Frances has been told she's a sleep talker her whole life. Her mom would laugh about it over breakfast, her ex-boyfriends were weirded out by it, and her friends teased her endlessly. After 25 years of being teased and continuously reminded that she talks in her sleep, one day she just felt curious. She decided to record herself one night, just to see what she sounded like and what everyone else was hearing. She was intrigued; she thought it would be a fun, embarrassing thing to do.
 
The next morning, she was woken up by the blinding sun that was peeking through her curtains. She got up and started getting ready for work. As she headed to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee, the sound of soft hums from her phone playing back her nightly mumbles filled the kitchen. As she sipped her coffee and listened to the recording, she mainly heard garbled whispers and words that she couldn't comprehend. Frances looked at the time and started to scramble to finish getting ready for work. As she was about to turn off the recording, something caught her ear. It was numbers. These numbers were clearly spoken. They were the most comprehensible thing she heard. She quickly grabbed a pen, scribbling them onto a napkin, later, shoving that napkin in her purse and rushing out the door. 
 
Stuck in traffic on her way to work, Frances kept glancing at the napkin with the written numbers. These numbers were nothing to her. These numbers weren't something special to her. So, what did these numbers mean? Why did she say these numbers in her sleep? The whole day at work, her mind was filled with nothing but questions about these random numbers she said in her sleep. 
 
It wasn't until after work when she passed by a map that she got the idea that these numbers could be coordinates. She pulled over and started going through her purse. Struggling to find the napkin in her purse, she got the numbers and typed the numbers into her map app on her phone; she froze. It was a location that wasn't far from where she was. It was a patch of land just outside the city. She put everything down and started the route. Her heart was pounding as she sped down the road following the GPS. 
 
The sun was setting as she got there, creating this eerie glow over the deserted field. The numbers led her to this location filled with overgrown weeds and thick grass. Frances slowly got out of the car with a confused look on her face. She stood next to the car, afraid to go beyond. Nothing stood out to her at first glance, except for a single stick that was poking out from the ground. 
 
The silence of the field was swallowing her whole. She slowly walked toward the stick, frightened of what it could be but intrigued at the same time. As she walked toward the stick, her pulse got faster, and her breathing got faster too. She felt as if each step she took, the darker the sky got. The closer she got, the more she was confused. She noticed a pile of dirt holding the stick in place; it seemed like the dirt was freshly placed. She dropped to her knees and started digging, the cool soil caking under her nails. It's as if she was possessed; in her mind, she was terrified of the outcome and didn't want to dig, but for some reason, her body wanted to find answers and wouldn't let her stop digging. Each handful of dirt revealed more mystery until her fingers scraped against something soft and cold. 
 
She catches her breath. She kept digging faster, her heart hammering in her chest until she uncovered a face—her face. 
 
Frances stumbled back, gasping for air. She slowly moved away from her pale body in the ground. She couldn't look away. The face that was staring up at her from the ground was hers, only younger. She hadn't seen this version of herself in years, yet there she was, there in the ground, covered in dirt. Panic began to take over her body. She looked at her own hands, trembling, alive, and warm. But there, under the dirt, was her younger self, as if frozen in time. 
 
Staring at this impossible sight, feeling like hours had passed by, Frances kept asking herself, How was this even possible? How could she be alive, standing over her own body? She tried to shake it off; maybe she was just seeing things. Maybe there wasn't really anything in the ground. But the truth stared back at her from the dirt-covered face. The body hadn't decayed; it didn't even age. It was as if this version of herself had just... stopped. 
 
The world spun around her, and Frances backed more and more away from the body, scrambling to her feet, her mind racing. She felt sick to her stomach and with the urge for answers. The coordinates, the sleep talking—was her subconscious secretly leading her here for a reason? 
 
As the panic took over her body, a new realization crept in. If this was her buried here, preserved as if time itself had paused, was there something she was supposed to remember? A choice that she had unresolved, or possibly a path she never took? She reached for her phone again, almost on instinct, going through her old photos and her old memories. But she couldn't find anything that clicked to her. Her life had never felt incomplete, and yet this body beneath the dirt said otherwise. A version of herself lost, or maybe it was hidden. 
 
The only answer that came to her felt just as unbelievable as everything else. Maybe the answers were in her sleep. Maybe the secrets of this impossible mystery were buried in her dreams, locked inside the part of her mind that only surfaced when she wasn't awake. 
 
Trembling and terrified, she got back in her car and drove off. The whole car ride home was silent; not a single sound came out of her, yet her mind was the loudest it could be. The only thing she had on her mind was the visible image of her younger self in the ground covered in dirt, staring straight at her. She finally had gotten home, her thoughts on an endless loop of questions without answers. She went straight to the shower, desperate to get rid of the dirt on her. Each time she closed her eyes there, she was again in that same moment, in that moment of fear, in that moment of confusion, in that moment of vulnerability. That night, she set up her phone again to record, fear, and curiosity fighting to take power.
 
The sheets twisted and tangled beneath her body as she twisted from left to right in her bed. Every position felt wrong, every minute heavier than the last. Her body was tired and drained, but her mind was wide awake. Her unspoken thoughts refused to quiet down; she let out a frustrated sigh. She stared at the ceiling as if it held the answers. She lied awake alone with her thoughts for a while until she tired herself out. That's when it began again. 
 
The next morning, Frances woke up with the weight of dread on her chest. She hesitated before grabbing her phone, her hands trembling as she played the recording. Once again, the familiar garble whispers of her sleep talking filled the air, but this time, it wasn't random. This time the jumbled sounds were more numbers. And this time there were words too. She kept repeating two phrases, over and over, clear as day:
 
"Come back. You're not done yet."
 
That phrase gave Frances chills all over her body. She wrote down the new numbers and put them into her map app. They led her to another location. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the coordinates. She knew without a doubt that wherever they led her would hold more answers. Or possibly more questions. 
 
But there was no turning back now. It was far too late for that.