Disclaimer: I don't own any of the related franchises that might appear here. Whichever ones they may be. -nods-

It always happens on the crowded streets.

Just out of sight. Just out of the corner of my eye. Always, always just dancing on the edge of reality. And then, the second I turn around fully, the very moment I glance over my shoulder, they're gone. Gone. Nothing, nothing but a throng of respectable people hurrying along on the bustling sidewalks. Average people. Normal people.

And I always know that the thing that might have been lurking at the edges of my consciousness, this…abnormality that seems to stalk me every time I walk to school…I know it's gone. That it's disappeared, for now, just because I want to seek it out, to prove to myself that I'm not just paranoid, that I'm not just seeing things. And that's possibly the creepiest thing about the whole thing.

It always happens on the crowded streets.

I don't know when it started. To be honest, I can't rightfully recall exactly when I started noticing these…things. Apparitions. Whatever. I know for sure that it hasn't always been this way, though. I mean, yeah, there was definitely a time when I could think less about traversing a packed sidewalk. I always had more pressing things at hand - I did have a life to be living back then, and still do today.

Perhaps they were always there. I don't know. But there just came this time…this one point where I just happened to look over my shoulder for some reason I can't remember now, and…and I saw something that I knew wasn't supposed to be there. And ever since, no matter how many times I tell myself that it's nothing to worry about, nothing to think about…ever since, it just keeps happening, over and over. I swear it's almost like someone's out to get me…that fate is trying to force me into something I really don't want to get involved in.

When I think about it, it's not exactly something a person should get worked up over. They're always just snatched glimpses, never too clear…stuff that could easily be proven wrong or glossed over. Stuff that a person spots only from the corner of one's eye. Most of it was pretty normal, actually; a red and white baseball cap and a battered yellow backpack, a sailor-style school uniform, a heavy red coat with a black dragon design of some sort emblazoned on the back…the scowling face and orange hair of some teen in passing, a guy with green eyes, black hair, and round glasses waiting at a crosswalk, some short man with a red hat and overalls turning a corner before I could get a proper look at him…yeah, those were normal, easier to ignore while the hairs on the back of your neck stood straight up and goose bumps ran down your arms. But then there were other things, stuff harder to ignore; the tall form of someone garbed in bright green, a blue shield and a glowing blade strapped to his back, flickering just out of my line of vision before I could do a double-take…a short white-haired kid wearing a white overcoat streaking directly over my head, so quickly I couldn't get a second glance to prove to myself that I wasn't going insane…a guy with a red top hat and reflective glasses with orange lensing smiling eerily at me from a restaurant window and leaving me with a sense of dread when I drifted by, glanced back, and realized he had disappeared…a pink-haired girl in equally pink, baggy pants and a white shirt streaking past on a floating broomstick…

Now, you've got to understand, these are split-second glimpses I'm talking about here. Stuff that happens so quickly, passes by so fast, that I can only freeze in the middle of the sidewalk and gawk like a fish out of the water as the things vanish without so much as a puff of smoke, a trace. I've already received plenty of weird looks from pedestrians, and though my friends don't say anything I do believe they think I'm losing it.

I'm rather at a loss here, at this stage of things. Because every morning and every afternoon, when I have to take to those accursed crowded streets…every day, now, I keep on getting more and more of these weird encounters. And they're getting closer. Clearer. …Realer. Even though I still can't really get a good look at them - even though I still can't prove that they're there…it still seems like they're getting nearer every time, with every step on those paths of cracked cement that I now dread so.

And at this point, I'm really getting a nagging feeling that I'm missing something here…like I'm an actor in a play that keeps on trying to unfold, and I'm supposed to do something to get the play initiated and moving…some line I'm supposed to speak that I keep on forgetting. Which is totally weird and preposterous, because stuff like that just doesn't happen in real life.

Ha. Of course not. No way my life could possibly become some sort of…fanfiction. Because sometimes I think I can recognize these blurs - that I've seen them as images in popular media. Television. Video games. Stuff.

And that's impossible, because this poor old world obsessed with its religion and science and politics…this place we know as the one and only reality…it just doesn't have room for this kind of stuff.

I'm not crazy. I'm not…obsessed with anything. Heck, I'm just an average person that wants to do something with my life.

So I can't help but wonder why…why all this stuff has to happen around me. Because it's obvious that nobody else can see these things - nobody out of that whole crowd of people on the sidewalk. Nobody but me.

But I'll try to ignore it - no, I will ignore it. It might be some higher force than me trying to toy with my life, but I'm sure as hell not going down that easy. I'll just ignore these people…these things that keep popping up where they're not supposed to. And then they'll go away, somehow or another, and I'll be free to get on with my life. Yes.

…I think I might actually be going crazy.

…And that sucks. On top of everything else.

I should really stop taking popular media quite so seriously.

A/N: …Well. I have absolutely no idea how this came into being. I suppose this is just sort of my theory of what might happen in one of those stories…y'know, the ones where so-and-so from so-and-so somehow miraculously ends up in our world, and some poor OC has to deal with them and get them back to where they came from - except that, here, the OC refuses to take any part in this weirdness that he/she cannot even completely comprehend, while the writer of this fic-that's-really-trying-not-to-be-a-fic keeps trying and trying - thus the continued cameo appearances. XD I dunno, this could very well be the material form of a practically nonexistent plotbunny trying to come into being.

…Agh. So weird. But I've been playing around with the theory in my head for a while, so I figured I might as well write it down and get it off my chest. :D