"Okay, now we're going to turn onto this on-ramp and keep a constant speed. Try to match the traffic that's coming up on the left, but remember that those already on the highway have the right of way."
Norman nodded and gripped his hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel. He'd been fearing this test ever since his dad had signed him up for driving classes. He didn't even want his license. He would have been perfectly content with biking to every destination he needed to go to for the rest of his life. This was really just another attempt at his dad trying to help him feel "normal". The one thing his father hadn't understood was that not being "normal" was a major reason as to why he didn't want to get his license in the first place. He knew this was going to end horribly and yet here he was driving onto the highway with a teacher sitting in the passenger seat, fully equip with only the ability to stop the vehicle. As far as Norman knew, that might actually come in handy.
Norman could see the glow as soon as he reached the middle of the on-ramp. Usually during family car rides, he tried to find routes for his parents to take that avoided the highway. When the highway was inevitable, Norman would sleep or read or generally look at anything that wasn't the road. However, driving was a whole different matter. He had nothing to look at but the road. He felt his stomach lurch as he neared the end of the ramp.
Green light flooded his vision instantly. His eyes darted back and forth between the road and his mirrors in an attempt to pick out the colors of passing cars. Deer, raccoons, squirrels, foxes, bears, and even some moose were wandering aimlessly through the cars that wove their way down the interstate. Norman had to focus extremely hard just to see through the thick green fog.
"Ease up on the break there, Norman. You have to merge with the traffic coming up on the left."
Norman knew that his instructor talking, but he couldn't register anything more than that as he focused on the green creatures surrounding him. Focus. Focus. FOCUS. It seemed to be working. All of the animals began melting into a singular haze, their opacity leaving their bodies as his focus grew. He had roughly ten seconds to revel in this accomplishment before his blood ran cold. The energy of the animals began rolling across the highway like sand in high winds, but that wasn't even the worst of it. Wandering through the fog were hundreds of ghosts. Human ghosts. Some wore old worker's clothes that he guessed were from the late 1800's, some wore suits and top hats, but most, Norman eerily noted, were wearing modern clothes; jeans, t-shirts, jackets, blazers, sneakers, hoodies. Each ghost varied in their wounds, but it was obvious that the workers looked ill whilst the more modern ghosts looked, well, dead. Bones were broken, shirts were torn, limbs were missing. But most importantly, every ghost on the road, regardless of their wounds, looked lost.
Like the animals, they were all wandering through cars, eyes downcast, shuffling slowly as if they were trying to go somewhere but couldn't be sure as to where.
"Um," Norman said, apparently cutting off his instructor that he'd tuned out minutes ago, "I-I don't think I can do this."
"What do you mean you can't-"
Norman immediately swerved to the right, effectively cutting off a car that blared its horn indignantly, and screeched the car to a halt on the shoulder of the highway. "I-I'm sorry, I-" Norman tried to think about how he could best phrase what he was trying to say, but his body decided to betray him and instead opted for breaking out into an awful fit of sobbing.
"I- I can't see-" he managed to say between ragged breaths.
His instructor looked at him worriedly, "You can't see? Quickly," the teacher motioned to switch places, "I'll take you to the hospital and-"
Norman cupped his head in his shaking hands. "N-no, it's not like that. I can see, it's just, I can't see what I need to. I can't see the road, I can only see them." He gestured outward towards the lanes of roaring traffic.
"Them?" The instructor started to write something down in the regulation notebook. "The cars, you mean?"
Norman shook his head violently. "No! Them. The ghosts. The people, the animals, all of it. I can't see past them." He was shaking even harder now, pressing his elbows into his knees for support. If his pulse weren't pounding in his ears, he'd be able to hear the confused spectral chaos outside crystal clear. As if to counter that possibility, his body convulsed in another bout of ragged sobs.
"I-I'm sorry," he finally said, trying to tame his breathing, "I- Can you drive me back?"
His instructor gave him a worried glance before opening the door and re-situating them both into each other's seats. "Okay, Norman, you don't have to drive back. Just focus on calming down."
The boy nodded and for once was grateful that everyone in Blithe Hollow knew about his ability. It was rare for people to care about it in any positive way, but he was appreciative that his instructor hadn't pried or told him to suck it up and drive. Norman spent the next half hour watching his shoes with a seemingly intense interest as he ignored the dozens of lost souls floating in and around the car.