter spewing nonsense about my life before going on about how it was a completely sudden disappearance and how they had found all my belongings.

I saw my old roommate on the TV talking about how she came home one night and crashed before the next day realizing that I hadn't come home either. She thought nothing of it, thinking that I was at the job I was recently employed at. It wasn't until that night around 9 PM she started to get worried.

She ended up calling my friends, asking if I was with them, and when they all said "No," she got worried, and ended up convincing herself that I was simply on the night shift. When I didn't come back that morning, however, only then did she file a missing person report. I suppose the long wait was the 24-hour policy before being able to file a missing person report for an adult.

Another few days later, I had seen on her Instagram account that she was going to sell my old artwork and was asking if anyone was interested. Instantly sensing the opportunity, I replied to her post asking how much she was selling the artwork for.

Surprisingly, it was rather cheap, $5 for a sketchbook filled with sketches, paintings ranging from $10-35 dollars, and the occasional inking or oil pastel pieces I made for an additional $10.

We quickly agreed and she sent everything through mail to my hotel and I sent money through a Paypal account.

Another few days after my roommate stated everything had been sold to me for people who were interested, yet my account was now deleted so no one had any means of contacting me.

I used the money I had stored up and moved into a better hotel and managed to keep myself afloat for a few years before suddenly 'finding' an art piece or painting made by myself years ago.

Managing to sell some that were way overpriced (in my own, self-criticizing opinion), I invested that money and over time steadily became rich.

I had gotten new friends and invested my time in a way healthier environment, going under a new name in a city.

What I certainly did not expect, was that the police had claimed they found my body.

Beads of sweat rolled down the palm of my hands, and I felt my breathing becoming sharp and unsteady.

Oh god...

Whoever's half-decomposed corpse that was, it was not mine, and everyone thought it was.

All they needed to confirm was that they were originally a 21-year-old female and automatically assumed that was me.

Me, a 21-year-old female when I disappeared.

And some poor girl whose real identity is unknown, and stolen by me.

The worse part is, apparently she was tortured before drowning.

This woman wouldn't have peace even after death.

I had to find this woman's real identity...

No...

​

​

I needed to.

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