So we both basically did half and half of this chapter, hope you like it! :D
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I groggily open my eyes to a dark and very cramped space, and then I realize that I am under the high-jump mat.
But how?
I turn my head and look to where I remember I saw the trapdoor.
It was gone.
I can’t have dreamt that... It felt so real.
But it seemed reality didn’t agree with me.
“Rhana! I give up, come out already!” I could hear Felix yelling from outside the shed. I quickly pull out my phone from my left pocket, although I could’ve sworn I had put it in my right pocket last...
Eh, oh well.
I check the time on my phone...
YES! I FINALLY BET SARA’S RECORD! 20 MINUTES! I silently party in my head.
“Rhana! Come on! Sara has already gone home and mum and dad are waiting for me in the car! Hurry up!” Felix yells again, sounding further away.
I smile happily as I revel in the victory of beating Sara’s high score. I quickly put my phone back in my pocket and squirm out from underneath the high-jump mat.
“Rhana! I’m leaving now!” Felix yells.
“I’m here!” I call out to him as I jog out of the shed.
Felix looks over his shoulder and lets out a sigh of relief when he sees me.
“Took you long enough. Where were you hiding anyway?” He asks curiously.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” I say cheekily as I give him a wink.
“Ugh fine... Anyway, I have to go now, se-” Felix stops in midsentence, a look of disbelief on his face as he stares at me.
“Are you wearing contacts or something?”
“Uhm... No... Why do you ask?” I question him, clearly confused.
“Your eyes... They aren’t brown anymore... They are like, a greeny amber. Are you sure you aren’t wearing any?” He asks again.
“Hah hah hah, very funny Felix.” I say sarcastically.
“No, I’m not joking Rhana!” He insists.
I hear a car toot and turn my head towards the car park to see Felix’s parents slowly driving off in their car.
“Looks like you’re about to miss your ride.” I say.
“Shoot. I’M COMING MUM!!” he yells.
“See ya, Rhana.” Felix eyes me suspiciously.
“Bye. See ya tomorrow for sports day.” I say feigning enthusiasm.
Felix hops into his mum’s car and rolls down the window.
“Oh yeah, good luck Rhana.” He says wiggling his eyebrows at me.
Ugh, I’ve always been terrible at sports, no need for him to rub it in.
“Shut up.” I say bluntly.
I hear his laughter as his car speeds off.
~~~*~~~
After grabbing my bag, I began my journey back home. It was 4:50, but no one would really care that I came home late. My parents come back from work at 6:30, and my older brother is at university.
My house is only about 4 or 5 blocks away from school, so I can either take the bus there or walk, like today. I stare at the tree on the other side of the road, its flowers only just beginning to bloom. I see a bird fly onto the tallest branch and sit there.
And that’s when it started.
The tree suddenly began to swim in and out of focus. At first it only happened once every ten seconds, so I thought my eyes were just in need of some glasses. But then it happened more and more frequently, until the tree became a blurry green blob. I squint my eyes, hoping that the tree would make its way back into focus, but it didn’t.
Then the next stage came.
It seemed that my eyes had suddenly became cross-eyed. The tree seemed to be overlapping the houses and the fences that surrounded it. I was seeing double of everything. I frantically move my head around, trying to see something clearly. But nothing was clear, it was all dizzy.
Stage three then appeared.
My world started to spin.
“Ughhh...” I moan as the world became an indescribable mess of pictures of the normal world overlapping each other. It was so… dizzy.
When I say dizzy, I don’t mean the type when you’ve just twirled around in harmless circles for the past minute.
No, no that would be the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard.
I mean the type of dizzy when someone gets your normal vision, then shakes it around like a maraca, then goes and plays bowling with it, then waves it around in the air like a trophy you just won.
As you can tell, it’s quite disorientating.
I stumble around aimlessly like a blind man that’s just been hit by a football. At one point I feel my feet stray off the footpath, then I feel the softness of grass underneath me. Hoping and praying that I don’t somehow manage to stray onto the road, I decide that maybe if I sit down it would minimize the chances of getting run over.
I try to steady my feet enough to sit down, but the world was so dizzy, it was an almost impossible task. And then I felt it. Right under my shoes.
