The car crash. It took my soul, my will, my heart, and nearly my life. My parents had been killed in a car crash, and now we were too. Now I have to choose, do I live or do I die.

We were heading down the highway on the way to who knows where, when a truck hit us and we skidded off the road, flipping the car in the process.

I woke up on the grass nearby. I picked myself up, and ran around the scene of our accident trying to find someone to talk to me. When nobody would, I climbed into an ambulance.

My body was lying on a hospital bed. I wasn't in my body. When I tried to touch someone I went right through them. I ran through the hospital until I got to the waiting room and saw Johnny, Two-bit, Dallas, and Steve. A doctor was talking to them.

"Those kids are already orphans, but now they have lost their guardian too."

Darry? Dead? No,no,no,no,no.

"He died on the scene of the accident, Soda's in surgery, and Pony is in a coma."

Soda.

I turned around, running through people on my way to the OR.

A nurse opened the door on her way out, and I ducked inside. There was Soda, on the Operating table, still, but alive. The doctors bustled around me, finishing the surgery. I turned around and started to leave when I heard a whine come from the machine. It was loud and persistent, and when I turned around I saw it was the heart machine, and it had flat-lined. I screamed, the pain of loss ripping through me, and suddenly I wasn't in the OR anymore, I was in the hallway and there was a bright light coming from the other end, and I was screaming that I didn't want to do this anymore. I had the choice, and I didn't want it.

"The kids waking up alone, if he wakes up." The doctor told the gang.

Steve let out a muffled scream and fell to his knees. Dally had to run to the bathroom to be sick, and Johnny and Two-bit burst into tears.

"Pony," Johnny's soft voice carried over the bed holding my body, and onto the floor where I sat. I stood up, making my way to the chair across from Johnny's.

"You have a family. I'm your family, Two-bit is your family, heck, even Steve is your family. I want you to fight with everything you have, but if that's too hard for you, with everybody gone, I want you to know that it's Ok to leave."

He started crying, his head dropping onto the pillow next to my head.

"Thank you," I whispered.

I walked toward the exit door, ready to leave, ready to see my brothers again, ready to see my parents, ready to leave this unbearable pain that is ripping me open and causing tears to fall down my face.

I was just opening it, when I heard footsteps. I turned around. Two-bit, Steve, Johnny, and Dally, were taking a walk down the hallway.

They were all crying silently, leaning on each other for support.

My parents, my brothers, and I dying would be enough to rip them apart. They would never be the same.

I gasped as their futures passed before my eyes.

Johnny would end up committing suicide, Dally would become a full on hood, Two-bit would become an alcoholic, and Steve would go crazy.

I couldn't do that to them. But if I stay, then I will have to deal with the pain of loss, and I'm not sure I could live with that.

I saw my life flash in front of my eyes. My whole family playing a card game on the living room floor. Meeting Johnny for the first time. Playing football with the gang. Sleeping with Soda, and wrestling with Darry.

I knew what I had to do.

I opened my eyes. Johnny stood over me.

"Pony?"