'What… just happened?'
Aves' blurry vision took a few seconds to re-adjust to to the bright lighting of the room he was in — or wherever he was, anyway.
A bevy of different sensations assailed his senses all at once, overloading his brain with too much information to process at the same time. But, as the seconds passed and Aves started regaining his vision, he was eventually reminded of the sort of situation he was in.
'I'm with Isabelle… and her friends.'
The last thing he could actually remember before he… well, before he blacked out, was that he was having the time of his life, out on a date with the girl he loved, carefree and with nothing to worry about — well, almost nothing to worry about. And then, the date crashers came in, hogging Isabelle's attention as if he wasn't there anymore, and it was as if a foreign force — at least he hoped it was a foreign force — took over his mind and warped his thinking.
It made him feel cold, isolated, lonely…
But, worst of all, it made him consider… things — doing things — that he would never have even dared to think of before. In fact, now that his memory of what happened was getting clearer and clearer, that feeling became more vivid the more he thought about it.
And he was getting increasingly scared.
He wasn't feeling frightened by what he was so close to doing to Isabelle's friends, however. That would have to wait for later. He was scared because he finally remembered what actually happened during that very brief moment that he had blacked out for.
'Remember' might not have been the correct term to use, as it was more Aves recalling what he felt as opposed to actually having a flashback to that moment. But nevertheless, he felt terrified.
It was as if every fibre of his being was dwarfed by something much greater than his mind could possibly comprehend. He felt tiny, like a boat in the middle of a tsunami, easily swept away by a random current; death was a random encounter away.
But… it didn't feel hostile. Whatever it was — that great force that engulfed him— it wasn't deadly to him. Aves even felt something familiar whenever he thought back to that encounter, but it was as though whatever he sensed always managed slip further away from him the more he tried to put a finger on it.
A sudden pang of pain coming from his lower back and head forced him away from his fearful speculations and into the real world, where he was faced with a whole different situation, now that he could think properly.
The familiar flower-patterned, beige-coloured restaurant ceiling was faintly visible from the corners of his field of vision, but Aves was quickly forced to avert his gaze for the sake of preventing his eyeballs from being singed by the blinding light coming from the chandelier right above him. Muffled voices were echoing in the background as Aves tilted his head to the side in order to get a better understanding of the position he was in.
A cold, hard ceramic floor greeted his cheeks, sending another minor jolt of shock across his already taught nerves. With a few wooden legs belonging to some scattered chairs right in the middle of his vision, alongside multiple pairs of actual human legs, Aves belatedly realised that he was sprawled on the floor somewhere on the second floor of the restaurant.
How he got there, he had no idea. But, by the looks of it, he had created quite the scene while doing so, as evident by the fact that his lower back and head hurt like hell, most likely the result of him quite literally being thrown onto the floor.
Now, having been able to confirm his condition, Aves was finally able to tackle his next hurdle: trying to move his body. The faint voices that once resonated with the muted background were getting louder and clearer in his head, and it wasn't long before he was able to make some sense of them, all the while still trying to leverage his body off of the ground with his elbows.
"—he okay?—"
"—don't think—"
"—Aves—"
"—Call the ambulance—"
Ignoring the constant whispering that might as well have been loud chatter banging on his over-sensitive eardrums, Aves, with great effort, angled his body upward, just enough to be able to catch a glimpse of the only person he cared about within the audience that had gathered around him.
A few familiar faces came into view at first, namely Isabelle's friends and some other random people he had noticed dining next to him earlier, but it wasn't long before his eyes met Isabelle's, who was crouching somewhere near him, obviously more than a little worried about him.
While this display of concern would've warmed his heart a few minutes ago, Aves couldn't quite muster the smile of reassurance anyone in his position would've given to their worried lover.
He was relieved that she was fine, and that whatever had happened to him didn't happen to her, or anyone else near them. But, more than that, he felt guilty. He had actually harboured the intention of… getting rid of her friends for something as low and petty as jealousy.
