Time Lapse

2. zephyr

As the time drew closer to his estimated return time, the butterflies in her stomach multiplied. She was excited to see his face again, and wanted to see what he had brought back for her.

Minute after minute passed, and soon Bryan was gone for more than an hour and thirteen minutes. The butterflies in Josie's stomach slowly lost their wings, as they all dropped and turned to stone. Negative thoughts multiplied and swirled around in her head, and all Josie could think of was that Bryan got lost.

Terrified that he wouldn't return for years like what had previously happened to him, she ran outside and frantically looked for his familiar features.

"Bryan! Where are you?!" Josie screamed at the top of her lungs. "I don't care about the seashell. Just come back!"

Silence met her pleas, and terror gripped at her heart. Right when she thought things couldn't get worse, a vision shook her mind. Josie yelped in helplessness as the vision took her to a small town.

She stood in the middle of grocery store's parking lot. There wasn't anyone around - save a woman sitting in a white minivan staring at her phone. Josie took in the scene around her, and gasped when she realized it was a town her family constantly drove past. She never had a vision take her to a place she recognized before.

As she continued to looked around and took in the scene in front of her, her eyes searched for a source of danger.

There was no rhyme or reason to her visions. The locations always varied, and the hallucinations came at different times. However, Josie was able to find one recurring pattern throughout all of her visions: at least one person always winds up dead.

Her eyes landed on a new figure approaching her, and she saw a glint of dark metal in their waistband. Immediately, she knew it was a gun. The man had his eyes trained on the white mini van, unflinching and unwavering. It was clear that the man was making his way towards the woman sitting in the driver's seat.

Josie ran and tried to bang on the car window to warn the lady of the attacker. However, her hands just passed through the car with no resistance. She knew she was like a ghost in all her visions - no one heard her, and no one felt her presence, but she still always tried to save the victim.

Turning around, she saw the man reach for the gun. He lifted the gun and aimed for the car, straight at the woman's head. The woman remained blissfully unaware of her impending death, and Josie could see her gently mouthing the lyrics to the song playing in the car. Squeezing her eyes shut, Josie didn't dare to continue looking at the scene surrounding her.

Bang.

The sound of glass shattering froze Josie to her spot, and she covered her ears so she wouldn't hear anything anymore.

Bang.

The muffled sound still made its way to her ears through her fingers. Tears streamed down Josie's face, and she remembered how much she didn't want to live in a world with so much hate.