“Go where?” she asked.

“Away from here.”

“Why?”

How many questions was she going to ask? I already had a headache, I didn’t need this. “Police.”

“Wouldn’t police be a good thing?”

She thought that I was innocent too? I ignored that question and walked down the path she’d just followed to get here.

“Hey, I was talking to you,” she said, right behind me.

There was still a loud ringing in my ears, and every noise around me was amplified. I didn’t want more sound on top of that. “Please, just don’t talk.”

She went silent, probably offended, but kept walking behind anyways. The ringing slowly grew to a sound that reminded me of static, but much louder, almost screeching. I leaned against a tree. My vision grew blurry, and everything started going black. The girl was near me, I could tell, but I couldn’t hear her, and could barely see her.

Then, everything was black, and the only thing that kept me believing that I was still awake was her hand squeezing mine.

Soon that was gone too.