It was a day like any other when it happened. It was as she stared at the soulless eye of the cartoon character on the T-shirt on the rack in front of her. Bright colours in her periphery demanded her attention but she allowed herself to imagine living in an animated world. Without the expectations of parents, how simple it would be to exist in a world where problems could be solved with a wave of a hand.
An eerie stillness abruptly wrenched her out of the daydream. Asta tilted her head, unable to process the icy cold feeling of dread she could feel filling her gut. An extreme wave of wrongness overcame her and she spun around trying to pinpoint its cause.
The weight of the absolute silence slammed into her.
Her mind went blank and she felt her chest tightening in panic as her eyes traced the still forms of the other customers. Some had arms reaching out, locked in place holding the clothes they were unable to release, others were frozen mid-step as their now vacant eyes scanned the store. The joyful laughter of the child peeking out of the clothing rack was etched onto his face with the sound snuffed out.
What was happening?
~
It was fine.
But Asta had dreamed of other things, bigger things.
Impossible things.
She had dreamed of the days when she was younger, sitting, tucked up against her grandmother's side as she wove elaborate stories about magic. Sipping hot chocolate that spread a warmth through her that nothing had ever been able to recreate. She would watch the candles swell and flicker as her eyes grew tired and it almost felt like the fire was bringing the stories to life.
In the darkness of the room, her mind played tricks on her. She would see shapes that moved like they were real and she would see colours bloom in the air.
And that's all it was. A dream.
Those days were long gone, a child's wish and a fairy tale. All she dreamed of these days was her grandmother waking up. Of them sharing a fraction of the warmth in her memories, one final time.
Believing in magic was for children.
And yet...Asta found herself at a loss for any other explanation.
It was a Saturday, the shopping mall she frequented after visiting her grandma's hospital room was usually bustling with activity. You couldn't walk five steps without tripping over a small child, determined to be exactly where you were already standing.
The stillness could be overlooked if distracted, but the silence? The silence was suffocating.
Asta approached the nearest person to her, a woman who had been perusing a selection of shirts, her hand frozen where they pinched the neckline. "Excuse me? Are you alright?"
There was no hint that the lady had heard her at all. Asta moved next to her so she could better see her face.
"Excuse me Miss?" she tried again.
The woman's brown eyes were dull as the steadfastly gazed ahead. Asta waved her hand in front of her face, initially slow but quickly becoming frantic as she noticed that the complete stillness of her body meant that she was not blinking.
She was not breathing.
Asta's knees buckled at the realisation. It was like someone had hit the pause button, on everyone apart from her.
It was like time...had stopped.
Suddenly a loud ding sounded, Asta flinched at the contrast with the complete silence and the proximity. It sounded like it was very close, almost as if it was entering directly into her ears like she was wearing headphones.
A chipper robotic voice sounded.
A window popped up in front of her, overlaid over her field of view as if she was looking into VR goggles. She could see the words she just heard on the virtual screen.
"What the hell." She muttered, trying to back away from the screen but finding it moved with her, staying an equal distance from her.
Suddenly, the window flickered and it seemed the screen glitched. An alarm blared and a large, angry red error window started flashing.
Asta felt herself trip in her panic to escape the screen, scrambling backwards over a stray clothing hanger.
The window and robotic disappeared immediately and Asta was left to wonder if she was experiencing an extremely vivid fever dream. How was any of this happening?