'Despite the mysteries around what happened while I blacked out still being mysteries, I'm glad that it happened, or else…' Aves wasn't sure if he was actually going to go through with that sudden killing impulse of his, but he liked — hoped — to think that he wouldn't have.
The concept of killing someone had been such a far-away subject for Aves his entire life that he basically never even considered it since the moment he grew old enough to be aware of such matters. While life was definitely tough at times, and he had certainly met his fair share of people who needed a life lesson or two, he had never even once come close to associating himself with the idea of murder.
The notion of someone disappearing off the face of the earth once dead always made him double back and forget the reason why he even considered it in the first place. So, for him to actually think of killing people for doing basically nothing made Aves wonder what actually came over him at that moment in time.
Of course, Aves had never been in any life or death situations, so he couldn't say for sure if he would kill someone if he was forced to or not.
Putting an end to that line of thought, his eyes still locked on Isabelle's, Aves weakly opened his mouth to speak.
At least, that's what he had intended to do.
"Ah.." A somewhat croaky note that was passed off as his voice escaped his lips.
A little bewildered by the reason as to why the mere act of speaking took so much out of him, to the point where he felt a little sluggish, Aves decided to try again.
"Mmm…" This time, even letting out that miserable croak seemed like a luxury, for he couldn't even open his mouth, only being able to let out a weak hum with great effort.
No…
Oh no…
No. No. This can't be happening! Not now!
Confusion soon led to realisation, and realisation rapidly led to terror, which was physically manifested on Aves' face through the act of his eyes widening in abject horror.
Hoping against all hope that it was just his imagination playing a prank on him, Aves dragged his gaze — the fact that he had to strain himself to perform such a simple task didn't bode well for him — through the crowd around him, after which, despair immediately took ahold of him.
The world's colours appeared to have faded away from existence, for all he could see was the eerie monochromatic setting, blending into the background, that made for a spectacle that looked like it had come straight out of a '50s TV show. And if that wasn't creepy enough, then the deja vu inspiring, phobia-inducing phenomenon looming around him in a bid to trap him where he lay was enough to paralyse even the toughest of men in fear.
Much to his dismay, the reason behind his constant alertness over the past few days, his greatest fear, ended up happening anyway.
Laboured breathing, that emanated frequent vapours of cold, visible air, accompanied Aves' petrifying discovery as he took in the sight of around a dozen or so people with different warped expressions huddling around him, seemingly having been frozen in place. While their expressions were different, they had one thing in common, and that was the unsettling shadow that replaced the skin of their faces, on which their varied expressions were based.
One random man, that Aves had spotted earlier in passing as part of the crowd, had the same unholy smile which stretched all the way to the tip of his eye lashes — or whatever he had — that Aves had seen Jason, his college bully, adopt in his previous vision. A little to the left, a woman whose frown seemed to defy common sense was motionless in her standing posture, the same as all the others; her black hollow eyes boring into Aves' the same way a black hole would a fragile human.
Since it was impossible to identify anyone based on their faces anymore, reason being that they had no human-like facial features to speak of, Aves was only able to identify the random man and woman based on the pattern of their clothes, for their colours seemed to have been washed away just like everything else in this grey-on-black environment.
Aves was normally one to mind every single detail about something that intrigued him, but intrigue him… this did not. The fear amplified by the feeling of helplessness caused by his sluggishness and fatigue, which seemed to be specific side-effects of these visions, only made him want to be anywhere but there. And while the rest of his body was currently doing it's best to get out of this terrible situation, his head creakily swivelled to his side, in the direction of where he had last seen Isabelle, his brain holding onto the last embers of hope that she might just be the only who was normal.
But, he knew… He knew that it was delusional of him to think that she was the only one that remained unaffected when everyone else wasn't, and the sight he was born witness to when he faced her confirmed his fears.
