When the Lights Go Out {complete first draft}

Day Three - Dealing With it in the Moment

Same day, but different day, still a Friday, but shouldn’t be

                  For a moment, all I could feel was Matthew’s hand on the small of my back. I don’t know why, because I was in the middle of the parking lot, watching Vincent rush off to his class. Matthew hadn’t put his hand on me since That Actual Friday, the day I died, or whatever. Vincent was drunk, and out of beer. I was trying to hold him and support his weight, and when Matthew had put his hand on me, I couldn’t do anything about it because I couldn’t drop Vincent. I had just glared at him, angrily.

                  I don’t know why the thought popped into my head, but it did, and now I couldn’t get it out again. I had to do something about this. I couldn’t just let him get away with it.

                  The first half of this nightmare, he’d been trying to chase after my sister, trying to lure her in right after she split up with George – after a really difficult time, a very personal time, that they went through together – and I couldn’t believe that he could be as low as that to try and steal her away. He just didn’t care about what others thought, and quite frankly, I wish I’d done something about it before.

                  I knew I was late, and I knew I had to avoid going into a fight with a teacher over a detention. I had missed half of my classes, but in the end, that didn’t matter. I was only going to the same classes all the time, learning the same thing, because I was never moving forward.

                  With a heavy, tired heart, and a sigh, I headed for the main section of the building. I was going to do something about this: I had to do something about this.

                  I pulled on the main door, and slipped inside. Then I rounded a corner, and came to a hallway full of lockers. The walls suddenly looked like they were tarnished, like the paint was flicking off and falling down. The lockers looked like they were being crushed, like an invisible force was hugging them so tightly that they couldn’t cope. The clocks on the walls weren’t ticking, second by second, but instead they were winding backwards so fast that it was making me dizzy. I turned to run away from it all, down the other corridor, but I wouldn’t move – I couldn’t. Some of the lockers tried banging open their doors in a protest, but they only shook. The noise filled my head, and I couldn’t hear anything else.

                  I didn’t know what was happening, but it was chaos in my head. All these noises were getting louder, and suddenly I heard a load of machines, all screeching, all working hard. I closed my eyes. This had to go away. This other world I was living in – this in-between – it wasn’t surreal; it was relatively normal. This shouldn’t be happening.

                  I didn’t want to open my eyes. I got tingles in my body, and my breath started to quicken. I started to panic. What was happening? Was this it? Was I leaving? Butterflies filled my stomach; I felt light-headed; my legs were shaking like jelly.

                  I opened my eyes again, trying to stay focused. If this were it, finally, I’d have to see it out. I knew this was coming. For some reason, even in death, I’d put off dying. But when I looked around me, everything was gone. Everything around me was white – except from a small green blur. But the second it took me to process this change, was all the time that this new view stayed. I was warped back to the corridor; it felt like, from another world. And nothing was moving, or screeching. Everything was still, and normal.

                  “Are you alright, Marry?”

                  I turned around to the nickname that Vincent called me by, expecting it to be him. But instead, standing in front of me, was Matthew. He wore Khaki’s and a scruffy shirt with a superhero on. He looked terrible. I narrowed my eyes. Every other time I’d woken up on this day, he’s worn the same thing – everyone had worn the same thing, even me – so why, now, was he wearing something else?