by Sarah Wallbank

I woke up to the sound of raindrops on the roof tiles outside. ‘Another ordinary day,’ I thought as I forced myself to open my eyes. Why didn’t my alarm clock go off? I rolled over to look at the time and fell on the floor. Ouch. I could have sworn I went to sleep on the other side of the bed last night. I cautiously stood up, rubbing my head. I grabbed my towel from the pile of unwashed clothes in the corner of my bedroom and stumbled into the bathroom. A strip of sun was shining brightly through the broken gap in the blinds.

The shower got hot quicker than usual. Someone had taken my favourite lime shower gel and put a crappy orange one in there instead. I turned around to get my flannel and when I went to pick up the bottle it was lime. ‘Oh my god, I’m imagining things. Maybe I drank more than I thought last night?’ But there was no time to think about it; I was late for my first lecture.

I stepped out of the front door and shivered in the chill of the wind. I wrapped my scarf tighter round my neck. There were four buses lined up at the bus stop all displaying the number 15. I went to look at the timetable – it had grown, covering the entire wall, as if it included every bus in the region. Why did they suddenly need so many buses to go down this quiet, residential road? Maybe there was a big event on in town today that I hadn’t heard about.

Two little girls came running down the road. I recognised their face but I’d only ever seen one of them at a time before. I didn’t realise they were identical twins! One was slightly behind the other and had obviously forgotten her school tie. Strangely, she didn’t follow her sister onto the first bus and hopped on to the second bus instead, without even seeming to notice the first.

I hurried down the path to Uni. All of a sudden it was swelteringly hot. The sun was beaming down, redder than I’d ever seen it before. I had to take my scarf off.

As I walked through the gates and the University came into view I was shocked! They had painted the whole library building pink in one night. It couldn’t be a joke – it was done so professionally. And as I walked through campus I noticed all the other buildings had changed colour too. The shop was now turquoise and named ‘Costcutter’, ‘Tesco Express’, ‘Sainsbury’s’ and ‘Morrisons’!

‘What is going on?’ I said out loud. A guy who I recognised from my course answered me.

‘I don’t think they agreed on the takeover bid mate!’ He was wearing a jumper for the University’s Christian Union and his hair was in a neat ponytail instead of his normal mass of dreadlocks. This was odd considering yesterday he was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘10 Reasons Why Religions Suck’ and he’d never uttered a word to me before.

‘I had no idea there was a takeover bid’, I said, confused. All these changes were starting to unnerve me.

*

‘Sorry I’m late’. I entered the lecture hall. There was double the normal number of people, and a few who I’d never seen in the department before.

‘You will be. See me after class,’ replied the professor.

I felt my cheeks pumping tomato juice. Oh dear, he had never had a problem with lateness before. He was always so easygoing. I sat down as quickly as I could and reached into my pocket for my mobile. It wasn’t there. I looked in my bag and sighed with relief; it was there. But so were six others! Phones I had never seen before – all different colours and sizes. I picked one up to see who it could belong to. Hiding it under the desk, I searched through the phonebook. It had all my contacts. It even had all my messages in the inbox. So did all the other phones!

Someone had to be playing a joke on me. I sent a message to my girlfriend (she was still under ‘sweetheart’ in all the phonebooks):

caroline, y hav i got six fones in my bag? do u hav nethin 2 do with this?

She met me after class.

‘There’s something seriously strange going on today. I feel like I’m dreaming’, I said.

She wasn’t listening. She wanted to run down to the Sports Centre to sign up for the gym before it closed for lunch. There were two signs on the door when we got there. One said ‘OPEN’, the other said ‘CLOSED’.

‘Oh no, do you think it’s too late?’ she said, but on trying the door found it opened anyway.

Inside there were hundreds of people milling around. They all looked strangely familiar. There were two redheads on the reception desk, one with her back to us. They were wearing the same flowery shirt and grey, knitted shrug. My girlfriend began to talk to the one facing us and she didn’t notice another, completely identical lady walk through the office door at the back. The third one turned around and walked forward alongside the other. I was astonished. It was the same woman! They were walking exactly in time and both snapped, ‘Can I help you?’ simultaneously.

‘Aghhhh!’ I yelped. I felt like a warm ice cube: frozen to the spot but melting very rapidly. All three women looked up and gave me the same, patronising smile showing their perfect milky-white teeth.

Was I in a dream? I couldn’t handle this overwhelming feeling of disturbance any longer. I ran out the building as fast as I could. I tripped over a flowerpot that hadn’t been there on my way in and I fell flat on my face, my bag spilling its contents all over the floor. Looking up, I saw myself in front of me. Running away. I watched myself jump over a bench but stumble and fall. Then another me materialised and was continuing to run, whilst the fallen one scrambled around trying to pick up the contents of his bag. My bag? I tried to shout at him but my throat was blocked. I couldn’t say a word. My jaw was wide open. In the distance I saw multiple versions of me running off in all different directions. The seconds I watched felt like hours and my body was multiplying itself all the more rapidly.

I felt a tap on my shoulder.

‘Are you alright, darling?’ she said.

Had she not noticed? I cautiously forced my neck to turn. Caroline had grown two heads, four arms and loads of legs. She looked like she’d been merged with another person. I peered behind the forest of legs. There was a string of her bodies in line all the way back to the door, like a sequence of movie stills. But they weren’t still. They were moving.

At that point I fainted.