A completely blank face with nary a facial feature was what he was met with, the only thing present being the shadowy mist that everyone else had. The vision, to Aves' half-expected dismay, had gotten to her as well. As for why she was neither smiling nor frowning like the others, Aves had better, more urgent things to consider at the moment.
If the first vision taught Aves anything, it was that, once he let his body metaphorically freeze over, and subsequently not be able to move a single step, it was game over. Those freaks would get to him. Whether he died or not after that, he was trying his hardest not to think about that. Thankfully, for whatever reason, he still had some energy within him this time, so if he played this right, there might be a snowball's chance in hell of him getting out of there — yes, Aves was aware of how small that chance actually was; that was just how bad things were at the moment.
The question was: what about Isabelle? Did he just have to leave her here? What kind of boyfriend would he be if something happened to her the moment he escaped? He would have to live the rest of his life knowing that he could've done something to prevent that but chose not to for the sake of saving his own skin.
'There has to be another way!'
Meanwhile, as Aves' brain was scrambling to find a solution to his dilemma at the speed of light, the rest of his body had already slowly hauled him up into a half-kneeling-half-crouching stance, all the whilst trying it's hardest to fight off the ever-growing supernatural fatigue building up inside his muscles, as evident by his unnaturally wobbly legs.
His form was stable in spite of all of that however, due to his hands supporting his upper body by constantly pushing against the ground in an attempt to raise him up onto his feet. Although, from the looks of it, if Aves soon didn't find a solution to his morale problem, which took up most of his mental capacity, the fatigue would soon prove too much for his body, and he would eventually fall flat on the ground again, becoming paralysed just like he did in the first vision in the process.
But, suddenly, something happened.
Out of the blue, like a gift from God Himself, a sudden life saving grace offered itself to Aves in the form of the world flickering back into its usual colour in the nick of time. The walls of the restaurant, the tables and chairs, and even the people's clothes and skin tone; they were all reverted back to their original colours. And, accompanying those sudden changes, was the reversal of everyone's hideous expressions to their normal, oh-so beautiful faces.
Aves was caught completely off guard due to the lack of warnings prior to the sudden change, to the point where he didn't even notice that his legs were starting to wobble less and less.
"Aves, you need to calm down! The ambulance is on the way!" A voice to his side suddenly cut through the everlasting silence that Aves just realised he had been subjected to during his vision. That coupled with the return of the various voices chattering endlessly within the crowd around him made that discovery much easier to make.
"What— what happened?" Aves, his tone raspy yet much more normal than before, stammered the question that he realised he'd been asking way too many times recently.
To whom the question was directed to exactly, even Aves, in his confusion, wasn't sure.
"Aves! You're finally talking to us!" Isabelle, who was kneeling down on the floor at a much closer distance to him than in the vision, grasped his hands in relief. "Listen to me, Aves! You are burning up real bad, and your face is very pale. Someone has already called an ambulance, and it will be here in no time. Can you tell us what's going on? You suddenly threw yourself onto the ground and started acting very weirdly! It was like you were hallucinating or something! Please, Aves, is everything okay?"
Slowly taking in the colourful sight around him that his eyes had missed so dearly, all the while ignoring the people who looked at him as if he belonged in a mental asylum, Aves chuckled in a mixture of bewilderment and relief, "It's— it's all over?"
Isabelle, her friends, and the peanut gallery around him… they were all normal again! Though, Aves judged by the look on Isabelle's face, and the questions that she rapid-fired at him, that he definitely had some explaining to do, or else his relationship would definitely hit a roadblock.
'Haha, but still! I have all the time in the world to explain things as long as I stay alive!' Aves wasn't sure as to why he was so certain that he would die once caught by the ghost versions of whoever he saw in his vision, but Aves always likened it to jumping off a three or four story apartment: you may or may not die, but do you really want to find out?
Meanwhile, the crowd seemed to start murmuring even louder after his question, and amidst the clamour, one of Isabelle's friends, Daniel, scoffed, "Jesus, he's definitely gone crazy."
