A Bad Hair Day

Kara Bellamy awoke to the sounds of yelling. Shaking the mugginess of sleep from her psyche, Kara sat up in bed and glanced absently at her alarm clock. In bright red neon lights, the time 8:54 blinked at her. Screaming silently, Kara’s cool grey eyes widened. She was so late. Throwing off the covers, Kara leapt out of bed and made a mad dash to the bathroom.

“I don’t care for your excuses!” Her mother’s voice cried into her telephone. Her voice travelled up the stairs and to Kara as the young girl ran across the hall again to grab her bag. “That report is to be on my desk by the time I get to work, or its not only his job, but your’s too!”

“Bye Mum.” Kara mumbled as she hurried downstairs and out the door. Kara belted down the pavement towards the bus stop as the hot Australian sun smothered her skin, leaving it warm and pink. As Kara rounded the corner, she heard the sound of a large, heavy vehicle driving and looked up to the road. Her bus had already left its stop and was now heading down the other direction.

Groaning in frustration, Kara kicked the side of the bus shelter. Silently moaning as a burst of hot pain shot through her toes, Kara made her way towards the train station, hoping that she wouldn’t be late for the only train that would take her to school on time.

Of course, no such luck. Just as she set foot onto the platform, the train left. Taking in a deep breath, Kara shut her eyes and let her frustration seep out. Turning back towards the bus stop, Kara planned to take the next bus out. She would completely miss out on first period, but she’d make it in time for her second class.

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Walking down the corridor as the bell rang, Kara braced herself for the sudden rush of students. She knew how noisy and crowded the hallways could get between classes, and with her tiny stature, Kara was always pushed about. As the hustle and bustle of ‘tween-class rushes heightened, Kara rushed to her locker. As she pulled her key from her pocket, a burley eleventh grader bumped her shoulder.

Her keys slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. Kara almost screamed. This just wasn’t her day. Suddenly a sharp sensation stunned her body. It began at her chest and spread from there. It wasn’t painful, but abrupt enough to make her squeeze her eyes shut in a hope to clear the feeling that had now spread to her fingers. After opening her eyes, she looked down to the floor. She made a double take as she saw the keys floating between her hand and the floor. What?

It wasn’t really floating, it seemed that the keys were suspended in mid air. They moved ever so slowly, falling to the ground at an incredibly sluggish pace. Kara’s heart paced as she looked up and around. Everyone around her was moving in that odd deliberate pace.

Turning on her heel, Kara scanned her surroundings. There was a strange murkiness to the air, as if, like the people, the molecules of air were moving slowly.

“What the hell?” Kara spoke aloud, her words echoing in the stark emptiness of the hallway. She felt amazingly alone in a hallway full of students. Shaking her head, Kara turned back to her locker and swooped down to snatch up her keys. As she caught the keys in her palm, a dizzying sensation swam in her head.

“Kara?” A worried female voice spoke. Kara snapped back up as she heard the voice.

“Are you okay?” It was a girl from Kara’s history class. “I didn’t see you in history this morning.”

“Oh, yeah.” Kara smiled. “I missed the bus. I better get going.” She hurried down the hall and got to class just in time as her maths teacher called out her name.

“Present.” She called out, skidding into her seat. The teacher glanced at her but let it go, knowing that she had never been tardy before. Sitting in her math class, Kara worked quickly through the calculus.

“Kara, what did you get for the second question?” The teacher asked as he worked through them on the whiteboard. All her classmates turned to her, waiting for the answer. Then suddenly her vision blurred, the numbers on her page swirling in her mind’s eye.

The same wave of dizziness stirred in her once more and Kara blinked, hoping to clear her eyesight.

“Kara?”

“Um, 2079,” She blurted out. Vaguely, she saw the teacher nod and write up her answer on the whiteboard. And then, for just a single heartbeat, everything seemed to slow down. And for that one single heartbeat, Kara could see and hear everything.

She heard the squeaking of the liquid blue marker on the whiteboard. The scratching of pencils to paper as students scribbled out their incorrect answers and rewrote Kara’s answer. The slow, raspy coughing of the student teacher sitting in the back. The slow, deep breaths of every single person in the room.

And once that single heartbeat was finished, everything sped up. Every single thing in the room accelerated. It began getting faster and faster, and soon Kara could not see a thing. There was a huge white flash and she fell to the ground.

But instead of hitting the relatively soft carpeted floor, Kara hit a hard, cold road. She was lying in the middle of the street, rain heavily beating down on her. Fatigue and dizziness wracked her body and her mind. Kara summoned all her strength and attempted to open her eyes. Her gaze met with the stormy blue-grey eyes of a stranger and she passed out. The noise of rain pattering on the concrete and the cars driving by ceased altogether as Kara’s vision blurred to the point where everything faded to a solid grey.