Aaron Cyrus January 1st,20XX

The first clue should have been that morning a few weeks ago when I had woken up to the smell of drywall and the pressure of the ceiling as my nose pressed against it. At the time it had felt like a waking dream and I had simply stayed still until I woke up safely on my bed.

At that point I should have called someone for help or sank into a panic, I should have done something but my days were busy at the time and I’d been able to dismiss it as a dream relatively quickly.

The second clue should have been weirdly lucky I’d been. I’d fall from relatively high places and make out okay, my knife would slip as I cooked and couldn’t break the skin on my hands. Nothing insane happened, but the regularity of such ‘luckiness’ should have put me on more of a guard than it did.

These events invaded my thoughts as I slowly woke up to the same pressure on the bridge of my nose as before.

The over-familiar sight of my ceiling flooded my vision and my brain tried to comprehend the unfamiliar angle. I recognized the three dots of mold that grew in the middle of the platform that usually hung above my head and wondered why they were mere inches from my face.

Before I could even wake up properly and put all of my sensory cues together, I felt myself free fall and my ears rang as my head bounced off the frame of my bed. I waited for the blinding pain to shock my senses raw but was left without so much of a stinging sensation on the back of my head.

My body flopped onto the ground with a large thud as my limbs refused to cooperate in getting me to stand up.

It was difficult to move normally, and I felt my body float up into the air before I could force my arms to push me to my feet. Moving felt like controlling a game character with an unfamiliar controller. It was disorienting, and I got more and more scared as each second passed.

I finally floated back down to the floor but didn’t make any movement to get up again. The fog of sleep clouded my mind and made it hard to think rationally. I still wasn’t sure if this was a dream or not.

My father had suffered from delusions and hallucinations when I was a child, so I’d been aware of the risk that I had inherited it. The doctors had acknowledged the risk but had assured my mother that the chances of it being hereditary were low and wouldn’t be a consideration until my late forties, similar to my father. My mother had accepted it with no further questions, but I knew it was just an estimate and not a guarantee.

The floor was hard, and I could feel the grain of the wood imprint itself into my skin the longer I stayed still. The air was slightly cold and moved gently around my skin. Someone had probably left the windows open.

I slowly went through each of my senses and tied them to the actual world, hoping to ground myself in reality.

There was no way I had flown to the ceiling, fallen to my bed, and hit my head on the sharp wooden frame of my bed and rolled off without so much as a headache.

After my father had gotten on his meds, he’d described a few of his hallucinations to me and they didn’t seem far off what I was currently experiencing. He had mentioned feeling like they were more real than reality itself, and that they tied in all of his senses, rather than just his vision.

He’d described them as being more real than reality, but would always have a single thing off. The example he’d used was the time he’d noticed his hand was completely missing. I still remembered the flat tone he’d used to describe the traumatic experience of suddenly missing a hand. He couldn’t feel it, couldn’t touch anything and couldn’t see it. That day he’d ended up having to go to the hospital for burning his hand, but when he’d been sedated and brought back to reality, he’d sworn he hadn’t felt a thing.

The first thing I should do is to leave the space it had occurred in and see if the hallucination holds up.

I stayed like that for about half an hour before slowly getting up and got to the doorway entrance. My left hand gripped tightly on my phone and my right hand wrapped around the door handle. The plastic thong of my slippers dug into the flesh between my toes, and I recognized they were slightly too small.

The door slammed shut behind me and I could hear my neighbour curse at the loud sound. I should have been more careful.

I took one step and felt the weight of my body settle onto my right leg, then I repeated the motion and my weight shifted to the other.

So far. So good. No flying yet.

My landlord passed by me with an odd look and asked if I was okay. I looked down and realized in my haste I had left my apartment without a shirt on and only had a pair of basketball shorts on.

I smiled awkwardly and nodded that I was okay. He said I had a package at the front, giving me a good excuse for why I’d left the house half-naked. I thanked the old man and mentioned it was a package I’d been waiting on for a while, then took off at a faster pace towards the front.

The more I walked, the calmer I got. I’d gone through normal interaction with someone and hadn’t seen or felt anything strange.

All I needed to do now was to get outside, get the package and get back inside. Once I did that, I would call Joyce to pick me up and take me to her doctor for a checkup. I was in talks for a prospective job with a large brand so I couldn’t risk having news of my hospitalization spread out, but I would not put myself and others at risk for a job.

By now I’d at least confirmed that the earlier hallucination was over and done with.

The winter wind battered against my skin as I stepped outside, and I realized how poor of a decision it had been to not return to my apartment and put on a coat. I ran out to the mailbox, a large metal contraption that held every person in the apartment’s mail. My box, number 14, occupied and was lit up in a neon green color. My keys jingles as I fished them out of my left pocket and I got my phone out from my right.

I pulled up a picture of my residential ID and presented it to the scanner on the box, then used my keys to open it.

The package wasn’t all that large and I could carry it under my shoulder. I presented the barcode on the box to the scanner and followed up with the one on my phone to confirm I’d received the package.

The mailbox beeped to show the confirmation had gone through and the door automatically swung shut and turned back to a neutral grey colour.