Disregarding the blatant insult at her boyfriend, Isabelle, at Aves' silent prompt, carefully helped him up off the ground, and asked, "What do you mean, Ave—"
Using Isabelle's hand as support to barely get on his feet, his mind still reeling over the fact that the vision ended much sooner than he had anticipated, Aves failed to react to the sudden withdrawal of her hand, and ended up tripping on himself a little, almost falling back onto the floor again. Thankfully, he managed to balance himself at the last second.
Looking back up in Isabelle's direction, obviously more than flabbergasted at the sudden act of coldness, Aves staggered back in horror, his mouth shooting open in a silent scream.
The familiar monochrome background, the faceless Isabelle standing just a few inches away, the evil smiles of some in the crowd… They were back.
The vision was back. It hadn't even been an entire minute since it suddenly stopped, but it was back.
Just a moment ago, Aves was beside himself with joy at the idea of finally being free of the curse that was the vision; that he would go back to either his home or to the hospital safe and sound, and not in a bodybag; that he would get to enjoy Isabelle's care for a bit longer.
But, now…
'Why?! I thought it was gone! This didn't happen the last time. I don't understand! What does it want from me?!' Afraid and confused, Aves' mind raced in the search for answers to his endless questions. Unfortunately, the rapidly changing situation didn't give him much time to wallow in self-indignation.
The fatigue, that had started to slowly melt away during those few seconds of reprieve, started building back up again at a faster rate than before. It would have been fine if that was the end of it, but the atrocity taking place around him made him re-consider whether his available levels of stamina would save him.
Effortlessly gliding despite her feet still being on the ground, Isabelle — ghostly Isabelle, as Aves so leisurely dubbed her — slowly made her way toward him, an inch at a time. She wasn't the only one, as a few people — the ones that he could spot within his field of vision, anyway — were also closing in on him at the same pace.
Realising that his chances of living were getting shorter the more he panicked, Aves forcibly calmed himself down and reviewed his decreasing list of options.
'I'm pretty sure that if I leave right now, Isabelle would still be fine. These visions, even if they are real to me, aren't real to other people.'
Aves had had some time to think, during his short break, about how people were affected during his visions based on his first and second vision runs, and managed to come up with this fairly logical conclusion. However, for the sake of preserving his conscience in these trying times, Aves refused to think of the consequences if his hypothesis turned out to be wrong.
With a simple plan in mind — that is to run as far away from the restaurant as possible — Aves didn't waste anymore precious time and decided to act.
Although his joint and muscle movements were getting stiffer by the second, Aves was still able to whip his head around, due to the short break that he took, and face the other side of the crowd to check for any signs of a gap he could use to sneak out of the encirclement, since his front was completely blocked by ghostly-Isabelle and her ghostly-friends.
If colour could be seen in this apparitional realm, one would have been able to see the flush making its way onto Aves' cheeks, because he was, against all odds, able to spot a narrow gap present in-between two random people his panicked brain didn't even recall seeing before.
But — and there was always a but — that narrow gap was… well, really narrow. Aves doubted that he would fit in without coming into contact with one of the two ghosts.
'I have to try!' It was only now that Aves, having experienced a true life or death situation, realised how clingy he truly was to life. It might be determination or it might just be cowardice — call it however you like — but the truth was, Aves didn't want to die.
As he got in position to make a quick dash through the ever narrowing gap, this time making sure that he could actually move his legs, his mind randomly recalled a question he had asked himself earlier, and that was: would he kill someone if it was his life pitted against theirs?
Feeling that he was ready to answer that question now, Aves surprisingly wasn't ashamed to admit that…
Yes.
Yes, he would.
Taking one last glance at the ever-nearing ghost-Isabelle right behind him, Aves made sure to deeply engrave this moment in his memory, for this would be the last time he ever ran away from a situation like this if he ever lived to tell the tale.
Heaving what might be his last sigh, Aves felt the calm he had needed all this time rush to his head as he let go of all of his fears and…
Sprinted.