It Has Me.

None of them notice. I can’t blame them. I didn’t notice at first. The senselessness crept up on me. But now I can’t feel anything else.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Somewhere, far removed from actual physical sensation, I’m aware of the car vibrating along the poorly constructed tarmac of the motorway. Of Jonathan frantically trying to remember which exit to take. Of Kelly wiping the blood off Liam’s forehead in the backseat. But I cannot actually hear them, see them.

Something else is doing that for me.

My memories feel out of reach. I know we’re fleeing from something. I’m not sure what — the word spirit tries to emerge, but I can’t make the thought tangible.

The others think we’ve escaped. That I can tell. They are panicking, true, but only because they want to get Liam to a hospital. Kelly says something about a concussion. Liam is insisting that he’s fine. Jonathan is breaking the speed limit slightly, which I didn’t believe his piece-of-shit car could do

I haven’t spoken in three minutes, and none of them have noticed.

I didn’t notice.

It started with nothing. Nothingness, rather. Numbness. I assumed I was going into shock. Traumatic experience and all. But it didn’t go away. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. And it sounded wrong. Not in rhythm, but in sound – too small. Like it was being squished under something. I imagined a hand clutched around my heart, squeezing.

Something else banished the image from my mind. That was when I realised. The removal of that thought was too violent to be natural. The thought of the spirit doing so was banished before I could think it.

And I ought to have been scared. But I think the fear was taken first. Instead, I’m just sitting here, in the passenger seat of Jonathan’s rusty old car, hearing my heartbeat in my ears and wishing the others would notice. I can’t move. I can’t scream. I don’t even want to scream. I don’t want to not scream either. I don’t want anything. I can’t feel anything.

There is still some practicality left. I should scream, shout, do something, anything, because my friends are in danger. The should echoes around inside me like a rallying cry, but there’s no army to answer. I can’t move.

The hand around my heart squeezes, and it hurts.

My skin should crawl.

We were running to the car. Minutes ago. It got me. Whatever it was we were running from got me, and I didn’t even realise.

A spark of fear.

It squeezes. Crushes. I’m not sure if I’m still breathing.

I think that it is. With my lungs.

It reaches.

But it’s my hand that moves.

Its hand.

The hand clasps around the handbrake. Jonathan doesn’t notice. Kelly might – I think she screams.

But there’s no time.

My hand pulls the brake, and the rickety car loses what little traction it had.

I don’t feel the impact.

I think that it does.

 Buddy Ray Deering is a Writer, Actor, Director and General Nuisance from London. They are currently studying at Bangor University, where they have been writing a great deal more than they have been studying — don't tell their lecturers. Aside from scribbled.online they have been published in two anthologies by Wingless Dreamer Publishers, and also written and directed a play for the Rostra Theatre Society. In their free time, they enjoy watching pretentious old films.