Not My Best Friend

I am 27 now, and this incident happened to me when I was 18, but I still remember the incident as if it had happened yesterday.  I had recently completed high school and was currently living with my best friend in a small one-bedroom apartment, which even though it's had only been five days, but we still found it quiet and cozy, or I guess so. A little back story, I worked as the cashier at a convenience store, while she worked in a restaurant as a waitress to earn some extra cash to support ourselves aside from our family's allowance. She usually arrived home earlier than me, since the restaurant was closer to the building compared to the store. One day, being tired after having a really long day, she arrived at the apartment and quickly kicked off her boots, changed her clothes, and flopped on her bed, and was soon fast asleep. About half an hour later, I arrived and heard my best friend was snoring loudly. Being tired myself, I quickly changed my clothes, ate my dinner, and went to sleep, but not before setting my alarm, since I had to wake up early to work overtime at the store to earn some extra cash. Sometime later, the alarm started to go off, and I could feel myself being pushed about lightly. "Hey, wake up, your alarm is ringing." I could hear my best friend's voice, who was trying to wake me up. "Just 5 more minutes please." I said, still feeling sleepy, and waved my hand, trying to shoo her away.  But she kept on nagging for me to wake up. "Wake up or else you would be late for your work today. You need to earn some extra cash, right?"  This statement completely awakened me, because I hadn't said a word about my overtime when I reached home, and she was pretty much knocked out last. I quickly sat on my bed and turned to look at her, when I noticed her face. It looked somewhat different. It felt like, it was her face, but at the same time, it wasn't. Her skin looked extremely pale, with her lips being unnaturally bluish, and her eyes looked bigger than usual, and her head was also a bit too tilted on the right side. It somehow looked crazily spooky. But concerned, I held her face and asked, "How- Oh my God, what has happened to your fa-" I stopped mid-sentence, as I saw from the side of her head, that my best friend covered in her blanket like a baby, facing towards me as she lay on her bed, sweating and shaking violently, as she mouthed the words: "SHE ISN'T ME. SHE ISN'T ME. GET AWAY FROM HER."                                                                             That's when I realized,                                                                   that the person who woke me up                                                                       WAS NOT MY BEST FRIEND. Panicking internally, I sneakily gestured to my best friend with my other hand to quickly get out of the room as quietly as possible, while I somehow tried to distract the best friend that was in front of me. I asked her again, "Tell me, what happened to your face? Did someone bully you? Do you want me to beat them up?" By this time, my best friend was already closing the bedroom door, and I prayed, that it won't make any sound. But a small click was still audible. I waited for the impact, but the thing didn't give me any reaction. Knowing that my best friend was out of the room gave me a sense of relief, and now, I HAD to get out of the room. But suddenly, the thing in front of me looked at me straight in the eye and said, "Agnes, you are going to be late for work? Go and take a shower, and then you can start your day." I felt myself being a bit light-headed and I could hear the water flowing from the tap in the bathroom. "Oh God, I need to get out asap." I thought and replied, "No it's okay. I think I will just jog out right now." "But you at least need to wear your uniform. Won't you wear that?" she asked me, still eyeing me without a blink. "No my clothes were dirty yesterday and I have my clean ones at the store, so I will change there." I replied as I quickly jumped off my bed, grabbed my phone, walked out of the bedroom, and marched towards the main door. "Won't you even wash your face?" the thing followed after me, asking in a now completely different voice. "Nah, I am good." I said, trying to pretend normal, as I quickened my pace even more. "Are you going you leave without saying goodbye to your best friend?" the thing said, her voice back to the voice of my best friend, which somehow made me turn around. The sight in front of me almost made my eyes jump out of their sockets. The girl was standing in front of the bedroom door, her face still that of my best friend's, but now her eyes were bigger and pitch black, and her head was almost dropping on her right shoulder as if her neck had no bones, her mouth slowly widening more and more. Within a second, the girl formed a huge gap in her mouth and started running towards me, her head swinging left and right. Horrified, I turned around and quickly ran towards the front door. I opened it and fell into the arms of my best friend, who managed to catch me and hugged me tightly. We both had our eyes closed, as we hugged each other, but I still could feel that that thing was still screaming in our faces. My head started feeling dizzy, and I passed out. The next time I opened my eyes, I was in my room at my parents' house, with my best friend right sitting beside me. At first, I almost had a minor heart attack, but after seeing her smile, I was convinced that she REALLY WAS my best friend. "Thank God, you woke up." she said. "Our apartment.." I started. "I decided that we should move out of that place. I spoke to the landlord and had almost slapped him, but didn't because I realized that it was not his fault." my best friend said. "Thank God! But what happened to that girl?" "She was like the fourth renter of that apartment, and I checked that she doesn't look like me. But she was always bullied, and she never had any friends. So she thought that no one liked her and, she committed suicide by hanging herself in the bedroom. Since then, people who lived in that apartment have been mysteriously dying. But we somehow managed to stay alive." "But we stayed there for five days!" I pointed out. "She also died when she had stayed there for five days." my best friend replied. "But anyway, thanks for being so strong. You are a great best friend. I am gonna call your mom okay?" she added, as she got up from her seat and went out of my room. Till now, I still think about this experience and feel bad about the girl. Maybe all she wanted was a person she could talk to, a share her burdens and emotions with, a FRIEND. My best friend is married and has two kids, and I have three kids myself. We have our lives and jobs, but we still live next to each other.  From that incident, I learned that no matter what, love will always overcome bitterness, be it a motherly one, or a best friend's one. But I will always be grateful to my best friend for being in my life, cause if weren't in my life, in a certain way, I would have been dead. THE END