"How are you feeling?" one of the EMTs asked from the back where I was. I must have dissociated pretty hard because his words came out of nowhere. It's always been a tactic that I used to escape harmful situations. I spend more time in the clouds than I do in real life. Sometimes when I'm distraught, I sing songs in my head. The song that I sing the most is The Weight of Love by The Black Keys.
"Huh? Oh, I f-f-feel okay. I'm just v-v-very nervous about this whole thing..." I stammered like an idiot. My sentences always sound better in my head.
"You know, it's okay to be nervous. Our mind fears the unknown; it's just one of those things that it does," he said reassuringly.
"It's just, this all feels so strange to me. It's as if my entire life had all been a dream. Do you ever get anything like that?" I asked, propping myself up. The leather straps they put on me made it incredibly difficult to do so. They said that they put them on everyone for their safety, so it's not like I was a special case, at least. I wondered how many people had struggled to break out of them.
"Can't say I have. Tell me about this dream world?" he asked, leaning in full of curiosity.
"It's like sometimes certain things happen, and a part of me just doesn't believe that they could have happened to me, of all people. It's like it's so bizarre that my brain tells me that the only way it could have happened was if someone trapped me in a dream. Does that make more sense?" I asked, hoping more than anything that he understood that feeling.
"You know, I actually do understand that a bit! What are some things that happened to you that made you feel like you were in a dream?" he asked, making my heart nearly stop from anxiety. I couldn't exactly tell him about time travel without sounding completely insane.
"Just going to a psychiatric hospital, I guess; I never in my life thought that I would have gone to one." Well... there's a first time for everything, right?" I replied with a nervous laugh.
"Take it as a learning experience, Clive; maybe someday what you will learn in the hospital will prove useful. You never know when a certain bit of information could change your life," he said, patting me on the back. Hearing him talk was one of the few things that could calm me down; he was a natural silver tongue.
"You're right, by the way, wh-"
"We're here!" the driver interrupted.
Well... there's no turning back now.
YOU ARE READING
The October Amaryllis
Science FictionClive Andrews is a typical 16-year-old boy who never had anything out of the ordinary happen until May 16th, 2020, when he was struck by several feet of ball lightning and nearly killed. After being discharged from the hospital, he realizes that he...
