"Mom, you need to stop the car."
"Honey, we're in the middle of traffic. I can't get to the shoulder."
"You need to find a way to get off the road."
"Sarah, I told you to use the bathroom before we left! If we stop again, we're going to miss our flight, and your cousins haven't seen you for years."
"Mom, I don't want to use the bathroom! You need to pull over, turn back, anything!"
"For the last time, no! We're not missing our flight! I don't know what's gotten into you, but -"
"Pull over!"
Sarah's words were drowned out by the screech of metal on metal and a sickening crunch as a large truck careened into her mother's car, rending the metal apart. Glass flew into her face, slicing her skin and sticking in her flesh.
"Mom!"
When Sarah woke up in the hospital bed a week later, she just stared dumbly at the ceiling, empty and unfeeling. She never asked the doctors about the accident, but they told her anyway. An eighteen-wheeler's brakes had blown out going through traffic, and unfortunately her car had been in its path. The driver had attempted to steer away from cars on the road, but unfortunately couldn't avoid blindsiding Sarah's car. However, thanks to his efforts, no one had died. Sarah breathed a shaky sigh of relief at that.
She'd seen it all happen before. Not a similar accident, like the nurse assumed when she overheard Sarah murmuring to herself. When she'd dozed off in the back of the car, her head bumping lightly against the window, she'd seen it happen from a bird's eye view, from the car next to hers, through the eyes of the truck driver...and when she startled awake, just as the dream-car was demolished, she couldn't stop it.
She wordlessly allowed her bandages to be changed, the IV's hooked to her arms eventually taken away, and once, she broke her silence to tell the nurse her aunt's number. A few days after she woke up, one of the doctors told her she'd sustained brain damage in the crash, but he looked more worried than she was. Apparently, her brain wasn't exactly normal, and the area of it that had taken the most damage in the crash was something that hadn't been seen in an MRI before. She would be under close surveillance until the doctors knew her daily life hadn't been affected, and an "expert" who might be able to help would be called in.
Another week passed, and she was finally loaded into a wheelchair and pushed through the hallways to the ICU. Her mother had fared worse than her in the crash; she was barely hanging on through life support, with heavy internal bleeding, head trauma, a collapsed lung, and glass and metal still being dug out of her body every day. She was supposed to pull through, however. It would just take a while.
Sarah still wasn't used to the hospital. She hugged the rough blankets close to her chest, the thin mattress creaking unpleasantly below her. The bleached white walls still glared out at her through the darkness, and the smell of cleaner and medicine constantly assaulted her, twisting her stomach and hurting her bandaged head enough that the nurses had given her a small candle. Its flame danced at eye level from her bedside table, but the scent of apples mixing with illness and the foul odors made everything worse.
Sarah propped herself up on one elbow, her hazel eyes narrowed in discomfort. It would be a chore to put out the candle with only one mobile arm, but it seemed very much worth the hassle. She stared into the tiny, flickering flame, the little bit of blue at its base and the liquid wax dripping down its side. Her hand moved out to snuff it out, since one of the nurses had so helpfully moved it away, and her constant headache suddenly spiked.
Pain lanced through her skull, like the bone was being torn away at her temples and the back of her head. A scream tore out of her throat as she collapsed, focusing everything she had on the pain in her head. Her eyes clenched shut against the onslaught, but blinding white light still cut through her vision and burned her eyes as she screeched wordlessly. Her shoulder hit the ground first when she fell off the narrow hospital bed, but she barely noticed through the stabbing pain in her skull.
Another scream wrenched itself from her as she curled around herself on the floor. She sobbed and clutched her head, trying to stop the pain. Several excruciating seconds went by...and then she broke free.
The pain remained, but it was much duller, and she wasn't in her hospital room anymore. Her heart beat faster as her vision faceted, showing her every angle of the room at once. Another one. Not again. It was so soon after the last "episode," and she usually had them months, years apart. The door to the dream-room opened, and Sarah swallowed her apprehension to focus on her uncomfortable million-way view of the room.
A young man in a sweater crossed the door first, glasses perched precariously on his nose and a jittery, uneasy, though mostly professional, manner. Sarah was wheeled in next, and she realized just how badly she'd been hit in the crash. Most of her head was bandaged, and what wasn't was shaved, with barely a fuzz of dark brown left over her scalp. A tracery of stitches and pink seams from shallow cuts covered one side of her face, and an ugly, darkly bruised eye stared out from under the bandages, eying the man in front of her with clear worry.
"Well, Sarah," the man started as Sarah's wheelchair was abandoned close to the doorway, the nurse beating a hasty retreat. "I'm Dr. Hank McCoy. How are you today?"
"You tell me. You're the shrink, aren't you?" The Sarah in the vision was staring at her stitched-up hands, half buried in the blanket over her legs.
Dr. McCoy smiled, mostly warm but somewhat tense. "Not really. I'm a geneticist, and your doctor thinks I can find the function of the unknown area of your brain. Naturally, a neurologist would be a better fit, but the man seemed convinced that this is linked to a genetic mutation."
"A genetic mutation. Definitely." The future Sarah brushed a finger over a line of stitches on her thumb, voice quiet.
"Don't be sarcastic, Sarah. It may seem far fetched, but this is a very probable option at the moment. Normally, mutations occur-"
"-Occur in early puberty, but can be delayed or triggered earlier. Yeah, I know." Sarah looked up, meeting Dr. McCoy's eyes.
"It sounds like your school has a decent biology course. Do you know about the DNA test that can be used to detect a latent X-Gene? Your parents may have had you tested as a baby, but the gene may not have developed fully by then." Dr. McCoy smiled encouragingly, watching Sarah closely. He seemed to think he was introducing something new, that Sarah had no idea whether she carried the X-Gene. In the vision, she leaned forward intently.
"My dad wanted me tested, but Mom didn't let him. Not that it mattered once I was twelve."
"And...What happened when you were twelve?" Dr. McCoy was more cautious now. "You already expressed a mutation, haven't you?"
Future-Sarah looked down again, drawing into herself and picking at a fingernail. "...No. I asked one of my friends if I could be tested with them as a birthday present, and I didn't have the X-Gene."
The doctor rose from his seat slowly, crossing the white tiles and crouching beside the wheelchair. His hand hovered awkwardly for a moment before he placed it on her unbroken arm. Both winced visibly as he brushed over another row of stitches and bandages. "Sarah... I'm a friend here. If you have a mutation, you need to tell me, so that we can take you somewhere safe. A hospital isn't the ideal space for most of us. Especially not those with strange physiology."
"I..." As she watched the scene unfold, Sarah very much wanted to agree with the man. Her mother had told her to keep her secrets held close, so that no one could hurt her. But McCoy...Us? He was a mutant? She felt her pulse race like thunder in her chest as she strained to see her dream-self closely. She wasn't reacting. A perfect opportunity was laid out for her, and she was staring blankly at her hands, and then at the man.
"It's happening again...Help..."
Pain erupted in the current Sarah's head, wrapping around her being with cruel thorns and yanking her away with a scream that echoed with her future counterpart's. With a final, spiking wave, she sank into darkness.