The world felt like it had tipped on its axis, swaying as she moved, stumbled, around.

 It was a strange feeling really. She’d never experienced it before, at least to this extent, but all she knew was that her head felt like it was full of buzzing static, like the sizzling sound of a live wire, and she couldn’t feel her feet below her.

Her hands trembled terribly, unable to stop, the tremors migrating up her arms around throughout her body, a tidal wave in the ocean’s worst storms.

She moved without thinking, without processing where she was, but she knew that she needed to leave, to go anywhere but where she was, but the world was only a blur, a smear on a painting. Where. Was. She?

She felt as if she were watching herself move, a stranger through a looking glass, a character on the other side of the screen. And it would’ve been comical watching her stumble around like a drunk if her chest didn’t feel so tight and her stomach hadn’t been churning.

And she blinked, and the world of dizzy spells and blurs passed. She was in a new place, far away, where a siren blasted in her ears and blue and red lights flashed in her peripheral vision. And she faintly became aware of the cold, night air clinging to her bare legs, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She wiped at her dry eyes, yet her mascara came back smeared, as if she had been crying. Had she? The girl looked around. She didn’t remember this many people, didn’t remember walking outside, or it being this dark outside.

“Miss?” She looked up to see what appeared to be a police officer standing above her, looking serious, and yet his eyes flooded with concern. “Ma’am are you with me?”

In that moment she couldn’t seem to find her voice, so she just nodded.

“Miss, I need you to tell me everything you can remember.”

The woman looked up at the officer, his face slightly fuzzy around the edges, then looked to his side, where a paramedic was discussing something with him, but their words sounded like the parents in a Charlie Brown show; distorted and bleak, incomprehensible.

“Miss. Miss, are you still with me?”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice scratchy and strained, “I am.”

“Can you tell me all that you can remember?” He questioned again.

“I don’t… I don’t remember anything.” Her brows scrunched in concentration. “It’s all just a blur… Like…”

“A blackout,” the paramedic asked for her, his eyes filled with that same look of worry and pity as the police officer.

“Yes,” she nodded, her voice almost dreamy, “A blackout.”

The two looked at each other, then looked back at her. “Ma’am,” the officer said softly, “I think you need to come with us.”