Roll With It Short Stories

Day Twenty

Word Count 10: 1000

Prompt 6: You've lived a relatively normal life, but lately you've been having overwhelming urges that are disconcerting.

My life is over and it's all because Vanessa sat in front of me in class. I don't know how or what exactly is happening to me, but I know its her fault. Vanessa Graham was in my Engineering program and in most of my classes. In the beginning of the year she was a happy, sociable girl and she was well-liked by most people. Over the course of time, however, she began to act oddly and eventually it all culminated in her death. Most people believe the stress of school and working got to her. There were all kinds of rumors and theories but I never paid them any mind. She had been a girl in my class and, unfortunately, now she was gone. I had never really spoken to her and had only vaguely noticed the changes in her. If she had not been seated in front of me in physics, I might not have recognized what was happening to her, and now to me, at all. I began to write our encounters down as I remembered what had happened, they didn't come to me chronologically, some incidents were more subtle than others that I didn't think them related at first. Now I question everything.

I recall that one day her hair was oily and unkempt but it was the way she kept running her fingers in hair was what I found disturbing. She would slide her hands up her neck and push her fingers into her hair and then twist the locks around them, pulling and then releasing them to let he hands slide back down. She did this throughout the class and I could see the redness building around the roots from the tension. I had thought about asking her what was wrong but as I had come closer I had seen her staring wide eyed at the desk and her lips moving fast. I remember a number of students whispering to the teacher about her and thought it would be taken care of.

There was one time in class where she had began to rapidly call out the answers in class, before our professor had a chance to ask them. She would yell a phrase or word and sure enough it would be the answer to a question he would ask several moments later. He scolded her for speaking out of turn but she continued. Our teacher began to get a puzzled look on his face and went over to his book and began to flip through random pages. He asked her a question and she would answer him, after a few more times she began to say the answers before he had turned the page. Eventually his face paled, he closed the book and asked if Vanessa would like to take a moment to collect herself. At this point I realized she had been becoming more upset as she answered, her voice trembling. When she turned to collect her things I saw she had been crying.

There was another time when I had seen her out of class, she was bent down beside some grass. I wasn't sure what she was doing but it was hot outside and she had been squatting for a while. She saw my shadow and swiftly looked up at me, there was grass stuck to the side of her lip and bare patches of dirt in the ground.She ran off telling me she was fine.

Once I saw her pick up someone's phone and a long line of blue, which I guess was a stream of electricity, stretched from her chest to the phone. Once it broke contact with her it was gone.

I remember at least twice I had seen her scribbling in her notebook and not even attempting to pay attention to the lesson. I walked by her desk one of these times and she grabbed my arm. She held tightly, keeping our faces locked and asked if I could see her. I figured she was high and told her yes. She asked what day it was before I pulled myself free. It was the 4th of February.

The other encounters are mostly inane and only matter to me. They are things that I agonize over and wonder if they matter at all. A few days after Vanessa died I woke up to May 4th. I began my day like any other; I went to class, saw my friends, and came home. When I awoke the next morning it was May 4th. I thought I was mistaken and went to class for the same lesson and saw my friends to hear the same conversation and came home and thought I had psychically dreamed the whole day. I woke up again to May 4th.

Everyday I am compelled to do the same routine, when I try to deviate I feel dizzy until I return to my path. The longer I stray the sicker I become, feeling that I will be crushed. I don't have to do the same things, I can say different things, I can wear different clothes, I can buy different food. I just need to be in the same location as the day before at the correct times. I've been pushing myself more and more to alter things, to free me from this cycle and the more I do the stranger things become. No one notices the date but me. I think about Vanessa and how she asked me the date. I think about how long it really took for her to change. It feels like one day she was normal and then she wasn't and then she was dead. How long had she been trapped, how long before she had gone insane. The date hadn't changed but we had been able to see the changes in her.

I killed someone today. I stabbed them and then the next day they said hello to me. I wonder if my memories are false, if Vanessa somehow infected me, if this is all a simulation or if I'm in hell. I begin to think my memories, my encounters are all the same day and she found a way to break the cycle. She killed herself and time went on, that's what I feel. Vanessa was found dead of exhaustion in her dorm room. She had missed class and I wondered if her deviating from the path is what did her in. I haven't given up, I will keep deviating until someone notices, until I can get out without ending up like Vanessa.