Paranormal Perspectives - PARA NORMALITY

      

By Kieran Stanislaw Mace

Chapter One An Abrupt Introduction   This is how deep the rabbit hole goes. Much like the scene in the film The Matrix when Morpheus presents Neo with the blue and red pill, I pretty much took the red pill and the blue pill, then stole his cool leather coat and sunglasses and flew into the sunset.     I was 5 years old, a normal kid living in Oxford, England, with my mum and dad. I had a good life and good times that seem rare in retrospect. Everything was okay, everyone I loved was alive, everything made me smile. I would play with my friends at their houses, spend time with them at the public swimming pools, and visit my Nonna’s house to make ravioli and various eye-watering soups. I would often visit my family in Sardinia at that time. I remember spending a lot of time with them at the beach, the beautiful foods that my aunt would not stop feeding me, watering flowers and the driveway with my uncles, collecting crabs from the sea, rusty Fiat car trips around the mountains, and the famous Casu Martsu cheese lumped on the family table (an infamous local delicacy in which the cheese flavour was heightened with live maggots). Life was good; I was living La Dolce Vita, if you will.     This is the sad bit, so bear with me; it is all here for a reason.     It was spring in 1990. My mum and I were walking down a road in Oxford City on the way to visit my Nonna’s flat (affectionately named ‘Nana Cookin’, as she was always cooking). She lived in a tiny flat next to a lake. We often visited her, and I usually stayed overnight. I was always excited to see her because she always saw me like she knew my soul, knowing my words before I even spoke, I always felt at peace with heR      My mum and I reached a crossing and pressed the button to cross. The light turned green for pedestrians, which I knew at that age was the safe colour to cross, and we made our way across the road. I was two steps ahead; I knew the walk well, and that crossing was one I had crossed many times before.     I was enjoying the sun and listening to the birds amongst the sound of combustion engine cacophony. I began to think about Nonna and what we were going to do that day, hoping we might make ravioli, then suddenly I heard a woman’s disembodied voice say in my right ear, ‘You should not be here’. Then, everything went black.     I don’t know how long I was unconscious for, but all I could see was darkness as I stood in an empty void. I awoke on the other side of the road, by the side of the curb, laying down. People surrounded me, but all I saw was a ring of blurry faces. I tried to move my legs, but they wouldn’t budge. They felt like jelly and told me to stay still. I was confused as I saw the bloody mess of my body.     It felt like a million broken shards of glass as the excruciating pain cut like a knife through my nerves, and I began to panic. I could see my mum was with me as other members of the public consoled her and called for an ambulance. I remember that the circle of people looking down at me returned, their shocked faces visibly shouting at me, but I could hear nothing. Apparently, a driver ran a red light, hit me head on at speed, then tried to escape the scene. The driver was apprehended with force by the public. Thankfully, the car missed my mum.     I was rushed to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, about a thirty-minute drive at speed from the roadside. That was one of the most painful rides I have ever taken. Every turn felt like I was wearing trousers made of knives and my legs bent like rubber with each turn.     Now, as a parent to two children, I realise how brutal it is that a child should experience that, and my story is sadly not  unique. I hold my kids tight today with gratitude, thankful they have never experienced something like that.     The ambulance team made it to the emergency entrance of the John Radcliffe Hospital and I was rushed into intensive care, where I endured multiple emergency surgeries. Most periods between operations were a blur; fuzzy silhouettes surrounded me, sounds echoed with the clink of the metal of medical equipment, and doctors murmured, discussing the procedures. I was drugged up to stem the pain and sustain the body, but it still hurt more than I can describe.     Then, I woke up.     I was in a hospital hallway. I was confused, but the pain was gone and I was standing again. I was surprised to find that my legs were okay. I looked at the wall, which was solid yet translucent, and I knew something wasn’t right. The world was not in grayscale, as I could still see some colours, but light wasn’t working in the way I had known it to and the colours were not ones I knew. It was intimidating. I was only a small kid, so everything seemed to leer over me.     I looked up to see nurses pacing the corridors and reached up to pull at their dresses to get their attention, but they did not respond. I walked along the corridor calling out for help. I looked through the doorways in the hall and saw patients in their beds. Some of them were smiling, some sleeping, and some in a bad way. I kept waving at one boy in particular, as I had a fleeting sense he could see me, but he did not. Crestfallen, I walked further down a corridor that stretched out beyond my sight.     It felt like I was walking for seconds or days or years or centuries… time began to strip away. The corridor came to an end, and a room reached out to me at the end of the darkness, just out of my sight. I saw a tattered wooden door with a pane of glass in it, paint peeling in patterned branches from its wooden surface. I could scarcely make out objects behind the glass, as they were distorted in the texture of the pane.     The door ‘called’ out to me as it opened into a small, unassuming room. It had empty walls on the left and front, dirty with fingerprints and grey stains, and with empty metal coat hooks waiting to be used. To the right was a wall full of holes with multiple deep openings. I was trying to make out the details of the wall when, suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the feeling of what I best can describe as an entity.     It felt like an endless being I could barely comprehend, but somehow I knew it was infinite and that it knew me. I met something I had not met before, yet I knew it as well. Old and ageless, it was indifferent to my existence. It seemed to strip away time like layers of paint as it showed me an endless expanse of universe. Everything flowed to me at incredible speed — lights, colours, and memories of a place I did not understand. I found myself in different places. One I can recall was an alleyway in a city, where I landed on the ground as if I had been flying. The alleyway was old and decrepit, cracked and dirty, with bushes on either side and metal mesh walls. A group of teenagers with their hoods up stood on either side of the narrow walkway. One turned to look at me as if startled. I was ejected from that moment and zoomed back to the hospital room, then again back and forth, experiencing other places. It was too much for my young mind. Overwhelmed, I realised I could not scream as I tried to release my explosion of fear. With all hope lost, I thought of my mum as I gave up, then suddenly I woke up again. When I came to, I was confused, numb even, as I was encased in various casts with metal poking from my legs to support fractures. I was a good impression of someone who had grappled with and lost to a roll of toilet paper, as my bindings were everywhere. At first, I could not remember the experience clearly and assumed it was a dream. I was still on various drugs to stem the infections and pain, so maybe that was an influence. Days later, I stabilised more, and I became more alert. I could see my mum’s face, looking relieved yet exhausted; that was when I knew I was back home in our world, but it didn’t feel the same as it was before.     This is the bit where I would like to imagine a 1980s-style montage with cool music, bandanas, and bum bags, showing active progression and ending with a group of friends high-fiving or fist pumping at the top of a flight of stairs at sunset. In reality, it was a gruelling few weeks to stabilise and stem infections, involving countless injections, tearing bandages and adding new ones, reconnecting bones, and learning how to walk again. More time passed, and I was feeling less pain, able to move my arms again, and feeling a bit more positive. That was largely thanks to the incredible doctors, nurses, and my Mum, who was always at my side keeping my spirits up.   First published in 2026 by 6th Books, an imprint of Collective Ink Ltd Link to preorder/purchase : https://https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/6th-books/our-books/paranormal-perspectives-paranormality