Random oneshot drabble.
I don't own casualty, but I do own the Stewart family: Melanie, Alexia (Lexi), and their mother, Arianne
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The red light comes on, but you're on the motorway and the next service station isn't for another fifteen miles. Up ahead you can see thicker traffic, as the time edges closer to five pm.
The silence in the car is broken by the front seat passenger flicking on the stereo. The beeps of the five o'clock news come on and you half-listen as the various news reports go by, then the traffic reports.
You find out from Jason, heading home from work, texting in that a three car pile-up is causing you to now apply the brakes.
You glance at the speedometer and are confused as to why you're still doing 65, 64, 63. Why are the brakes not working?
You indicate to go onto the hard shoulder. The rougher terrain annoys your backseat passenger, who moans, sleepily.
You're now slowed to 40, so you decide to go out onto the main motorway and take the exit for the service station, now nine miles away. As you pull out, a horn blasts, causing you to jump and jerk the steering wheel.
At first all you hear is the loud bang, and the sound of smashing glass.
Your heart skips a beat, and feels heavy and rock solid.
The next moment you can feel your skin tearing in a million places. You're soaked in blood. You wonder why the car is stopped, and that your door is blocked.
The three car pileup has become a five car pileup.
The sirens seem miles away, but next thing you know, you're on a stretcher, as you can vaguely hear voices. Paramedics. Fire officers. Police.
"Mummy!" You hear it and try to get out of the stretcher. But hands gently press down on your shoulders and legs.
That's all it takes.
You're moving.
Sunlight.
Artificial light.
Beeping monitors.
Shadows move rapidly around you.
"She's losing blood."
"Cross-match ten units of O negative."
Everything flashes white, then goes black.
This is the day your family was ripped apart.
This was the day you died.
...
Melanie Stewart closed the book again. When she'd written it, she'd intended it to serve as a reminder of her and Alexia's survival. Now she just tormented herself, since Lexi's death last year, she now had no-one.
"Mel! What are you doing?"
"Something I should have done a long time ago."
The bridge over the motorway was above the exact spot the crash had happened all those years ago.
"Don't try to stop me, Ruth. I know what I want- what I need to do."
"I can help you. I know some people."
Melanie smiled for the first time in months and calmly said "I'm not a nut-case Ruthie."
Her hands release the bar.
The wind pushes against her, almost begging her to go back, but she is certain.
A flash of white, and then beautiful, comfortable blackness.
Exactly ten years to the day, Melanie joined her mother.
All Ruth Winters could do was stand, clutching the leather-bound book, staring at her best friend's still body.
