Well, now that you mention it...

Seniors reign supreme on the high school totem pole. We are the oldest, we are the wisest, and we've got this 'school' thing figured out- or so we'd tell you, if you asked. So, it's only natural that the prized back seats of the bus go to us.

I decided to go for the third from the back, to leave room for the friends of the assholes that had claimed the back seats. Being one of the last stops doesn't tend to leave much choice, but I like to think that I'm a sweetheart like that.

The bus stopped outside of a neighborhood to let on one of the last groups of kids, and mingled in with them was a girl I had never seen before.

She looked to be around my age, either a junior or a senior, and the blonde hair she hid under the hood of her hoodie went down to at least her shoulders. Earphones in, she walked hesitantly down the aisle, looking for a place to sit. The itch behind my eyes came back as I glanced at her and I tried to blink it away. Apparently, that was the right thing to do.

When my eyes blinked open, I saw the girl standing in the aisle, and the world around me slowed to a crawl. I could see dozens of ghostly images of this girl overlapping, and yet by looking at them I could distinguish them all effortlessly. Each apparition had a different colored outline, running the gambit from a pale blue to a fiery red, and as I focused on them I made another startling discovery. They were moving, but nothing else was.

I wouldn't say that time stopped as much as my perception of time had changed completely. In what passed as the briefest of moments for the world, I suddenly had ample time to process. Looking at this girl, I saw the colored copies arrange themselves into four separate entities, each of them taking a different open seat on the bus. One was sitting by a kid with serious hygiene problems, and that copy looked to be uncomfortably perched on the edge of the seat. Another had gone to the back, and was awkwardly dealing with the inelegant flirtations of one of our school's Lacrosse players. A third had even turned around and sat by the freshmen, and had her eyes glued to her phone. With a start, I noticed that one of them had sat next to me. She didn't seem to mind it overmuch in comparison, I mused.

'What the fuck? Am I seeing the future? If I am, which one is real? What the hell is going on?'

Naturally, the one that sat next to me had the lion's share of my attention. Outlined in a pale green, she was moving her lips as if to say something, but no noise was coming out. Idly, I wished I could find out what she was saying.

Another itch, another blink, and the moment had passed. A few seconds later, and a messenger bag had been placed next to my backpack at my feet. The girl passed me a hesitant smile as she sat next to me, her body mirroring the actions of the green phantom as she superseded its presence, causing them all to vanish.

"Hey, sorry, hope you weren't saving the seat." she mumbled apologetically.