Five Seconds After the Flash

Prologue

I was 16 the first time it happened.

I hadn't been dreaming about anything particularly dreadful, at least not that I could recall. But when I awoke at 3am, I gasped as my thoughts crashed into the perfect storm. My entire body was shaking as I stumbled from the bed, terrified of what was happening and my lack of control over myself. I clutched my chest as my heart pounded, urging it to stay behind my ribs and not to burst.

I knocked over a lamp while continuing my clumsy quest for the door. It fell to the laminate floor, crashing into broken glass.

My twin brother, Ryan, burst through the door at the sound of the noise, his eyes darting around for the intruder.

I had no breath to explain to him that the intruders were my own thoughts, holding me down and suffocating me. They were finally piled so high that they were killing me, and all I had ever wanted was to find a way to control them.