Writing Contest: Mandela Effect. The Story of Peter
When Peter woke up he did not know where he was, it was not his apartment. He had a strong hangover caused by the fraternity party he had attended the night before. He did not remember much except that he had met the most beautiful girl in college.
Her head hurt a lot, she got up from the bed and walked around the apartment, it was small, studio type. He was alone, if it was the apartment of the girl he was talking to at the party, he did not remember ...
Everything was confusing, - ¿Why could not he remember anything? -, - ¿What was the girl's name? -.
Thinking gave him more headaches. Peter waited a few hours for the girl to arrive, or someone to the apartment, but nobody showed up. Finally he decided to leave. He thought about leaving a note, but he had no idea what to write, so he went out and locked the door when he left.
When Peter was arriving at the university campus, all the students greeted him, and shouted that at the next party they did, he should attend to do the same as he did at the last party. Peter did not understand how suddenly he was popular on campus. So he ran to his bedroom, he had to talk to Charles, his roommate.
Charles was in the room sitting at the desk studying when Peter arrived. When he saw him, Charles told him that he had disappeared since Friday night, when they attended the party of the Beta fraternity. They parted when a girl named Sam approached him to talk to him. Charles left them alone to talk better and did not know more about Peter, until today he appeared in the bedroom almost two days later.
Charles told Peter that he left early from the party, because he did not get to hook up with any girl. But she had listened to the guys on campus that Peter had been the soul of the party, who encouraged and danced with all the girls. That even when the liquor was over, he had bought more and got drugs to cheer up the party even more.
While Peter listened to his friend, he felt more confused, he did not remember anything of what they said, besides he did not know where to buy drugs and much less had money to buy liquor.
Peter was always a shy boy, and unsociable. But his roommate Charles a boy from New York, sociable and crazy, invited him to accompany him to the party of the Beta fraternity.
Peter was in a trance listening to Charles and remembering his family. Suddenly they knocked on the bedroom door, and Charles got up from his chair to open the door.
At the door two police detectives appeared, asked by Peter. Charles tells him to come by and introduces him to Peter, immediately the police inform Peter that he is arrested for the disappearance of Samantha Renoir.
Once in the police station the detectives begin to question Peter. She is informed that Peter was seen talking to Sam around 2am and that he was the last one to see her until her disappearance.
Peter told them how little he knew, and remembered. He attended the party with his friend Charles, who spoke with a girl, but could not remember his name, and then woke up in a single apartment, near the center of the city. I waited for someone to come to the apartment and as no one showed up, he left, and went to his dorm on campus to talk to Charles.
The policemen did not swallow the story that he will not remember anything, and they informed him that he would be detained for 48 hours to find out if he was telling the truth, or until he spoke, or the girl appeared.
Detectives Michel and Hans exchanged impressions of the case, and investigated the boy, he had no background and so they found out no one knew him on campus until that night at the fraternity party.
After a few hours, they found the body of a girl lying on a field outside the city. From the description given the police belonged to Samantha Renoir. Once the body was confirmed, and preliminary forensic studies were made, it was discovered that the girl was raped and strangled.
The detectives were no longer facing a case of disappearance, but of murder.
They questioned Peter again this time, and informed him that he was a suspect in Sam's murder. Peter started crying and telling the detectives that he did not remember anything except what he told them before.
The detectives continued to pressure him to confess his murder, to the point that Peter finally broke down and confessed that maybe he did, being under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Detective Michel thought they had solved the case in just a few hours and it had been a good day for the good guys.
But Hans did not fit the story of how a boy, a villager without being used to drinking and less drug, can commit an act as violent as killing someone, and unless being so shy suddenly becomes a day in the soul of the party and the most popular of the campus.
Hans sensed that something was not right, and contradicting his partner began to look for other clues. He questioned almost everyone who attended the party, each of them could not describe correctly as Peter was, gave vague descriptions of the boy, who introduced himself as Peter studying veterinary, who was from Wyoming, who was of regular or small stature how any other among many. Hans noticed that everyone said almost exactly the same, as if they read a script.
Finally, Hans met a girl, who told him that what most caught Peter's attention was that beautiful tattoo that hid two tears on his left wrist with a flower underneath, which with the long-sleeved shirt was hidden very well, but she managed to see him when he raised his arms to take some glasses from the bar of the house. Hans knew that Peter did not have tattoos, when I arrested him and put the handcuffs on him he saw his wrists.
After Peter confessed, legal help came from the university and his roommate Charles. The campus of the university was horrified by what happened. When Peter confessed the university withdrew his support and expelled him. In less than 24 hours Peter had lost everything, his scholarship, his freedom. He could not call his parents because it would destroy them to know what happened.
While Hans was still more concerned, he realized that Peter was innocent, - ¿but why did everyone think that the party boy was Peter? -, - ¿if it was not? - ¿Who was impersonating him and why?
Hans did not give up, and began to investigate Peter's roommate, discovered that there was no Charles Smith, in the system, with the data he had given to the university.
Hans went with the picture of Charles that he took out of the security camera of the police precinct, when he went to visit Peter and showed him to the girl he interrogated, the girl confirmed his suspicions, Charles or what his name will be called for Peter at the party. Since they were similar, and no one knew Peter, supplanting him would be easy. In addition, he took advantage of the right moment, when everyone was drunk or past drinks. Everyone would think that the party guy was Peter.
With these tests Hans went to the bedrooms to arrest Charles, when Charles saw Hans in the door of his room he knew he had discovered, and ran to the desk to take a weapon that was hidden. Hans read Charles's intentions and unholstered his weapon before Charles shot him killing him instantly.
Hans then discovered that Charles was a serial killer who left corpses in his way through the universities and blamed innocent children for their murders, was a teacher to supplant shy students who went unnoticed on campus, and after committing their murders these guys were carrying the guilt.
Peter was never the boy, who danced with the girls, or bought drugs or alcohol. But everyone in the university thought it was him. He will live with the stigma of being suspected of murder, when he was never at the party more than a few minutes.
Hans suspects that Peter was drugged by Charles, took him to the party to be seen together, but then at some point left him lying in the trunk of the car, with some trick he attracted Sam, killed her and then left Peter in the Sam's apartment so the police will find him there. Peter woke up before the police arrived and that's why they found the apartment empty. It was the first of some failures in Charles's perfect plan and the beginning of his ruin.
It's an amazing story. I like it so much