I started rolling around, losing control of my body with every passing second. They were insufferable, but even worse, they were real. They were real people causing me real problems. I wanted to disappear, but I couldn’t, so I was stuck on the rolling on the floor of my parents’ living room, my mind in a worse state than it had ever been.

“Jordan! Jordan!” I heard a voice. It was a female voice, and it was a real voice, not one communicated through some fancy brainwave. It was my mother, but I couldn’t respond in kind. My vision blurred, and with her voice sounding more distant with every passing moment, I slipped into unconsciousness.

I was no longer one with my body. Fixations flashed before my… eyes. Or whatever they were. Moments. Football, people cheering, moments of happiness, moments of sorrow, moments of pain, all one big mess. I tried, desperately, to find a voice that would speak to me, I tried to find one to fixate on and isolate the rest of the mess, but I couldn’t. They were all part of the sea of sounds, no common theme to it.

Where could I go? I was drowning in all of it. The noise, the unbearable noise, so many people existing and trying to find a way to talk to me. Or not talk to me, but talk next to me, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were there. Too real. Too painful. All I wanted was for the giant mess to end…

And then, as quickly as the discord took me over, its grip over me was lifted, and I felt myself back on that wooden floor again.

“What the fuck?” I said.

“You tell us, love,” my father said. “Also, watch your language.”

“I wasn’t here for quite a long while. I didn’t feel like I was in my body at all,” I said, “and then I was suddenly here again.”

“Really?“ he said. “How come?”

“I don’t know. Wait,” I said as an idea flashed in my, now conscious mind. “Did we score? Put it on.”

He turned the television on, and, just as I’d thought, the players in red were wheeling away in celebration of a goal.

“Huh,” I said. The correlation was more than damning.

“What is it, love?” my mother said.

“I have an idea. But I need to sleep on it,” I said. “Come on, let’s watch the game. It’ll give me something else to think about.”

Beer and popcorn at the ready, I found myself enjoying one of the simplest ways in life to spend two hours. Sports tend to have that effect on a person – they’re uniquely simple things in life. There’s a winner and a loser, loss and gain, competition and friendliness. Something so ubiquitous among people, one would almost think they were invented to provide the simple narratives life cannot.

As the game went on and on, I could still hear them. But, somehow, I didn’t care. Between their mass and my ability to hear them, with my mind as well as my ears, we’d reached some strange equilibrium. I was watching the game, and by feeling the same emotions that they did, somehow resonated with them. Their minds could no longer send mine into disarray. I just hoped I wouldn’t be around for when the players had the inevitable bad game.

The final whistle went, and the fans, myself included, roared in celebration of the victory, before dispersing away, one by one. Their thoughts again became more discordant, and I felt it, but, for one reason or another, they didn’t set me off again. My existence agreed with theirs.

For hours after the game, my father and I discussed the intricacies of some of the moves in the game, before agreeing upon the obvious thing that, yes, they did have an excellent game, and it was a well-earned win.

“Well, I think I’m off to bed,” I said.

“Yeah, you need it. And your mam’s going to kill me if I don’t get in bed right now,” he said with a laugh.

What a wonderful man, I thought. Not once did he ask me what the hell had happened before the game began, because he knew I was in no condition to think, or talk about it. All that mattered was the football, and how well the lads had played. Tomorrow was always there. A quick trip to the bathroom later, I crashed into bed and fell asleep.

The next thing I knew was the room was a lot brighter than it should’ve been. Everything was in place, and the sounds of late morning tea being brewed just made their way past the door. Dreamless. That was always a good sign. The last thing I needed was more stimulation.

“Morning,” I said through a yawn as I descended down the stairs.

“Morning, love,” my mother said, my dad being off doing whatever. I’d hoped to talk to him, but I guess mam would have to do. “Tea?”

“Please and thank you,” I said, and only then realised I was starving, and that I hadn’t had real food for quite a while. The clock read ten, and I wondered how I’d managed to stay in dreamless sleep for so long.

I made myself some simple breakfast, and once I’d scoffed it to no small amount of complaint, I embraced the warm mug, my mind fully conscious, but stirring. This conversation had to happen, and it was coming for no small time.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“Yes, we do,” she said. “Rolling on the floor is very rude.”

“Really, that’s what you’re going with?”

“No, just a laugh. But really, is this the first time this happened to you?”

“Not really. I had one similar to this on the train up, but nothing quite like this. I was still fully conscious back on the train. This was much stronger, but it had the same… general feeling about it, if you want to call it that?”

“General feeling? What do you mean by that?”

“Same idea. Same trigger, I suppose. I realise this is going to sound incredibly stupid, but I can feel the presence of people.”

“What?”

“What what?”

“Feel their presence, what are you on about?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t call it hearing their thoughts, because it’s not, it’s more like, I don’t know, feeling what they feel. Being in tune with them. I know it sounds ridiculous. I’m sorry.”

“I suppose I understand. When did it start?”

“When I was on the op table. When I felt Aaron.”

“And you’ve had panic attacks just from being around people since they’ve done that thing to you.” Her voice started trembling, and her eyes teared up.  “You listen to me, Jordan, you’ll never let them do anything that’s not tested, and peer-reviewed, and approved, on you, ever again, understand?”

“First, I’m 25, and second, you need to calm down because I’m not done.”

“Alright,” she said with no small hint of embellishment. “What is it?”

“It only seemed to set me off while their thoughts were discordant. When they all thought their own things. I came back to consciousness once we scored, and I don’t think it was a coincidence.”

“Why?”

“Everyone’s happy when they score. Nothing to disagree with there.”

“Yeah, what’s that got to do with anything?”

“When they were discordant and diverging, I felt them all,” I said as her eyes widened, “but when they were all happy, as a unit, I felt their collective happiness. As if they’d created something greater than the sum of its parts. Something with a common theme. Something I could fixate on.”

“I love you,” she said, “but do you have any idea how ridiculous this sounds?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve only been coping with it for days, and I think it’s absolutely crazy, and it’s probably going to kill me.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry. But I need to get to the bottom of this. I need to know how this is happening. If there’s anything I can do with it. If I can control it, stop it or use it. And I need to find Aaron.”

“Why’s he special?”

“Because he was the first, and the only one I spoke to while under,” I said. “He and I need to work together. Maybe that way, something can come out of this.”

She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I’ve never seen you this driven towards anything. I suppose you are right, and you really can feel people. I think it’s absolutely crazy, and that no-one should’ve ever done that to my daughter, but if this is what your life is now, there’s nothing I can do about it. My daughter is some sort of medium now.”

She put her face in her hands, and left me with little choice than to hug her, and notice that she was crying.

“Mum, it’s alright. I’ll come out stronger. Trust me.”

“I just don’t want to lose you,” she said through her whimpers. “Not again.”

Not again, she said. Those little words rang harder than anything else. She still remembered the day my heart stopped. “How often?” I said.

“Every day,” she said.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” she said. “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry for lashing out at you because you agreed. You had to, obviously. Just… promise me one thing.”

“I’m listening.”

“When you do get to the bottom of this, I would like to still have my daughter,” she said.

“I promise.”

“Thank you.”

We sat in silence as I finally got to drinking my tea, and many unspoken sentiments were shared between us, but I was glad that I’d got that conversation out of my system.

“Jordan,” she said, breaking the silence, “can I ask one thing of you?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Would you like to spend the week with me? It’s been so long since we’ve spent meaningful time together, and I would like that back. Please?”

“Alright,” I said. “But I’m leaving before the next football game.”