This is a story about my sisters. Juniper and Marigold. June and Mary. Twins born on the first day of September. Two and a half years older than me. 

We lived in rural Wisconsin. Our father was a long haul trucker and our mother waited tables at the Denny’s. Mary, June and I were great explorers, charting the woods behind our modest home with construction paper and dulled crayons. We spent most of our time playing outside, sun, rain or snow. 

There was safety in numbers. We were always back in time for dinner. In retrospect, I’m not even certain our mother knew just how far from home we strayed. 

What follows are the transcribed contents of a video tape that I, Silas Smith, found in my attic on November 1st, 2017.

I am thirty-six years old and I live in Illinois. I have lived in the same house with various roommates since 2003. This is not the first time I've cleaned out my attic, though it has probably been several years. I do not know when the tape was placed there.

I have tried to salvage the visual parts of the recording. I have even taken it to a few professionals, but thus far, it seems like the only thing that remains is the audio. There are parts where the tape fizzles out to static and on occasion the speech simply becomes unintelligible.

It is my voice on the tape, though I have no recollection of recording it or saying the things I do. There is also a second voice. It is masculine and unfamiliar. Carl, is what I refer to him as in the recording.

Nobody in my family or friend group knows a man named Carl.

Despite my desire to edit for clarity, I have left my sentences in the disjointed state I spoke them.

I do not have any answers for you as to what this all means. I have no idea when it was recorded.

All I can say for certain is that I am deeply afraid.

When you read this sentence, whose voice are you hearing?

Is it your own? Perhaps softer, slightly warped like it's gone through too many layers of post-production tinkering. You never can quite hear your own voice as others do. It sounds different hitting an eardrum at a distance than it does springing from your own lips. It's just like the way you've never actually seen yourself. Not first hand, anyway. Only pictures or reflections.

It's not a good idea to look in the mirror at night.

In the darkness, still trying to shake off the daze of sleep, vision can play tricks.

The eye can't process fluid motion. It takes about twenty pictures a second, and your brain stitches them together into a film reel. Perhaps even more interesting, your eyes don't stay still. Even if you're staring straight ahead, they make jerky little micro-movements. Always trying to take in your surroundings. Always searching for threats.

The pictures your eyes take are actually upside down. They flip vertically before you register them.

Trusting your limited senses can lead to half truths and willful ignorance of what might exist in the gaps we aren't equipped to process.