In The Blink Of An Eye

“The Human mind is truly the scariest thing of all.”

All of this started on what seemed to be an average Friday afternoon in northern Michigan. I could see the pure white snow shimmering as the sun reflected off of it as I stared out the window, ignoring the health teacher blabbing on about something related to emotions. The bell rang, so I gathered my stuff and left through the door in the classroom leading outside. But, something was… off, something was not… average. I was about to cross the street when I heard a bang, and then a scream, from inside the door I had just come out of. Most people around me had started to scream and run away, some came out from that door, but for some reason I was… intrigued, to say the least. Stupidly enough I decided to walk inside the door where I had just presumably heard a gunshot from. But, when I walked in, the classroom was empty, except for our health teacher grading some papers. I shrugged it off as just my overactive imagination, I did see figures beside me sometimes. But then I walked outside and saw the same students, who I had just seen run away, all in their coats, some casually leaning on the side of the school, just, talking. Others either walking or standing around also talking. I was questioning myself once I saw that but again just shrugged it off as my mind playing some horrific trick on me, since I just needed to get home and get my schoolwork done. Again, the car ride home seemed normal, traffic is slow because of school just getting out, but a few minutes in, something happened again. A car crash. Just behind me, I heard a loud noise and looked in the mirror to see a major crash. A car from the other side of the road, making a sharp turn and hitting hard into the side of another on my side. About a dozen cars behind either swerved to try and stop on the icy road or also crashed into the back of the first two cars. I pull over to try and help. As I walk over to the pile of metal that has become those 14 or so cars, I blink. The wrecked cars on the side of the road disappear, and traffic is normal. The only thing out of place, is my car, pulled over on the side of the road, and me, standing, on the side of the road, looking confused. People stared as I walked back to my car, confused as ever trying to figure out what happened to the gruesome scene I had just watched unfold. As confused as I was, I was able to make it home safely. I walked up to the door, nervous that I was going to see something even more horrific than before when I opened it. It took all my strength to open that door. And when I did, nothing was unusual, and there was no horrific scene. I felt a wave of relief come over me. But something still didn’t feel right. I ignored the feeling and forgot about what happened earlier. I went into the kitchen and got something to eat. That feeling, like something wasn’t right, kept getting stronger the more I ignored it. I walked into my room to see… my mom, the only person I had left after my dad died, not standing there waiting for me, but instead, hanging there, with a rope around her neck. I fell on the floor sobbing with my head in my hands, thinking that this was too horrible to be a figment of my imagination. I then heard steps on the top floor of my house. My mind went to thinking that she was murdered. I decided to look behind me to see if anyone was there. But when I turned my head to the front again, I saw nothing except for my room, looking the same as when I had left that morning. I ran upstairs to see my mom putting the sheets on her bed. I ran up to her and gave her a hug, being relieved that she was still alive. I went back to my room wondering if these terribly horrific hallucinations were a side effect of some sort of medication I had been taking. When I sat down at my desk and started my homework, I realized that I had never taken any sort of medication before, and especially not now. This fact made me even more worried. So much that I couldn’t think about anything school-related and I ended up not getting my homework done. I got so worked up that I decided to make a doctor’s appointment for the next morning to hopefully find out a way to fix the hallucinations. I woke up the next morning to find I was paralyzed. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t move a single muscle, I couldn’t even scream. In my paralyzed state I could just barely see across the room, the one thing I could make out was a large silhouette in the shape of a woman, with glowing red eyes. The last thing I saw was the silhouette flying towards me. I woke up in a cold sweat not knowing if what I had just seen was a dream or not. I got dressed and reluctantly got in my car and went to the doctor’s office. They did every sort of test imaginable since I had health insurance that would cover all of it. I got multiple brain scans and psychological tests. I spent hours on beds getting put in and taken out of large machines. And in the end, I was told nothing was wrong with me. The only thing that they could do was give me medication to stop the hallucinations. I made sure that there was no chance that the meds could make it worse, they said there wasn’t. The label on the little orange bottle said “Amelia Collins. Take one (1) pill once a day in the morning.” I obliged and did exactly as the mysterious orange bottle told me. At first, it worked. No crazy horrific scenes of a car crash or images of my mother hanging from the ceiling or sounds of gunshots that weren’t real. A few weeks went by, then I heard it. A gunshot. In the middle of the school day. I brushed it off as me forgetting to take the meds this morning. I saw everyone screaming and running, I even saw my best friend get shot to the ground through the door, but I just sat there, thinking that it was my imagination. A few minutes went by and nothing changed, no matter how many times I blinked or closed my eyes. So I started to panic. I ran out of the classroom to see a student, with a gun, pointing it right at me. At that moment I recalled that I had indeed taken my pill that morning, so I ran back in the classroom and out the door but he was close behind me. I ran and I ran until I found somewhere to hide. Why didn’t I go to my car and drive home? Honestly, I don’t know. My brain seemed to be somewhere else and the thought of my car only came up when I was already miles from it, hiding somewhere. I still had my phone with me though. I heard slow footsteps walk in front of where I was hiding. But for some reason, the shooter didn’t decide to look in my very obvious hiding spot. Once he was gone, I fumbled with my phone and took it out. I immediately opened messages and texted my mom. I was scared that the shooter was still around so if I had talked on the phone he may have caught me. As I started typing on my phone, I got a text from my best friend who I had just witnessed bleed out a few minutes earlier. It read...

“Hey, where are you, you just ran out the door. Are you ok?”