Wearing The Dead

One mask. One man’s obsession. One woman’s terrifying truth. 

I woke to silence. 

Not the peaceful, birds-chirping kind. No. The eerie, sterile quiet of a place too clean, too still. I blinked against the dim light. A faint antiseptic smell hung in the air. My head throbbed. My skin itched beneath gauze. When I tried to lift my hand to touch it, a soft pressure stopped me. 

“Shhh,” a man whispered. “You’re safe now.” 

He was handsome—dark-haired, broad-shouldered, with soft brown eyes full of emotion. I should’ve known him. But I didn’t. 

“Where…where am I?” My voice cracked. 

“We were in a car accident,” he said gently. “You hit your head. Badly. They had to reconstruct your face. You don’t remember me?” 

I didn’t. 

His name was Derek. He said he was my fiancé. That we’d been driving to the countryside for a getaway when the crash happened. That I’d lost so much blood. That it was a miracle I survived at all. 

I stared into his eyes, searching for something—anything—that sparked memory. There was none. 

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’ll take care of you. Always.” 

I wanted to believe him. 

But something was wrong. 

I spent days inside his sleek, modern house on the edge of a quiet neighborhood. The curtains were always drawn. Derek said it was for my recovery. “Too much light hurts your head,” he explained, kissing my forehead. 

He helped me bathe. He picked my clothes. And every morning, he gave me pills, ‘for the headaches and anxiety.’ 

I obeyed. At first. 

But the more I looked in the mirror, the less I recognized myself. My cheekbones were sharper, my lips fuller. The face staring back seemed… familiar, but not mine. It didn’t match the faint flickers of memory that tried to return. 

And then there was the mask. 

A smooth, skin-toned silicone mask he insisted I wear when we went outside, “just until the swelling goes down.” It covered nearly everything. My cheeks. My jawline. Even my eyebrows. “It’s for your own safety,” he murmured. “The doctors said you might panic if you saw the stitches.” 

But when I ran my fingers along my face at night, alone in the bathroom, I felt nothing. No sutures. No scarring. Just skin. 

Unblemished. Untouched. 

One afternoon, I asked to look at old photos. 

Derek’s eyes lit up. “Of course! Let’s go down memory lane.” 

He brought out a leather-bound album. Vacation photos. Smiling selfies. Sunsets. Sand dunes. Paris. Las Vegas. Italy. All with me, my current face, posed beside him. Laughing. Kissing. 

But I didn’t remember any of it. 

“That’s not me,” I whispered, touching a picture of us in front of the Eiffel Tower. 

“Of course it is,” he said softly. “You just forgot. Because of the injury.” 

I pointed to a photo of me in a bright red swimsuit. 

“I hate red,” I said. 

He smiled. “Not before the accident. You used to love it. Used to be more daring.” 

Used to be. 

The phrase echoed through me like a warning bell. 

At night, I stopped taking the pills. 

I flushed them down the toilet, pretending to swallow them in front of Derek. I waited for the headaches to return. The panic. The confusion. 

They didn’t. 

And my thoughts became clearer. 

I started testing him. Slipping questions into casual conversation. 

“Where did we meet again?” 

“At a coffee shop. You spilled tea on my laptop. Remember?” 

No. But he said it so confidently, I nearly doubted myself. 

“What’s my favorite flower?” 

“Violets,” he said, without hesitation. 

Wrong. 

I hated violets. They reminded me of funerals. 

That night, he brought home a bouquet of them. 

My skin crawled. 

I waited until he was asleep, soft snores escaping his lips, and carefully slid out of bed. 

His phone was under his pillow, but I managed to retrieve it without waking him. 

I tapped in a guess: 0726. The date he said the accident happened. 

Unlocked. 

There was a folder labeled Violet. 

My heart pounded. 

Inside were dozens, no, hundreds, of photos. A woman with my current face. In the same clothes he gave me. Same house. Same poses. Same bed. 

But these weren’t digital fakes. These were real, old photos. 

I wasn’t Violet. 

I was wearing her face. 

The next morning, I Googled: Violet Parks. 

A memorial page appeared. Violet had died on July 26, 2021—in a car crash. 

The same day as our supposed accident. 

Her face. My face. Her life. My prison. 

I couldn’t breathe. 

I stumbled to the mirror, ripping off the mask. My skin was flawless. No bruises. No injuries. No surgery. 

There had never been an accident. 

Derek was lying. 

He’d made me into her. 

I confronted him over breakfast. 

“Derek, I remember now. The red swimsuit. Paris. The violets.” 

He froze. 

“You’re Violet. You just forgot.” 

I shook my head. 

“I’m not Violet. She’s gone. And you’re trying to bring her back.” 

His face twitched. “You were in pain. You begged me. You said you hated your old life. That you wanted to forget everything. I helped you.” 

“No, Derek. You took someone. And turned her into your dead wife.” 

He stood abruptly, knocking over his coffee. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t live without her. And then I saw you—same build, same voice. It felt like fate. Like she came back to me.” 

Terror gripped my spine. 

I was never in a car with him. 

I was a stranger… turned into his fantasy. 

“I think we should get you plastic surgery,” he said the next day, his tone disturbingly calm. “To make the face permanent. You’ve healed well. But I want it to last.” 

I faked a smile. 

“Sounds good,” I said. 

He booked an appointment. We’d go together. Like a loving couple. 

But I had a different plan. 

That evening, I found his expired driver’s license in a drawer. 

The date? 2021. 

He told me he didn’t drive. 

Another lie. 

I found Violet’s final photograph, too—dated days before her death. She was wearing the same dress Derek gave me last week. 

It all fit. 

He never got over her. 

He killed who I was—slowly, carefully—replacing me with her. 

Piece by piece. 

Memory by memory. 

The next morning, I asked for a favor. 

“I want to visit Violet’s grave,” I said softly. 

He hesitated. “Why?” 

“For closure. For both of us.” 

He finally agreed. 

We drove in silence. 

When we arrived at the cemetery, I led him to the grave. 

Violet’s name was carved into the stone. Fresh flowers sat in the vase—violets. 

He fell to his knees. 

“I couldn’t protect her,” he choked out. “She died. And I… I lived.” 

“You tried to resurrect her,” I said gently. “But I’m not her. I never was.” 

He shook his head violently. “No! You are her. I brought her back. I made you her.” 

I removed the mask. 

Let the wind hit my real face. 

“You loved her. I know. But she’s gone. And I deserve my life back.” 

He sobbed. 

“Maybe I was the one who should have died,” he whispered. 

I knelt beside him. 

“It wasn’t your fault. But this? This can’t go on.” 

Derek didn’t fight me. 

Maybe some part of him always knew it was wrong. 

He agreed to see a psychologist. I helped him make the first appointment. Sat with him in the waiting room. 

And then I left. 

Weeks passed. 

I moved to a new city. New job. New apartment. I even dyed my hair. 

I don’t know who I was before Derek. Maybe I’ll never fully recover those memories. 

But I do know who I am now. 

A survivor. 

Not a replacement. Not a mask. Not someone’s ghost. 

Just me. 

Comment question: 
If you discovered someone had changed your identity without your knowledge… what would you do?