Copyright © 2012 R. P. Martin
12:41
The blackness of my unconscious dream stayed with me the entire time my lifeless body violently shook from side to side in the passenger seat. The force of both impacts, whatever they were, threw my body into a spiral of tranquillity and surrealism. The woman to my left screamed but everything around me slowed right down. My vision, black as midnight, was still unable to focus on anything. Time slowed to a screeching halt allowing the shock of the wreckage to seep into my every last pore. The lingering smell of rusted old metal slashing against each other sored through my senses willing my mind to acknowledge the irreversibility.
When the organs in my battered and damaged frame finally caught up to the powerfulness of the blows, the seriousness of my injuries betrayed my defensive mechanism. I opened my eyes and blinked several times eager to see what exactly was happening. All I could see was the spider web of crushed glass smudged in front of me. The panic quickly set in, initiating automatic self-protection sequences that ended in the realization that I could no longer breathe.
I gasped for air feeling like I was suffocating. Robotically, I claimed my distress by wrapping my hands around my neck. Never before had I used this universal signal. I closed my eyes feeling the pain overtake my lungs and began to hear the pounding of my terrified heart. The voices around me became clearer as the seconds passed until I could no longer afford to spend energy on anything other than trying to fill my lungs with oxygen. Everything around me rapidly blurred. There was nothing left to do so I did the only thing I promised myself I would never ever do.
I begged to the heavens above me to take my life as swiftly as possible. I longed for my life to end, not thinking twice about how it would affect my loved ones. I loathed the bone chilling agony I was forced into and plead for my eyes to stay closed forever. I yearned for this one last gift; to simply take my misery away. Lastly, I implored the heavens to somehow tell my mother I wholeheartedly loved her and that I was sorry for leaving. Accepting it would be the very last thing I would ever see in this life, I focused on the windshield in front of me and waited.
When my wishes were not granted, I angrily opened my eyes and fought against the everlasting asphyxia that was draining every last viable Oxygen molecule in my body. My crushed chest continued to deflate to the point where the stinging of my salted tears finally started to trickle down my cheeks.
“ You are going to be alright. Take a breath for me. Come on Lyric, breathe.”
It was the only clear thing I heard in all the chaos that consumed every single part of me. And with that stranger's prayer, the first of many tiny erratic short breaths happened.
That struggle painfully ripped my entire being apart, allowing me to feel unimaginable excruciating pain. While trapped in a mess of what was left of my sedan, nothing prepared me for the following next three hours. I spent them fighting for my life.
12:43
The End.