It began as a normal day—a normal, quiet Sunday on a normal, quiet college campus. For one student, that night quickly turned from average to disastrous. She never could have expected the tragedy that awaited her late that night while at work at a sandwich shop.

This unsuspecting student—we’ll call her Jane Doe for confidentiality purposes—was a busy, well-rounded student. A sophomore in the nursing program, she worked tirelessly to be successful not only in her studies but also in her work at a part-time job. She was dedicated to everything she did and composed in every aspect of her life—until everything fell apart that dreadful Sunday night.

Always looking to learn new skills, Doe began taking bread training at work. She learned the process of making and preparing the bread for the shop’s sandwiches, and she was feeling good about it. That Sunday, it was the first time that her managers let her make the bread unsupervised. They trusted her; she believed in herself. She felt confident, helpful and happy.

Doe explained to me that after laying out the dough, the next step is to put it in the proofer and then the oven. She put the dough in the proofer and then walked away, minding her own business and helping to prepare other sandwich elements—blissfully unaware.

Doe’s world came to a halt when her manager went to check on the bread. What she—and Doe—discovered was that Doe had mixed up the proofer and the oven; the dough had gone straight into the oven. It was ruined. It was all ruined.

“Time just stops,” Doe said with a far-off look in her eye, reliving it all. “Everyone freezes. We’re the only two people in the moment it seems. I realized what had happened. We both realized what had happened.”

Doe felt overwhelmed as eyes fell on her from around the kitchen. She watched as the other workers dumped all 30 pieces of ruined bread in the trash. She watched piece after piece fall into the trash, and it seemed that her self-esteem fell with them.

Watching the scene unfold around her, Doe thought back on something her manager had said during bread training. She told Doe that once, someone ruined one piece of bread, but it was okay. It’s okay to make a mistake. One mistake. Not 30 mistakes.

Doe couldn’t take it anymore in that kitchen. She had to get out of there.

Doe took her dinner break, but she was so distraught that she couldn’t eat. She abandoned the thought of eating a meal and made her way to the back room of the sandwich shop. There, in the poorly lit back room, she sat behind a pillar with her head down, silent.

Holding her unused meal coupon, she began to resent it. She thought of ripping it up; she thought of burning it; she thought of putting it in the oven where her ruined bread met its final moments just minutes ago.

Doe remained in that back room, unsure that she could ever redeem herself in the workplace.

“I reflected on all of the failures of my life,” Doe said, solemnly.

She eventually went back to the kitchen to continue working, but she didn’t feel like herself anymore. Each word that came out of her mouth was monotone. She felt as if she was just going through the motions. A part of her died that night with her burnt bread, and it would forever be left in that sandwich shop; it would never return to her.

At the end of her shift, she walked back to her dorm room, sad and defeated.

Doe didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even her roommate, her most trusted companion (who I have heard is very cool).

Deciding she wanted to escape reality for a while, she laid atop her bunk, attempting to clear her mind. Unfortunately for Doe, though, it didn’t work. Her mind swirled with thoughts of failure.

“If I can’t even make a loaf of bread, how am I going to succeed in nursing school?” Doe thought. “Laying down, all I want to do is sleep, but I even fail to do that.”

It had been nine hours since Doe last ate, and she told me that her stomach was experiencing “borborygmus,” which is a nurse’s way of saying her stomach was rumbling, loud enough to keep her awake.

“I internally screamed, screamed so loud in my head I’m surprised it didn’t wake my roommate: ‘I need something to eat,’” said Doe.

She climbed down from her bunk using her flashlight and began searching around the room for food. She checked the refrigerator, the shelves. Every single thing in the room was expired or stale.

She was about to give up for good, until her eyes fell on something at the back of the shelf: the Lorna Doones.

Now 2:00 a.m., Doe climbed back up her bunk, Lorna Doones in hand. She began inhaling the Lorna Doones as if her sanity and her life depended on them. Maybe they did.

Doe explained that she thought the Lorna Doones came in packages of four. She ate four, and then left what she thought was the empty wrapper in her bed as she desperately tried again to sleep.

When Doe woke up the next morning, she felt surprisingly refreshed. She no longer felt crippling doubt about her life. She thought that was a notion of the night before. She got out of bed, ready to start her day.

In the dead silent room, she heard a crunch. The two remaining Lorna Doones were on the floor.

Suddenly, all of that doubt and defeat came crashing down on her again.

“When you think that it’s a new day, it’s not,” Doe said. “You’re just reminded of all of the failures.”

And it didn’t end there.

“The Lorna Doones tormented me for weeks,” Doe said.

Each time she vacuumed the Lorna Doones up, she always missed bits. No matter how many times she tried to clean them up, pieces of the Lorna Doones remained. They remained a fixture in the in the room: they haunted Doe, and they annoyed Doe’s roommate a whole lot, too.

Even all these months later, Doe still feels like she can hear a subtle crunch at night when she’s alone.

“It might be the paranoia,” Doe said.

Or—she fears an even worse fate: it might be the return of the night of the Lorna Doones.