Mias Metanoia

By Neeraja Janardhan (12K) & Aditya Chowdhary (11G)

Humming at the music, Mia walked down the road until she reached her worst nightmare in seconds with everything going dark in front of her eyes. She woke up in the hospital the next morning with 20 stitches on her face. ‘Dear God’, Mia gasped. She looked at herself and said to no-one but herself that she was going to have a scar on her face, and it was going to look too horrible. But what happened yesterday? The last thing she recalled was walking down the road and then, boom! nothing. 

‘I feel strange,’ said Mia, ‘but I can’t point out the difference in particular.’

She couldn't tell whether the odd feeling was good or evil; in a state of uncertainty, she paid her bills and returned home. ‘Never mind about making coffee,’ Mia muttered. She decided to continue with her daily activities; cooking and playing with her dog Hazel and going to work.

Work was a nightmare. Everyone kept commenting on the scar the stitches had left on her face. One of her good friends came up to her and told her in private that a random walker had found her passed out on the ground, with blood around her and called the ambulance. However, when the ambulance got to her, there was no one else to be seen. He said the scary part was that there was a moment when all the doctors had believed that she had died, and she had been declared dead. Then suddenly, she had sat up in her hospital bed, screaming like she was seeing her nightmare over and over and again, and at that point, in the light of the lamp, everybody could see a shadow cover part of her face, making a symbol that was not recognised by anyone, even the police.

Mia was petrified listening to the things her friend, George, had told her. She wondered what had happened to the man who rescued her, and why he disappeared. Mia hurried to the spot where the accident occurred and looked for CCTV cameras to get a picture of the person who rescued her. Luckily, she noticed a camera, but it was a traffic police camera, so she had to think of a way to get access to the video. 

As a journalist, Mia had some connection with the police but, more importantly, she had a very close friend working in the department, so she thought of reaching out to him. She did, and actually got the video, but when she saw the video, she noticed something strange; something very unusual. Nobody was standing behind her in the video, at least in the videos she couldn’t see someone standing and calling the ambulance, so she wondered how this could have happened. Mia was in a dilemma and wondered whether George was telling the truth or just playing it out because George wasn't a guy who could be trusted. Yet to clarify, Mia hurried to the hospital and…

She was about to enter, but the moment she stepped through the gate, the entire world seemed to become pitch black again. However, she didn’t lose consciousness this time. She took out her torch from her purse and turned it on, but it didn’t do anything to eliminate the darkness in any way. She tried to take another step forward but was unable to, due to the gale-force wind rushing at her. The wind intensified and she could feel herself being pushed back and away from the gate. A few moments later the light filtered back into her eyes, and she could see again. Looking at the very confused faces of the people near her, she deduced that she was not the only one who had experienced the strange black out this time. She turned around and screamed.

And kept screaming until her mouth went dry. ‘That’s uncomfortable,’ muttered Mia. 

‘Mia… Miaaaaaaaaaaaa,’ she heard a voice shout her name. 

Splash! Her face was suddenly drenched with water. 

Her mum.

Yelling at her to get out of bed. 

‘Oh, my God! What happened to you, Mia? Your face is bleeding!’

THE END