[pre]The amount of thoughts that shot through her mind exponentially increased over the course of a few minutes. So many people were talking, adding to the stress that attacked her mind. She stood up and left the room, leaving behind the noise, the thoughts, and the life. There were protests and outcries of rage. They tried to follow, pulling on the girl's arms and clothing.
The noise increased as thoughts came racing back. Somewhere in the back of her mind, someone was telling her to let it all go. But the people would not leave, the noise would not leave, and the thoughts that forever filled her mind would not go.
She screamed her rage. "Leave me alone!" And they did for several minutes, staring in mute horror as the girl walked away. They followed in silence, all of them. The noise was a muted buzzing noise in the background as the girl's feet crunched over the gravel until she stepped onto the grass.
"You know, I remember a time when you, yourself, would never shut up," a voice behind her said.
She turned around, eying the crowd, unsure of which one spoke. A small boy stepped forward. His long black hair blew in a nonexistent breeze.
"You always use to talk to me, you always told me everything. Why do you not listen to me anymore? Why do you listen to those who use to make fun of you? Why don't you listen to me, why don't you listen to me?" the boy's voice, which was more of a middle aged man's voice, grew louder and angrier as he finished.
More cries of outrage came out of the mouths of the surrounding people; the girl shrank back into her coat, afraid.
The voice in the back of her mind said it wasn't real, that that life wasn't what it seemed. But the girl ignored the voice. She only knew pain when it came to talking and listening to the voice.
Members of the crowd started to shove the girl, bruising her as she fell to the ground. She stumbled away from them, trying to escape the violence of the crowd.
"Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I have done nothing wrong!" she shouted back to the crowd. They were overtaking her, their voices pounding like nails in her head. That's all it is, said the voice. She bit her lip to stop from crying out in pain.
They surrounded her, there was almost no escape. Almost. At the last moment the girl spotted an opening, and took the biggest chance of her life.
"Felicity be to the one who is dead!" shouted a voice from the crowd.
The voice in the back of the girl's head screamed in horror and the crowd that the girl escaped fell silent. They disappeared, one by one, into thin air.
The girl glanced around her; she seemed to have fallen down. She could feel pain, and could see blood. She looked up in time to see the little boy running towards her, shouting and growing older as he ran to her side.
"Are you okay? Are you alright?" he asked, the voice in the back of her mind coming to life from the mouth of the man-child.
The girl struggled to rise, but could not move. Her legs would not budge, though they ached something terrible.
"What........happened?" she managed to ask.
The voice of the boy/man did not answer. He was looking wildly around the girl, shouting something not understandable.
"What happened?" the girl demanded, her voice rising with her temper.
Beside the older man, his younger form appeared. He was laughing and smiling like the first day she met him. He held his hand out to the girl.
"What happened?" the girl asked again, grasping the boy's hand. He pulled her up. She did not notice that the man didn't notice her rising. Her entire attention was for the boy whose hand held hers.
She felt a sharp pain somewhere in the back of her mind, and the forty-two years of her life, she recalled, were lost in a vision of time, space, and events in which she could no longer recall.
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Each second flew by like it was nothing, each thought completely gone. No satisfaction to the temporary relief of the thousands of images that occupied her thoughts and time.
Time passed slowly, yet lasted quicker than she could blink. The events of the past shot forward and the events of the future died back. It was impossible to tell what was occurring, yet impossible not to know what occurred.
Fear and rage rang out violently; courage and happiness shot silent. The sound of silence grew more pronounced and the noise of daily life consummated into nothingness.
The girl sat alone, thinking all these thoughts, desperately wishing to write these realizations down. But, alas, she had no paper, no pencil, and no permanent writing utensil in which her thoughts could be turned to words, which would then be turned back into ink.
She laughed, knowing her luck was as bad as it was. She sighed, thinking of some other means by which she could write her thoughts down. But the thoughts fluttered out of her mind in the shape of a bird shooting passed on its way to its nest in a large tree somewhere in the distance.
Voices rang out in the silence of the park. A child's laughter rang out of the blue. A warm wind blew, commenting the temperature of the day. The sun lay just below the tree lines, and left a nice shade from the sun's rays. The child whose laughter had interrupted the silence came into view. The girl studied the child with mute fascination; it had been a long time since she had last seen him.
He was laughing and running. Occasionally he stopped and glanced behind his shoulder, but always continued what he was originally doing. The girl smiled. The boy was cute, but young, and the girl stopped smiling when a dark shadow appeared near her right. She glanced over. The boy-child's older brother stood glaring down at the girl.
"You never leave, do you?" he asked angrily. The girl glanced back to the child but did not reply.
"Doesn't it make you sick seeing someone else happy, when they have no right to be?" the brother asked rudely. Again the girl chose to ignore him. She tried to picture the boy-child's face in her mind. It wasn't hard. The child's deep blue eyes were hard to mistake. His older brother had the same eyes, but not the soft, kind face.
"Why do you keep watching him? He is not yours to worry about. He is no problem in your life. Why do you watch him?" His voice sounded dangerously angry. The girl looked away from the child and studied the trees in the distance. They glowed brown and gold in the setting sun's light.
"Why do you say nothing? Why do you do nothing but watch? Why do you always just sit there, day in and day out, and not do anything? You don't speak, you don't eat. Do you not understand?" the brother asked. His anger was mixed with curiosity. The girl cocked her head to the side in contemplation of its meaning.
"John! John! Look! There's a puppy over there, John! Can I go see the doggie!?" the child exclaimed, still running around, playing his game.
"If he bites, then don't come crying back to me, Christian. It will be your own fault," the brother replied.
Wouldn't that make it the dog's fault? The girl thought.
"Don't say that. He knows what he's doing," John said. The girls shot a look at him. His black hair was glowing with the sunlight that leaked through the trees.
"What? The first thing you say since you've been here and you look at me like I'm crazy," he said, shaking his head.
How long have I been coming to this park? She thought to herself.
"The past four years. And technically you can't say you've been going here when you never leave," he said, giving the girl a curious look.
Did I say that aloud?
"Yes, how else do you think I know what you are saying?" He laughed to himself and glanced toward the child, who knelt by a small puppy and was petting it.
The girl glanced around, confused. Dizziness struck the girl as she stood and she swayed on her feet. John rushed forward to help her. He steadied her then immediately released her.
The girl composed herself; her eyes shut, then spoke.
"I have not spoken aloud in some time," she started, her voice cracked and croaking. She cleared her throat and continued. "The only ways you could have possibly known what I was thinking was a) because you know what I am thinking because you are all in my mind or b) because you can read minds. I highly doubt and will never accept the fact that you can read minds, so this must mean that you are a part of my mind.
"Being part of my mind must mean that you do not exist, and that I must be in some sort of vision."
The boy-child ran over, the puppy in his hands. The girl looked at it and flinched back. The puppy was rotting and bloodied, its left eye was missing and its right one was hanging out of its socket.
Bzzzt! The girl was attacked by a sharp pain. She could not comprehend where the pain was, but she could feel it everywhere. Bzzzt! She felt it again, this time pinpointing the location of the pain. It was coming from her chest. Bzzzt![/pre]
