Ashlyn was a little weirded out. She couldn’t pick anything up. Whenever she tried to, her hands would miss the object and hit the table instead, like her hands were repelling her from the object. Then she saw a girl looking at her. The girl looked like a child, with black hair, pale skin, and must have just woken up considering she was wearing what looked like a black nightgown and wasn’t wearing shoes. Why didn’t she look cold? She wasn’t shivering, her teeth weren’t chattering, and she was staring–a warning stare but Ashlyn didn’t know what it was warning her of. It wasn’t the kind of warning to tell her to watch out. It was the kind of warning that told you to not do something, like a mother looking at her child staring at them, making sure they didn’t do something bad again.
Ashlyn wished everything could stop, all the drama, all the social activities, the expectations, school, everything. Ashlyn heard cars screeching. When she looked to see what had happened, there seemed to be a wall of crows trying to stop the cars. The cars were honking at the birds, but they didn’t move or flinch. Everyone stopped moving and turned to look at her, still not moving, not a sound, no blinking, just a dead stare of hundreds of lifeless eyes. Then, the birds dropped to the ground. Everyone was honking again, but this time, the birds flew away. Ashlyn ran; she didn’t know where she ran, looking at her feet to ensure she didn’t trip. Her vision went black. She felt numb, she couldn’t feel anything, she couldn’t move; it was like she was paralyzed. Was she paralyzed? If she was, then why and how? As soon as she had that thought, her vision came back. Ashlyn saw a ceiling, not her ceiling, someone else’s ceiling. She didn’t know whose. Maybe she was found and brought here. She did pass out in who knows where, yeah, that’s it. Ashlyn still couldn’t move but she wasn’t numb anymore, and she could see but she couldn’t move like she was unconscious but could still see.
“Hey, breakfast is ready!” Ashlyn rolled over? Ashlyn could see and hear, but she couldn’t talk. It was frustrating. She couldn’t do anything but spectate and observe; it was so underwhelming that it was overwhelming. Then everything got louder and brighter; she could hear the stove sizzling and footsteps getting louder and clearer, and her ears were ringing, and her vision went blurry then it was black. Ashlyn could hear leaves crunching and birds chirping, and she could feel a cold sweat on her skin. When she looked down, she could see feet running; it was feet running but not her feet. Then her ears started to ring again, her eyes were blurry, and everything got louder, but she couldn’t hear anything. Ashlyn woke up on the sidewalk, where the birds dropped and everyone stared at her, but this time it was like nothing happened. Maybe Ashlyn was dreaming, maybe she was seeing things, but why was that so realistic? Then things got a lot clearer. Cars were moving. She saw a man sitting on the curb with a cup filled with coins, people walking their dogs, no staring, no wall of crows, no breakfast, no running in the woods, but people were yelling at each other to move and hurry up because they had somewhere to be and the birds were squawking and chirping, the wind was blowing through the leaves. It was colorful and most importantly there was no girl and that made Ashlyn sigh with relief.
Unknown to Ashlyn, a girl was leaning against an ally wall, holding and petting a crow, watching and waiting. “That girl is so stupid. She should be more aware of her surroundings, shouldn’t she?” The girl looked down at her bird, stopped leaning against the alley wall, and stretched her legs. “Oh well, she’ll learn. Bye-bye Ash, until next time.” The girl pivoted, slowly walking away, waving as if Ashlyn could see her, with the crow sitting still on the girl’s shoulder.
Photo by Kasturi Roy on Unsplash
