What if

It didn’t hit her all at once.

The first minute, it suddenly got extremely hard to breathe. She felt like everything in her was compressed and couldn’t move.

Everything around her became a blurred vision of nothingness. She tried to sit straight but something pulled her down and suddenly she couldn’t feel her legs. Her hands were numb and she was shivering. She felt like someone had clutched her throat and wouldn’t let go.

Her mind was a disarray of shattered thoughts. She tried hard to lean back against the couch, putting all the energy that remained in her to keep her body still. A piercing pain shot through her head as her whole life flashed in front of her eyes. Her first words, first steps that she wasn’t even able to remember till then. Her first friend, the first time she stepped into her school, the first time she met him, the first time she saw her leave – just like that, in front of her eyes, the first time she learned to recover from everything she had been through and then, she was sucked down into a black abyss.

She wanted to scream and yell but it was all in vain. Her throat was burning and her eyes shed tears. She felt like everything in her was being ripped apart, she was helpless. She felt it all at once. The pain, the fear, the agony, the hatred, the regret, the guilt, the stress, the emptiness, the love….. and then, she could feel nothing at all.

She opened her eyes. She sat up straight. She looked around to see herself sitting on the yellow, striped sheets she washed the day before, her picture on her nightstand, her book next to it.

What happened? Was it all a dream? It felt so real. Huh. She wished never to have a dream like that again as it shook her to a great extent. She then pulled her covers back on her and drifted back into a dreamless sleep.

Meanwhile, her friends who had come to visit her, found her on the floor in front of the couch. All her colour drained out and her charming smile gone. They approached her with immense grief and sorrow. Her body was limp and lay motionless.

What if that’s it? What if your whole life is just a dream? And when you wake up, you die. But that’s all it is for me- WHAT IF…

(image cred: youreadmymind)