Perception

As I stuffed a piece of toast into my mouth, I rushed out knowing that I would most likely be late that day even though I took the liberty of waking up that early. I took the bus that I would’ve missed even if I was a second late and somehow managed to reach minutes before the final bell rang. Knowing I was not going to be late anymore I woke up at around five in the morning. I got up and walked over to the window and pushed the curtain aside letting the sunlight seep in. I then took a shower quickly and changed into my senior high uniform. I was in my last and final year after which I had to seemingly attend college. “Nothing ever seems to change”, I said to myself as I looked at myself in the mirror. As I tried to tame my messy hair I noticed my waxy pallor and decided I needed to go out in the sun more.

My name is Grey Thornefield and I have nothing more to add, I guess. When I was younger, life felt fulfilling or to be more precise- colourful and vibrant, but as time went on, things started to change, everything started turning dull or to be right grey and bleak. I had always despised my name but now it makes more sense than anything else in my life. Looks like the general case of mid-life crisis except it’s at the quarter of your life.

e I lazily started walking to my classroom when suddenly someone thumped my back pretty hard knocking the wind out of me. I looked back to see my friend, Jake giving his usual playful grin, “Are you waiting till the bell rings to rush into the classroom? Walk faster, slowpoke.” I gave a very weird laugh as I rushed to the classroom with Jake screaming as he ran behind me. You could say we were friends from when we were in grade 1 and hence the reason I don’t want him to know how I’ve changed, he was a good friend that I didn’t want to lose cause of my disinterest. So here we are the person who wants to positively strangle himself running maniacally towards his classroom like a toddler on a sugar high.

As I entered, I smirked at all my classmates who probably figured out what had happened. Jake was then beside me and said while panting, “Don’t just run off without saying anything again.” “Sure sure”, I replied in a smug manner. Soon the bell rang and classes started and the teachers started teaching the walls. As I was looking outside the window like usual, I saw something unusual. I’ve seen my fair share of things that stood out in public but this was on a whole ’nother level. It was a girl, maybe a year or two younger than me carrying what looked like a gun fused with a sword? But that was not what was weird about her, I couldn’t see her legs. I ended up standing up in class which caused the teacher to call on me. It took me a second or two to regain my composure and assure her that I thought I had seen an insect. Jake stared at me knowingly, “Zoned out again didn’t you, try paying attention at least once in a while you jerk” he whispered with a slight smirk on his face. I gave him an awkward smile before looking back out to see if the legless ninja girl was still there, but she was gone.

Had I started going senile due to boredom to see such a thing in broad daylight. I just ignored it and instead of looking out I tried to pay attention for once in my life.

After class got over, I went outside onto the field and sat in the bleachers staring up at the clouds, watching them slowly move forward. It felt soothing when suddenly a pair of cold hands clamped over my eyes. “It’s been a long time since you did this. What did you do this time? How bad is it? You-”.

“Shut up and walk with me”, a shrill female voice said. “No?,” I said. What was this, a new style of confessing? People sure are weird.

“Remember to say you refused to listen”, she continued in an annoyed voice. “What do you, ugh-”, but before I could complete my sentence, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head before everything turned dark.

….

“You brought him now!? I had told you clearly that he was not supposed to exist there itself and that he should’ve been brought immediately after he was born. You- wait someone is hearing in on our conversation, his inner seems to have woken up”

‘What is going on? Who are these people? Why can’t I move my body?’

I was completely confused and unaware of what was going on. I suddenly felt the same cold hands on me again. But I couldn’t speak even though I wanted to. It felt as though I had lost complete control of my body.

‘Had they drugged me? Are they going to sell my organs? I was never really scared of death, but I just hope that they make it as painless as possible. Any second now-’

Suddenly the girl spoke, “Oi, how long do you plan to be asleep for? It’s been three days already.”

‘What is this girl talking about? Aren’t they the ones that drugged me?’

I tried moving again, but it was of no use.

“And to say they said you would’ve prevented this, according to me it’s all your doing. Others are just too blinded to see it.”

‘What was this girl even talking about? Prevented what? Did the person they were trying to harvest my organs for die before they got it? How’s that my fault?’

“Fine whatever, it’s your fault when they ask. It’s because of you it was used.”

‘What is it with this girl and blaming me? I mean we’ve barely known each other, actually forget that we’re complete strangers and yet she has managed to blame me for things I am not even aware of. I’m sorry for the person that died, but you kidnapping me late is your own fault lady.’

Suddenly I felt like a needle was being inserted in my thigh.

‘I guess it’s time for my organs to be extracted. Are they going to give my organs to someone else cause their customer died? Well so long to my short but long life.’

But instead of losing complete consciousness like I thought I would, I was able to move my body. I slowly opened my eyes sluggishly which were now back under my control. It was dark. All that I could see when I looked around was black. And surprisingly my eyes were not even adjusting, so I couldn’t even see a silhouette of anything.

“You’re really annoying you know that. I am only doing this because your eyes are faulty. You need too much luxury.”

I couldn’t understand what she was trying to convey and spoke, my words sounding sluggish, “I don’t know who you are, but this is-” but before I could finish my sentence, the place where I was being held was suddenly filled with a dozen bright lights. I could even smell faint smoke mixed with a bit of ash, which was a smell I remember quite well cause Jake and I used to burn firewood during winter to play when it was freezing cold. First it was dark to the point that I couldn’t see anything, now it’s bright to the point that I can’t see anything. How ridiculous! My eyes were burning from the sudden shift and the amount of light it had to take in all at once.

