It was a cold and stormy afternoon when it happened (cliché but true). The rain was pounding down and the thunder deafening. It sounded like the world was cracking in half and the temperature minus fifty degrees the day that my parents were murdered and I was close to death. It started out like any other, there was no indication that my world would be turned upside down that day and everything I had ever known would be changed forever.
"Get up Zan! You're going to be late for school again." Mum had yelled that morning, her voice carrying up the stairs in a way that always surprised me. I never could figure out how she was such a small woman but her voice so loud.
"I'm getting up Mum." even though I hadn't even fully woken up yet. Mornings were not my strong suit, my sleep too precious.
"Don't make me come up there and get you up." She said as her footsteps had echoed on the floorboards downstairs. I sluggishly rolled out of bed, hitting my elbow on the bedside table. "Shit!" I cursed, rubbing the painful, red mark that would probably be a nasty bruise. Slowly I moved from my warm, cosy bed and headed to what I wished would be the longest shower I could ever have, but I was late and it would have to be quick.
Putting my hair up into a towel I jumped down the stairs and walked into the kitchen where my mother had prepared pancakes for me.
"Mum you know I don't like pancakes, why do you never remember that." I complained. I look back now and wished that I hadn't. If I'd known that it would be the last breakfast she would ever make me I would have sucked it up and eaten them, thanking her for everything she had ever done for me and telling her I loved her. But instead I was a whingey brat and didn't show the gratefulness that I had for her. If I had known what would happen that day, I probably would've gotten up earlier just to spend the last morning with her and with my dad before he left for work too. But I didn't, I didn't know, that's the pain of hindsight.
School dragged on like it always did. The clock thumping loudly through every class, the teacher's voices dragging on, talking about things that didn't interest me. The only good parts of the day, lunch and recess, where I sat gossiping about unimportant things, going in fast forward. Then finally the precious noise sounded, it was time to go home. The rain had already started bucketing down making it difficult for me to see through my windscreen. I flicked the windscreen wiper switch but even the highest setting didn't manage to push enough rain off the window. The road was flooded, water rushing down every gutter like little rivers, the rubbish floating down like fish. I thought about pulling over, waiting for the rain to die down but I wanted to get home, my purchase from eBay would be in the mail box and mum had probably already left to pick dad up so it would be soaking by now. But instead I pushed my foot harder on the accelerator in an effort to get home quicker. I should've done what I thought.
Even though I was nearly home I still couldn't see, and the rain hadn't even shown an inkling that it would be stopping anytime soon. Which is why I didn't see the car on the other side of the road. They didn't have their lights on and it was too dark to be able to make out the shape in the rain. I felt the car start to slide before I could even turn the wheel enough to avoid it. The water was too deep on the road for the wheels to be able to get grip. There was nothing I could do at that moment. The way to avoid what happened next had already passed, I should've stopped driving earlier, slowed down, waited but I was too worried about other things. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die but that didn't happen to me, and I don't know if that happened to the occupants in the other car. Technically I didn't die but I may as well have. What I did see though was the flash of blue paint, of the trees on the side of the road, of the faces in the other car as my car rammed into it. I didn't even have time to register the car model, and had no idea what the impact of my actions would have.
At that precise moment my mum and dad were in their car, on the road, driving to the supermarket to pick food up for dinner that night. My mum had thought it would be nice to have a special dinner since we very rarely had dinner together. A car had come round the corner to quickly and had skidded on the wet road. Spinning – out of control – and had hit them head on. My father had died instantly when the passenger side had been sheared off against the guard rail, my mother's head had smashed into the steering wheel, dying just as the ambulance arrived. This was the day my parents had been murdered and I had nearly died. The worst thing though, was that it had been me who had killed them.