It was usually a crowded street. A crowd like a river, its constant current pushing the flow of people. Never still.

But it was still.

It was more crowded than usual. This crowd however, this constant current of faces, had come to a stop. Its water, all but still.

The mass rocked back and forth, as people pushed against one another. There was no direction, and therefore no real flow. Just a wave that seemed to toss against itself.

Overhead, just outside the train station, in one of the city’s most crowded crossings.

There it hung, on the powerlines. A figure. A body. Of a young girl.

Its limbs were tangled on the wire, allowing it to stay suspended. Its head hung lifelessly, as long, black hair obscured the face.

I didn’t look at it. I tried not to look at it. I tried desperately to avert my gaze.

But it stuck out at you. Forcing you to look. Forcing you to stare.

It captivated the gaze. Like a curse, like a hex.

It burned the retinas. It burned just to stare.

I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to look away. To run away. To escape.

To pretend that it wasn’t real. That it was but a twisted nightmare conjured by a sick mind.

But it was reality.

I couldn’t just look away. I couldn’t just close my eyes. Nor run. Nor pretend.

It was there, right in front of me. Witnessed by myself and countless others. That blood curdling, horrifying, sickening scene.

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And all I could do… was stare.

…

The clock read just past eight.

The usually crowded halls were empty. The sort of emptiness that was usually painted red. In a way, it felt kind of eerie.

I could hear the sound of each of my footsteps, echoing back at me.

Maybe it was just my unusually heightened sensitivity. Anxious and unsettled, every sound seemed to set me off just a little more. From the cracking of the wood floor to my own irregular breathing.

After wandering the streets aimlessly, I had somehow found myself here. As if I had just stumbled in by chance. And yet, this was where I was meant to be. Where I set off to reach earlier this morning.

Then, why did it feel so off?

It was odd. I felt lost. I felt dazed.

Nothing felt real. I felt a strange detachment. Not just to the rest of the world, but to my own body.

My movements felt delayed. As if my body was lagging just behind me.

I slowly slid the door open. It rattled against my trembling hand. I slipped through, closing the door behind me. And just stood there, if only for a brief moment. A moment that seemed to prologue.

Thirty-eight pairs of eyes stared back at me. I tried to shake it off, telling myself it was just the paranoia getting to me, and made my way to my desk.

I sat awkwardly. My mind was restless, but my body felt sluggish. As if unable to keep up. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just did nothing.

It was hard to focus. My mind was a blur. And yet, the world seemed much sharper and vivid. Oversaturated colors and hyperdetailed objects flooded my vision. As if my eyes were picking up every last sensory information sent their way. The overstimulation overloading my mind.

I closed my eyes, trying to escape that hyper-focused world.

My body suddenly jolted as a roll of paper snapped against my desk. I looked up to see my teacher’s body looming over me. An irritated scowl with eyes that stared daggers down at me.

Flustered, having been caught off guard, I tried, vainly, to respond. Instead, I merely opened my lips and let out incoherent sounds that didn’t even vaguely resemble speech, as I stumbled just to form a single word.

This desperate attempt at human speech did little to defend me. I reached to my side for my book, to at least mimic the behavior of everyone around me.

Alarms suddenly rang in my head as the desperation amplified. Try as I might, my hand only grasped at air. I then came to the horrifying realization that I was missing my bag.

Those eyes still loomed over me. I could feel them inching closer by the second. It sent shivers down my spine, filled me with a primitive sense of dread.

I could feel the rest of the room silently snickering. Even so, the sound was drowned by ever looming eyes.

I could feel a cold sweat building from the nerves. To those looming eyes, all I could do was respond with eyes that pled.

To no avail.