Hello,

I am Simon Phillips, I live a simple quiet life, in a rural village in England. I work weekdays, I spend my evenings and weekends with my wife of 8 years Louise. We go on holiday once a year and we enjoy a date night every Thursday. So I just don’t understand why this has happened, to me.

I really need some help or if anyone out there has experienced something similar, please let me know!

It was Tuesday 22nd February 2022.

I went to work like any other day, I grabbed a latte from the local coffee shop en route and got into the office around 25 minutes before I was due to start. I liked to get my workload in order before the pending chaos of emails and phone calls ensued. I work in a small but busy sales office and I have been working there for the last 3 years. I was, and still am a creature of habit, after my morning of endless emails, phone calls and meetings. I would spend my lunch break walking the surrounding area. The two-story office building was situated on an industrial estate surrounded by farms and woodlands. I would walk down the road onto a dusted trail in a loop. I had it worked out perfectly to get me back in time to pick up with the rest of my day.

This day was like any other, I left my desk at 1pm and made my way down the stairwell towards the main door. As I stepped outside my eyes were met with a blanket of gloomy grey clouds as a slight breeze blew across my face. There wasn’t supposed to be any rain but I grabbed my umbrella from my car anyway. The handful of times I had been caught in a sudden downpour mid-stroll were playing on my mind. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day sitting at my desk like a drowned rat, I thought to myself.

As I made my way down the winding unmarked road leading out of the industrial area, I waved and gave a slight smile to a colleague driving past me. I then peeled off the farm lined road onto a public footpath running between the fields littered with wild irises. I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Louise. We spoke about her morning at home. She had a remote office set up in our study, she’d been working at home since the pandemic started, as her marketing job didn’t require her to go to the office.

“So how was your morning babe?” Louise asked after finishing a bite of her leftover pasta.

“Ok, you know, just busy as ever, just glad to get out the office” I replied.

“Yeah, at least you get a break now, is it raining where you are?” She inquired.

“Luckily not, I did bring my umbrella though!” I said in a triumphant tone.

“I think you’re going to need it, as it started raining here about 10 minutes ago” she warned.

For reference, I worked about 15 miles away from our house we would normally get each others bad weather about half an hour later depending on the wind direction and speed.

“Oh great! I’m about half way through my walk” I replied

I made my way through a wooded area as the twigs broke under my feet and the birds sung in the vast trees around me, I could smell the impending rain.

“At least you’ve got your umbrel…”

The line cut out half way through Louise’s sentence.

“Hello? Louise?” I called out while glancing at my phone.

My signal suddenly escaped me. The woods then fell eerily quiet, the wind had almost no power to it, and the scent of rain had left the air. Most unusually of all the birds had stopped there midday song, I jumped as a flash of what I assumed was lightning lit up the trees around me. I kept trying to call Louise back but to no avail. I could see through the trees ahead, that I was nearing the end of the now unsettling woods. As I approached the road that would lead me back to my workplace. A bald headed man, wearing a black fitted suit and tie emerged from the right side of the trail opening, he was extremely tall and thin, with dark sunken eyes and a pale complexion. He slowly walked past while his shadowy eyes stared directly at me.

They then disappeared out of view, just as the birds began to sing and the rain filtered through the enclosed canopy above. My signal had not returned as I made my way through the trail end. I looked to my left to try to see the man, who had home past me only a minute ago. As I studied the long straight road, I looked both ways but no one was there.

I walked back down the road, my skin felt prickly and my head felt dizzy and disoriented. I put this down to the humidity in the air and the fine light rain falling around me. I glanced at my phone once more, I still had no signal but I noticed something really strange, the date read ‘Wednesday 22nd February’. That wasn’t right, it was Tuesday, I knew it was Tuesday from the dozens of emails I had sent earlier that morning. I scrolled over to my calendar, it was also showing 22nd February 2023. That yet again couldn’t be right, It was 2022, I may have easily got the day wrong, but the year? No way. I neared my office and was going to put my umbrella back in my car.

It was gone - my car was no longer parked there, I had only took my umbrella out of it just 45 minutes earlier and now it was gone. I was starting to get panicked, was I losing my mind? I walked up to the main door, my breath coming in short gasps as I held my key fob up to the scanner. The door didn’t unlock. I tried again my breathing getting deeper the more freaked out I got. I had used it to get in this morning with no issues, I pressed the buzzer for someone to let me in. I could see Steve, the IT guy approach the door, he got a few feet away and stopped for a moment as the colour drained from his face. His eyes were wide and his mouth slightly open, he looked as though he had seen something terrifying. I looked over my shoulder as I looked back in confusion.

“Steve? Are you going to let me in?!” I said mildly irritated.

