Please Help. I Think My Life Is Rendering The Environment Around Me Because It’s Glitching.
By K. Molina
Let me start out by saying that it started out very small. It was really easy to be dismissed as a trick of the eye or lighting, so I merely ignored it. I’m also not really sure if this is the right subreddit for this, so please let me know. I’d really like your advice on this one. Last Saturday night as my boyfriend was driving me home, I noticed a mailbox ‘appear’ on my side of the road. On nights when he drives, I usually just stare out the window at the houses passing by. So it’s not like I looked away and got spooked by a mailbox, no. I was staring right at the sidewalk and then it was just there. I told my boyfriend about it as it happened and he explained that it was probably just the headlights shining on it and that it was night time. No need to worry here, so I didn’t. For the next few days, nothing happened and it was forgotten.
On Wednesday morning it happened again, only bigger. Now my house has two front doors. One gives entry to the front porch and the second into my actual house. Admittedly, I was exhausted. It was 6:30 a.m. and I had closed the night before with a terrible coworker who knew next to nothing after a month of training. Anyway, I stepped out the front door, yogurt in hand and spoon hanging from my mouth, and froze. For a good minute I could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong. Everything looked shifted slightly, and too high up. I debated going back in the house to close and reopen the door, but instead I just stepped down what should have been a step and fell. I wasn’t on the floor or anything. It was more like when you walk down the stairs and expect the next step to be there and it isn’t. I lost my balance and ended up dropping my spoon on the floor. I nearly caught it, but I’m still deciding whether or not I’m glad I didn’t.
When the spoon hit the floor, so did I. The front porch that wasn’t there before stuttered into view and I just let out a loud, “Huh?” It literally looked as if my front porch “loaded” once my spoon fell. I immediately called my boyfriend, who wasn’t very happy I called him so early in the morning. He’s an avid gamer and usually falls asleep around 3 to 4 a.m. after playing EVE or XCOM. Needless to say, he was grumpy as hell, but instantly perked up once I told him what happened. He proceeded to joke around that it sounded like I was in a video game, as it sounded like what was happening was something called Render Distance. He explained that in games, in any given space, only a certain amount of area loads and as you progress further, the rest of the world appears. He also joked, “Maybe you glitched through the map,” and laughed sleepily.
“You’re really not helping, Z.” I wanted to talk to him more about it, but hung up when I heard him snoring. “Of course.”
I didn’t pay any more mind to what happened and went to work. Honestly, I felt off the entire day, and couldn’t really concentrate. I was tripping over empty space and dropping people’s change on the counter instead of placing it in their hands. Once the day was done, I immediately passed out and again, forgot about the incident. There were too many other problems in my life that had me stressed out, and I really didn’t need to add the possibility of me losing it to the list. For the rest of the week though, I strongly considered visiting an optometrist but alas, who can afford eye care right now? Certainly not me.
Well, yesterday it happened again and it almost got me killed. I was driving mid-day to visit my friend for his birthday. He lives in a densely wooded area about thirty minutes south of my home. I’ve never had any problem driving there, as the roads were usually pretty empty. About twenty minutes into the drive, I reached a sharp bend in the road and slammed on my breaks. A deer leaped in front of my car and never landed. I swear I’ve never felt such anxiety and terror in my life. I hate driving alone so far and I would never forgive myself if I killed an animal. But when everything stopped, I started sobbing. I remember whispering, “What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?” to myself before snapping out of it. I parked on the side and put my hazards on, before getting out of my car (which was already on its last legs and will probably die sometime soon).
I walked around the front of the car and rubbed my eyes, making sure I was seeing things correctly. It was then that I noticed a heavy fog around the bend. I could not see a damn thing, and wondered how in the world I didn’t notice it before. I ran towards it and was met with an invisible wall. I couldn’t step forward. I tried punching, kicking, and pushing it but nothing worked. By then I was convinced that I was hallucinating and was about to call the police to escort me to a hospital and get my vehicle out of there, because obviously I was in no condition to be driving.
I called and heard the operator on the other line as a black Hyundai sped past me. I watched it in silence, hoping that they’d see what I’d see and confirm that I wasn’t seeing things. Instead, his car drove straight into the deer that had unfroze and landed. His car spun around wildly as he slammed his breaks and slid into the speed limit sign just before the bend. It was then that my face was hit with a hard wind and the fog completely disappeared and I could see again. Like the rest of the world got stuck and loaded right in front of my eyes.
“Hello, Miss?” I heard the operator ask. “There’s been an accident.”