2 - Hallucination

“Where’s your next class, Sera Frey?” Crew asked after class.

“W-173,” I said on my way to the door. I knew this guy wouldn’t give up.

“I’ll walk you there.” 

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“It’s no problem. My next class is in the West building too.”

“Right. Because I was so worried about putting you out,” I said sarcastically. 

I couldn’t help but scan the crowd of students for Mr. Finn as we walked through the hallways. I knew the chances were slim that Mr. Finn was here, but maybe it hadn’t just been my imagination. Maybe I saw a real person who just happened to look like Mr. Finn. That would at least tell me I wasn’t having some kind of psychotic break. 

A sea of students fought to get around each other, and I grabbed onto Crew’s shirt so I could walk in his wake. He was a lot bigger than me and could better forge a path through the madness. I couldn’t see much. At five-foot-one-inch, I was considerably shorter than everyone walking by me. I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t spot Mr. Finn by the time we reached my next class. 

“If you need any help with the homework, I’d be glad to tutor you in the backseat of my Corvette,” Crew said, blocking my way to the door and smiling.

“Corvettes don’t have backseats, and I don’t need your help,” I deadpanned. 

“The offer still stands.” 

“No means no, guy.” I took a step to the side to get around him, but he stuck out his arm, guided me over, and trapped me against the wall.

“My name is Crew,” he said as he towered over me.

“I don’t care.”

“Say it.”

“It.” I looked up at him defiantly.

“You little minx,” he said, fighting a smile. “Say my name.”

“Let me go, Crew.” I figured I should just get it over with.

“Mmm,” he purred. “I like the sound of that. Say it again.”

“Crew,” I said in a warning tone. “Let me go.”

He smiled triumphantly and pushed off the wall. 

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

“Whatever.” Hopefully, he would forget I exist by tomorrow.

I stepped into my next class, and all the girls in the room were staring at me. They must have seen me with Crew in the hall. I didn’t need this kind of attention, or any attention, on my first day at a new school.

I chose a desk in the back of the room, sank into it, and waited for the bell to ring.

I searched for Mr. Finn during lunch, just in case, but I didn’t spot him in the overcrowded cafeteria. I needed to stop hoping and accept that I had imagined him. He was dead, just like most people who got close to me. He had only been a hallucination. 

Hoax Files: Hallucinations

Experiencing things that aren’t there: sight, sound, taste, smell, physical sensation. Associated with paranoid schizophrenia, drug use, sleep deprivation, psychosis, neurological disorders, fever, delirium, death of a loved one (seeing the deceased is a normal part of the grieving process), being drunk, epilepsy, narcolepsy, psychotic depression, serious illness (like brain cancer), or when a person is falling asleep (which is normal, like in hypnosis). 

Stages: 1) Hallucinations start. 2) Frequent reality checks. 3) Hallucinations become real to the person. 4) Person builds the hallucinations up, proving and adding to them. 5) Person starts acting on hallucinations, often injuring themselves or others. 

Schools of thought: Hallucinations are real; good/evil spirits and energies exist and exert force on humans, and some hyper-sensitive people actually feel/hear/see these things that most people can’t. A more commonly believed theory is that hallucinations are a break in reality, where people can’t distinguish their internal thoughts and dreams from external reality. Freud: projection of subconscious wishes. Biological Psychologists: brain chemicals cause hallucinations. Some think it’s both: brain chemicals cause hallucinations, and subconscious wishes flavor them.

Entries like that always pop up in my mind. It’s involuntary, like a tick, since my life has always revolved around trying to figure out what keeps showing up and killing the people around me. I’ve spent all my free time researching anything and everything that might give me an edge over whoever is after me, tracking my findings in notebooks I call the Hoax Files. I have a photographic memory, and whenever I think about or come across something I’ve researched, the corresponding entry pops up in my mind. I can’t turn it off.

I fiddled with my necklace through my shirt while I mulled things over in my mind. If I went down the checklist, I fit the bill for most of the symptoms. I knew I was paranoid, but anyone in my situation would be. I regularly gave myself reality checks, so I was at least in stage two, and, considering I’d dreamed of Mr. Finn nearly every night for ten years, it wasn’t a stretch to say my subconscious mind wished he would come save me. 

All that was explainable, understandable, acceptable even, given the circumstances. I had, after all, been through my share of traumatic experiences. The problem was acting on the hallucination. 

I couldn’t make a scene like that again. I couldn’t go chasing after ghosts, running around school when I was supposed to be in class, or showing up late. It drew attention, and that was dangerous.  

So I had to let it go. 

I gave up the search and left the cafeteria halfway through the lunch period. I went to my fourth hour early and sat in the back of the empty room. 

Shortly after I sat down, the classroom door opened, and I instinctively glanced up. I froze as I watched Mr. Finn walk into the room. The Mr. Finn who I had just reconvinced myself was dead. 

He casually walked over to a desk in the middle of the room, slid into the seat, put his head down on the desk, and ignored me like we hadn’t seen an entire school massacred together.