He held one finger up, gesturing for me to wait a moment. He turned and went up the stairs to his left, this only made me even more anxious. A few moments later he came back down the stairs, followed by my manager Carl and the owner of the company Graham. As each one of them took their last step down and turned the corner, I could see their faces drop. I didn’t know what was happening, was I in trouble? Had I done something wrong and was fired? I just didn’t know what was going on. Graham opened the door.

“SSimon?” He stuttered out in disbelief.

“Errr, yes Graham, has something happened” I worryingly asked.

“How, How are you here” He responded.

“ I went out for lunch?” I blankly said while thinking I was the butt of some horrible joke.

“Simon, you’ve been missing, no one has seen or heard from you in a year?” Graham explained while taking a large gulp.

“What do you mean?” I asked while looking at Carl and Steve.

“Carl, could you call the police station, please ask for detective Chambers” Graham said while gesturing Carl to hurry.

“It’s OK Simon, come up to my office and we’ll wait for the police to get here” Graham said, now speaking in a calming but slightly patronising tone.

I didn’t understand, my mind was racing and so was my thumping heart. I just felt sick deep in my stomach, a deep rooted sickness pulsing through my body. I walked slowly through my office, all of my colleagues just stared at me, I swear you could of heard a pin drop at that moment. I went past my desk, there was a girl sat there speaking on the phone. I had never seen her before, nor had I ever seen the guy next to her. I think in that moment, I finally started realising something very serious had happened. As I sat in the office I could see Carl and Graham outside both on their phones. I sat there for what seemed like hours, with my head trying to get around what was happening.

Two official looking men then approached the office, I could see that they had a quick talk with Graham and Carl but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. They then proceeded to open the door, they introduced themselves as Detective Chambers and Thompson as they sat down. They asked me to relay to them what I remember up until this point, I explained to them very much how I am now to you. I had a sudden shock thought while I was explaining.

“Louise, I need to speak to my wife!” I said in a forceful and panicked tone.

“Simon, your wife has been informed and will meet us at the station, okay?” Detective Chambers said, trying to calm me.

I continued to give my statement of events, they both seemed very interested by the man I saw walk past in the woods. I told them all I could about him but it all happened in a matter of seconds so I couldn’t be sure on exact details. Once I had given them everything I could remember I traveled with them to the station.

When I arrived Louise, my parents and my brother Paul were waiting for me. They all were incredibly emotional, they said that it was like I had ‘come back from the dead’ but for me it seemed as though only a day had passed. I was still wearing the same shirt, trousers and shoes I had put on this morning, well, last year now I guess?

When I got home, my car was parked on our drive, I don’t think it had been touched in months. I could see a difference in Louise, she didn’t look well, like she hadn’t slept in days. I just felt so guilty for what I had seemingly put everyone through. That night Louise held me so tight I couldn’t move, I felt like that was the best nights sleep she had had in a year. I’m still fully trying to process what happened and get up to speed with what I have missed. I have spent the day looking through all of the Facebook missing posts about me, that were shared throughout the area. The days and weeks of searches, after I didn’t show up back at work or home the evening after. There was even an apparent sighting of me at the train station in the town near my worked. The whole thing is just freaking me out and worst thing of all is I still just had no idea what happened to me.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions that might make me remember. ——————————————————— Update: I came across this post in my drafts on my rarely used Reddit account, I will leave the original title and text unaltered. This appears to be in my own words and all of the basic facts are correct but I don’t remember typing any of this or this ever happening to me? I haven’t lost a year, everything has been pretty much the same. The strange thing is, it appears to be dated as being written and saved yesterday.

The one disconcerting thing that sticks in my mind from reading through all this, is the man in the black suit. I have been seeing someone of that description for the last year or so, either out of the corner of my eye, passing me in the street or driving behind me as I made my way to work. The most unnerving part is I have frequently seen him walk past the end of the woods during my lunch time walks, just how it’s described in this post. He just seems to always be there. The man never approaches me or speaks to me, we have only ever made eye contact once. That one time we locked eyes, as he walked past me as I made my way to the local shop, I remember feeling an uneasy shiver go down my spine.

I have tried to tell Louise about him and also showed her this post I found on here but she just looked at me like I was crazy, like I had made it all up to freak her out. I even showed and spoke to my colleagues at work, but they all brushed it off as my overactive imagination.

But I am certain I have been seeing that same man written in this draft post, and I know deep down that there is something weird going on. I can’t put my finger on what it is or what it means, but I know, I just can't ignore it anymore. I need to find out if something happened to me.

Next time I see the man in the black suit, I’m going to speak to him.

I will update you all soon, hopefully I will have some answers to give you.