"Twinkle twinkle little star."
That was the last thing she remembers hearing before metal scraping filled her ears, a lone piercing scream shattered her consciousness. A sense of vertigo threw her backwards into a black void.
Those were the only things she recalled of her last waking memories with her child and estranged husband. That was a year ago, at exactly 9:27 p.m. on a Tuesday night. She knew that to be fact because her silver tarnished and cracked wrist watch was stopped at that moment in time. A moment she cant fully recall from the last evening of her daughter's and husband's life.
Her husband, child and her, coming home from a late movie. She knew she had been in a heated argument with her husband but she couldn't remember the topic of the argument that caused his distraction from the road. From the safety of his family. Cold black pavement slick with heavy rains and her child's voiced singing over the raised voice of her husband's own voice. The last thing she heard before that awful metallic screech flooded her senses with terror.
Crumbling pain racked her damaged body. IV's stuck deep inside of her as monitors screeched into the night. A warm hushed voiced lulled her back into the dark emotionless void while her body struggled to stabilize itself. But she welcomed the numbness of the void over the pain that pierced her mind. The sounds faded into the haze and the pain layered under it till it became but an itch.
When the pain came, so did her wishes of dying so she could escape the pain and return back to the hazing void. Though she wasn't even aware she was begging for death to welcome her but the raw thoughts that pushed against the darkness. Till her thoughts found a memory, or so she believed it was a memory at least.
The pain of scraping her knees when she was young from jumping off a swing too high. She tumbled onto the compact earth as her balance failed her. A penetrating voice calls out to her. As she looked up through her tears of pain she saw her daughter, soothing her by rubbing her back and whispering sweet nothings. Her bushy chocolate shoulder- length hair just brushing over her honey eyes, the same eyes of her mothers and mother's before her.
For a moment the woman was calmed by the sight of her daughter till stench of metal filled her nostril and a thick oozing of blood poured from her child's lips. Scrambling away from the bloodcurdling sight. Ebony hands grappled at her, snarled limbs pulling around her and yanking her from the terrifying sight into the obscure and barren void. Silence crushed her thoughts again.
Scenes of twisted metal and rushing water often filled her mind when the pain surfaced, squeezing her chest as she begged for death again. Voices shrieked but she couldn't make out what they were yelling. She faded back into the haze again as she fell asleep again. Dreams of the swing would fade in and out. Every now and then it was not herself she saw falling from the swing but her daughter, face full of blood, hair matted to her head and torn clothes wavering in the wind.
As the haze dispersed once more she made the connecting of her scraped knees, the pain wasn't coming from her fall but from the twisted screech of metal as mechanical beeps sharpened and the screech dissolved. The smell of metal was replaced with the burning stench of bleach. So pungent that she could feel her throat tighten and then close. The beeps became blaring alarms as that honeyed voice penetrated her ears. "Momi, stay with us now!"
Then a mouth jammed down over her own as peppermint and tobacco blew into her lungs, the air of another women's pumping her own full. The mouth taking hold of hers again, pushing more air into her but this time she pushed it out herself, unable to stand the taste of peppermint and tobacco again. Fresh air had never tasted so wonderful, filled with the stagnant bleach again. Though she was willing to breath that over the stench of peppermint and tobacco.
Darkness greeted her before the awareness did. The feeling of being pushed and shuffled as her body slumped against the force. This was the second memory after being forced to the land of the living. Her eye lids felt like they had been sewn shut but she forced them open only to be blinded by stinging lights. Muffling she protested against the lights and the force pushing her before a voice called to her, "Momi! You're awake! Its so good to see you awake."
'Momi... That's me right? I suppose so.' She vaguely thought as she was pushed downwards. She relented to the force though, she didn't even have the strength to open her own eyes again before the haze swallowed her back once more. When she waded back through the haze ,light blinding her again, a new voice greeted her though this one far more unpleasant then the last. "Well Momi now that your awake I can speak with you about the accident."
"What accident?" She questioned in a dry hoarse voice.
"Unfortunately you were the only survivor from the crash, you've been in a coma for just about 2 months now. You're husband and daughter did not though and the police are still investigating the cause of the crash. But the good news is you seem to be recovering fine. I would like to speak with you more but the police require me to alert them once you were conscious. Once you've spoken with them I can speak with you again on your recovery."