I spent a few more seconds outside, feeling the icy wind nip at my bare skin and the thin layer of snow on the ground crowd around my slippers ad feet. The vague sounds of cars and people chattering in the distance entered my ears, and the smell of industrial living filled my nose.

Yeah, I was solidly grounded in reality now.

My phone buzzed as I crossed the road and I brought it out to check who was calling.

That was when things went wrong.

A car, or more accurately a truck, came barreling down the road with little to no warning. I heard the loud horn erupt from the vehicle as it neared me, but it was too late. I could only close my eyes and felt the impact of the car ram into my body.

Or rather… I didn’t.

It was an out-of-body experience that was difficult to describe. I felt the car hit me, but the pain was muted and nowhere near what I should have been feeling. My body flew through the air from the impact and I was sent toward the mailbox I’d just left.

I had the state of mind to brace for the impact, but as was a common trend this morning, I just kept waiting.

Opening my eyes was a redundant move since I knew what I would see, but I needed to confirm it for myself. My right eyelid had always been slightly lighter than my left and opened mere nanoseconds before the other, but the visual information it sent to my brain was enough to make me wish I’d kept the other closed.

I was currently floating over the top of the mailbox and my feet would occasionally this against its metal top.

The truck that had hit me was long gone by now, as the driver hadn’t been able to get it under control. Or maybe he had gotten it under control but hadn’t wanted to take the charge of vehicular manslaughter.

The street was empty, but I knew people would head out soon enough to see the damage the runaway truck had caused.

My phone still rang loudly, as a testament to how quickly it had all happened. My body moved on autopilot as my mind froze in shock, fear and a sizeable amount of relief.

I felt myself get down to the ground, felt the wet cardboard of the broken up package and walked back into the apartment.

My phone finally stopped ringing, and it was silent… really, really silent.

I brought it out of my pocket and dialled the first number on my contact list, the only person I could somehow think to call at the moment.

The call rang once, and then twice before it connected. A light voice, made rough by a lack of sleep, came out of the phone.

“What is it, love? It’s unlike you to call so early, what’s wrong?”

My heartbeat, which had been beating faster than it ever had, slowed down and my trembling hands, which made the phone vibrate against my face slightly calmed. Her use of the endearment, which I usually disliked, helped calm me down.

“What? Can’t a guy call his girlfriend without anything being wrong?”

Although I tried to play it off as a joke, she picked up on how weak my voice sounded, and I could hear her sheets rustle as she got up. She’d probably still been asleep.

“Where are you now? I’ll send a car. Do you need a doctor? No, I’ll get a doctor, anyway. Get inside and stay completely still.”

I hadn’t even said anything, but she was already making plans to hospitalize me. I usually hated how she’d tended to overreact, but was super grateful for that tendency now.

“I’m at home.”

“Wow, you aren’t even yelling at me to calm down. Things must be serious. Is it…”

She trailed off for a second before switching her question.

“You’re dressed, right? I’m sending a driver to you now; I’ll text you when they get there. I’m going to hang up now so I can get dressed. We’ll talk later.”

The phone’s screed dimmed as the call ended and it left me feeling disoriented, but calmer than before.

My body moved on autopilot as I went back to my apartment and got dressed. My mind was blank as I moved and went back to the entrance of the building.

She said we would talk later, but where would I even start?

Hey, I got hit by a truck going at over seventy miles an hour but made out without so much as a scratch on myself, and oh, I also think I can fly?

But then again, others may not believe it, but she would.

She’d always carried, for lack of a better term, an obsession for the supernatural.

It didn’t matter in what aspect, from ghosts to gods and back down to superheroes. I’d tried asking why this was, but aside from a few short stories about living with her grandfather, she hadn’t directly responded.

A nice car that was worth over ten of me pulled up to the front of the building and a heavy-set woman stepped out of it. She dressed in a stocky black suit and had on a pair of dark shades, despite it being a cloudy day.

“Mr. Cyrus?”

Her unusually high-pitched voice called out my name in a question and I stepped out in response.

“Ms. Knightly sent for you. The destination is about twenty minutes away. Is there anything you’ll need on the way there?”

This wasn’t the first time Joyce had sent me a driver, but I could never get used to how formal they were.

“No- no, that’ll be fine.”

She nodded in response and opened the door for me before I could do it myself. Feeling uncomfortable, but not wanting to inconvenience the woman that was just doing her job, I said, ‘thank you’ and got into the vehicle.

Once again, she nodded in response and quickly made her way into the drivers’ seat.

My heart raced as I heard the engine roar and it forced me to remember the events of before. I felt my butt slightly lift out of the seat and my legs hovered off the floor, but thankfully the seatbelt kept it from being too obvious.

I tried my best to calm down and kept my hands on the handle of the door in an attempt to pull myself back down.

“Are you okay back there, Mr. Cyrus? Would you like me to slow down?”

She must have noticed the panicked expression on my face and offered to slow down the car, but I quickly shook my head. The quicker we reached the destination, the quicker I could get out of what felt like a mobile deathtrap.

“Oh? Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.”

We spent the rest of the ride in silence except for the occasional apology when the car rode over a bump.

I looked out the window and anxiously tried to succumb to gravity again. This was going to be a long ride.