Bitumen.
Which could only mean one thing.
I was on the road.
Get back to the pavement before you get hit Rhana, I say to myself.
But the problem now was to find the footpath. I turn around trying to see something that even remotely resembles a footpath. The world was still spinning like a rocket powered merry go round, so that task was very difficult.
Suddenly, through my demented vision, I see a very blurry grey strip.
I hope and pray that that was the footpath, and begin to walk towards it.
Well, try to walk towards it.
With the world spinning very intensely, it was much easier said than done.
“Whooaaa…”
I say drunkenly as I stumble again.
This dizziness is not good for me, I think as I taste warm bile threatening to explode out of my mouth.
“Come on Rhana…” I plead to myself, still trying to get some control.
One foot in front of the other, I tell myself.
Then suddenly, out of the blue, the death bells ring.
HONK HONK!
I stand frozen, fear paralysing me.
Oh shoot.
I desperately look around to see where the source of the sound was, then through my dizzy vision I see an object getting bigger… and bigger...
An oncoming truck.
“GET OUT OF THE WAY YOU IDIOT!” shouts the truck driver.
It was almost on top of me now. Less than 10m separated us. I hear the truck driver slam on the breaks, but even with the help of the breaks, it would still hit me with enough force to kill me.
9m…
8m…
RUN YOU IDIOT, says the little voice in my head. For some reason, the little voice manages to awaken my frozen legs. And so I run, only to trip over my own feet a moment later.
I glide through the air, my body as limp as a dead person’s. I was now completely at the mercy of the force that made me trip, hoping that it would somehow miraculously save me. There was nothing I could do to save myself now. My body glides swiftly through the air.
Oh well.
I just hope my death is quick.
I brace myself for the tremendous amount of force that would kill me, but it never came. I feel the wind of the truck swoop pass me, missing me by a hair’s breadth.
“Oof!” I say as the air is knocked out of me when I land on the ground. I stay there, frozen, unsure whether I was dead or not.
I’m not dead… I say to myself, still trying to believe it.
Once I manage to unfreeze my legs, I crawl to the footpath and sit there, regaining my vision and my orientation. My heart was beating ridiculously fast, and I feared that it might burst out soon.
I look at the truck that was almost the death of me, its image getting smaller and smaller as it drove away.
“You old ding dong, you could have at least slammed on the breaks a little earlier.” I say under my breath.
By now my vision had almost regained its normal orientation.
“What the heck just happened?” I mutter to myself.
I begin to summarise the events that just took place.
I was walking back home, then I suddenly became insanely dizzy, I think confused.
I managed to stumble onto the road, then almost get run over by a truck.
I then saved myself by tripping over my own feet.
How strange, I think, still dazed at the events that had just taken place.
This is the second time my clumsiness has helped me, the first being when it introduced me to Felix, and now it saved me from an impending death caused by a truck.
Thank you clumsiness, without you, I would be dead.
~~~*~~~
When I arrive home, I instantly walk over to the mirror, wanting to know if something actually is wrong with my eyes. Felix noticed something was different about them, and the incident I just had with the truck proves that something is wrong with them too.
I stand in front of the mirror, and stare.
Oh. My. Gosh.
I stare at the person staring back at me.
Rhana Killard is a quiet person, who gets decent grades and has a small group of close friends. She has pale skin and has dark brown medium length hair. She has dark brown eyes.
The person staring back at me from the mirror is Rhana, except for one little difference.
Her eyes… they’re… amber.
They were brown at the start of the day then… I don’t know what happened.
Are they the reason I almost got run over today? Felix noticed them, so they must be real. I stare closely at them, they almost seem as if they are… glowing?
No, that can’t be right.
Maybe they are contacts?
I widen my eyes and carefully touch them…
“Ow!”
Nope, definitely not contacts.
So they must be real. Where did I get them from then?
But I must say, they look quite awesome.
Felix would love them.
Wait, where on earth did that thought come from? I just see Felix as a friend…right?
Anyway, one thing is for certain. I really hope that dizziness incident doesn’t repeat itself again.
I might not be so lucky next time.