Lost In Thought

Parallel

Lilly-Beth

I.

I was. 

What was I?

Oh, my head was throbbing as I woke up in a hospital bed, seeing people just walking away from me, a group of med students with their teacher. "What? I... I don't..." Oh, my head. But I grabbed my bag from the chair beside me and started to dig through it, skipping over the clothes and things that I carried all the time, and found nothing of import, nothing to tell me why my head was the way it was. "What the hell is going on?" I sighed, tapping to count the seconds. How long had I been in the hospital? I knew I hadn't always been here, but it felt like that, and it was so, so loud.

But I just got up and dressed myself, not bothering to cover myself up as I was the only one in the room, and just went to discharge myself, ignoring them telling me there was some form of concussion they hadn't been able to monitor for long enough. I just told them I'd come back if I woke up dead. Hospitals were not my thing.

Only, the moment I left the hospital, just making it to the stupid short hedge maze type thing in the garden, there was an utter downpour behind me, just around the hospital. Then the rain went up, and took the hospital with it in a rumble of thunder that shook the city. OK, sure, I'll bite. What was going on there?

I stayed at the back of the crowd as people started to panic, just watching, until it came back. For some reason I knew that it would, I just wasn't expecting the amount of dead that there were. If I'd have stayed, if there had been some reason for me to stay... I'd have joined my brother Doran in the Duat. If I my heart didn't outweigh my guilt.

That was when I left, just walking until I found where my bike had been left, and had to wheel it through a housing estate as the back wheel was mangled. Which got worse, when some random ran out of an alley, clearly running from the light show she started in there, and went smack into me. "What the fuck do you think you're doing!? Look where you're going! Jesus Christ."

Another woman walking towards us, a red head, came over in  confusion, helping me to pull my poor bike back off me. Oh, my head... My head hurt even more, it was like everything was screaming at me, it was so loud. "Blimey! Are you all right, love?" I nodded as she helped me up. "What was that, fireworks or-"

"I don't know." Was your top lip glued to your teeth? "I was just walking along. That's weird."

"You're the one. Christmas Eve. I met you in town."

The blonde with giant lips was paying more attention to the redhead who helped me. "Donna? Isn't it?"

She nodded, still holding my arm lightly. "What was your name?"

Still ignoring me. Was I invisible or something? What were those lights? They ended too quick to be fireworks. "How're you doing? You're looking good. How's things, what have you been up to?"

"Why are you looking behind her?" I questioned, not understanding. "Is there something on her back?" Making me check. Nope. "There's nothing there, why are you doing that?"

Donna got frustrated at it as well. "People keep on doing that, looking at my back."

"What sort of people?"

"People in the street. Strangers. I think you're probably the first one who hasn't, love." I knew that my eyes were average, but I could hear... What could I hear? Oh, my head... "I just catch them sometimes, staring at me. Like they're looking at something. And then I get home, and I look, and there's nothing there. See? Look, now I'm doing it!"

Making the blonde quickly change the subject. "What are you doing for Christmas?"

"What am I what?"