“What are you blubbering your eyes for?” the cold-handed mysterious girl, who was now ‘somewhat’ visible, asked.

“N-nothing”, I answered as I observed her unique appearance. She seemed to have short greyish blonde hair, which despite its dull appearance seemed to glow even brighter than the light surrounding the area. Talk about excess of brightness. Her skin was so pale that I had almost mistaken it for the colour white. It felt as though someone had sucked up all the blood in her body.

‘Are my organs for her? Is her heart not pumping blood properly or something? Man I should’ve paid attention during bio. But what about the dead customer?’

Her eyes were black to such an extent that it seemed like she didn’t have a pupil at all. If looks could kill, I would’ve been long dead with the way she was looking at me. She was wearing a weird black bodysuit that looked like it came right out of a marvel movie.

‘Well they do say, you gotta go out in style. Does she wanna look cool before she dies in case the surgery goes wrong or something?’

“What are you looking at?”, she seethed, intensifying her gaze at me which I didn’t think was possible.

“Whoa calm down, it’s just that everything looks- I don’t even have a word for it” I said, reminding myself that I need to increase my vocabulary.

‘Another class to pay attention to.’

“Well we don’t have time to dilly dally, I need you to fix everything now”, she said, confusing me even more.

“Listen here ugh- I don’t even know your name, but I have no idea what you are going on about, you do realise that I can’t do surgery on myself, not that I can do it on others either”, I told her in my calmest voice possible.

“Surgery? What are you even going on about? Our surgeons are much better than you and the mongrels from your place, so why would we ask you to perform a surgery?”, she said, the annoyance clear in her voice.I was really confused as to what was taking place here.

‘Was this some kind of a cult? Am I some kind of a sacrifice? Well I guess that does start to explain the bloodless face. Is it possible to drain all the blood from one’s face? Damn, cults are getting more scientific these days. But why the bodysuit, I imagine a sort of flowy red or black thing or is that for Satanists?’

My imagination started running wild with the multiple possibilities.

“Are you doing it?”, she asked again, this time with a calmer expression on her face.

I totally lost it at that moment. I usually have a lot of patience, but this was really pushing my buttons. She kidnapped me and brought me to God knows what place and now she’s telling me to do “something” and the funny thing is I don’t even know what this something she’s telling me to do is. It’s not like I’m a seasoned cultist or anything. Besides I’m not even a willing sacrifice, they kidnapped me!

“Listen here lady, I have little to no idea what you are talking about, so the logical thing to do is either for you to get checked by a psychiatrist or for you to check if you’ve ingested some unknown drug, because you’re spouting some real weird things.”

“I never asked your opinion in the first place, so tell me is it working? Are you doing it?”, she said ignoring my final and last strand of patience.

“How are you not asking for my opinion, if you’re asking me if I’m doing it? What am I even supposed to say to that? Let’s make one thing clear: I’m not a cultist so if you’re going to sacrifice me, I say get on with it. Cause you’re really dancing on my nerves”

“What do you mean cultist! How dare you put us down like that, know your place and do what needs to be done right now. I won’t ask nicely again.”, she said glaring daggers at me.

‘They’re not cultists? Then what are they, cannibals? Communists? Russian spies?’

“Okay let’s get one thing clear. I don’t know what this ‘thing’ is that you’re constantly telling me to do. Is it possible I accidentally guessed your secret code or something? I feel like you’ve got the wrong person here.”

“You-”, but before bloodless face could say anything another voice interrupted, “Stop it Xier, because of the delay it disappeared as soon as it came into being, he can’t do what he doesn’t know”

“Finally, thank you”, I said waving my arms around, grateful that there was at least one person with some semblance of sense.

‘Well sense in the last part of what he said at least, besides who in their right mind names their kid Gszyer anyway? How would one even spell that?’

It took me a while to realise that me and bloodless face were the only people there.

‘Who did that voice even belong to? Am I being recorded? Is this some sort of a weird TV show or a Youtube prank or something?’

“So he’s practically useless. You’re telling me that I went through all of that trouble for absolutely nothing!?”, bloodless face screamed at the air above.

“Well guess what, I finally got it”, I said.

“You did!”

“You did?”

The two voices said simultaneously in completely different tones.

“This is a prank show, and now that I’ve realised it, can I be on my way? As much as I hate being in school, attendance still matters.”

“Can I just kill him? He’s useless anyway”, bloodless face said glaring at me.

“No, we’ll just have to let him go for now”, the mysterious voice responded.

‘How long is this prank going to go on for? I can’t even find a door anywhere’

“Fine, I have to take you back now. Talk about being useless”, she muttered.

As much as I wanted to rebuke her on that, I was feeling too lazy for that.

‘I’m going to get back to school, get laughed at for falling for such a stupid prank and move on with life.’

But when I blinked and opened my eyes I was back in school laying on the bleachers with the clouds in the same position as before.

‘Was it all just a dream? How long was I asleep for? Ahh, who cares, let’s just get back to class and forget about that stupid dream.’

But just as I was about to get up I felt a sharp pain on my thigh. Confused, I looked at my jeans to see a rip nearly the size of my thumb and right there on my thigh was a needle mark.