I woke from my good night's rest like I woke up from coma because what I saw as soon as I woke up amazed me.
My mother took off my sheets and said, "Wake up Chelsea ! It's time for school."
I struggled to open my eyes at once due to the attack of the sun on my eyes. After a long struggle, I finally got to open my eyes. My sight was still blurry but despite all these morning waking up struggles, something most importantly caught my attention. It was the number above my mother's head; it was a Ten. Even though everything else about my mother was blurry, I could still remember the number about her head. I asked her in amaze, "What is that number above your head mother?". My mother looked at me with a smile while patting my head and said, "My sweet little child! Wake up you sleepy head".
At that time I realised that she thought that I
I was sleep talking. I thought so myself as well until I saw few numbers above my head while I looked at myself in the mirror; the number was of a higher number value. I could hardly ever come up with a good reason for these numbers to appear.
I had my breakfast looking at the number above my mother's head and left for school. On the way as I walked my way to school, I saw a certain amount of number above everyone's head. The number varied from one person to the other. I felt like I was trapped in a fantasy movie and I have to crack some code to get out of here.
I reached school quicker than every other day. As soon as I sighted my friend in the school hallway, I ran to her as fast as I could and told her everything about the number while I was still gasping for air. She looked at me and laughed, "Did you drink early in the morning?". I looked at her eyes with anger and told her, "Listen Lily, I don't really want you to believe me. I will figure it all out by myself". She stood there in the middle of the hallway confusedly, watching me leave.
Even though my life became very unusual, I had to attend classes as usual. While I was lost in my thoughts about the numbers, I heard the whole class scream. I cleared my mind from the number, to see what was going on in the class. The students and teachers from around the class, heard the noise and came to check on us. Before I could wrap my mind around the whole situation, a girl was carried to the hospital. When I looked at her, I see that her number was a thousand. I started to panic with the whole class as she left the school in an ambulance.
My friend walked towards me and asked, "So, what was the number above her head?". Her voice sounded so calm. She sounded like she did not care about a student being taken to the hospital.
I replied, "A Thousand". She raised her eyebrows looking out the window and said, "That is a lot!". Her cool approach towards the situation irritated me, so I walked far away from her just to see her walk behind me. She apologized to me for this morning. Though I accepted her apologies, something about her still seemed different than usual.
"So, what is the number above my head?", she asked with an interested tone in her voice. "One fifty", I said as I watched a smile being formed on her face slowly, step by step.
All the students were sent back home because of the event that occurred. I was worried for the girl after looking at how tensed the whole situation seemed to everyone.
Later that day, as I was sitting and watching news with my father, the news about the girl at school appeared. I watched the news carefully. After listening to the whole news, I got weak by the knees; My hands started shaking; I heard my heart beat so loud; the sound of nothing in my head felt so disturbing; I slowly came back to reality and heard my father calling out my name.
"You should go to her funeral. Isn't she your friend?", my father suggested. I decided to go to her funeral with Lily.
It was cold because it was raining heavily at the funeral. The girl being a popular student of our school, had the whole school come to the funeral and cry for her. At the funeral I saw so many people and their numbers. A few had their number as more as mine and few had the lowest number. We didn't talk to anyone at the funeral. We left the flowers we brought for her on her. I saw her face while leaving the flowers on her. The number above her head was not a number anymore, it read KILLER TIME OUT.
I stood there with my knees trembling and sweat flowing out my body like I just took a shower
Lily who was right beside me, carried my hands and took me away from her immediately. We went far away from the crowd. She then caressed my head on her palms and asked me, "What did you see?".
I was still there in terror from what I saw. No words came out of my mouth. She stood their patienty waiting for me to clear my mind and tell her what I saw. She made me sit on a rock; still holding my hands. I looked into Lily's eye; Immediately after that I found myself crying. I hugged her tightly and said, "There was no number but it said 'Killers time out' ". She looked at me in surprise and asked, "What is your number Chelsea?". My tears rushed back into my eyes after hearing that question from her.
Everything around me started to feel different. My head felt like it was in a washing machine and my heart felt like it was being stabbed by million knives. Lily carried me on her shoulders and started running to get emergency attention for me. This situation seemed familiar to me. With a proper understanding of the situation I whispered into her ear, "It's Thousand".
