A.N. - For all of you lovely readers/followers who have stuck with me over the years, I want to let you know that I am resuming updates to this story! I have the other chapters posted into another new entry, but I will be adding them here and likely removing the new story. Let me know what you think and look forward to plenty of new content in the near future.
November 21 2019
I had a general idea of where we were headed, but no clue as to who we were actually going to meet. Mom told me that they were relatives of hers, ones who'd recently moved back stateside and wanted us to celebrate the coming holidays with them. To me it seemed pointless. How long had it been since they last talked to my mom? Had I ever even met them before? I definitely didn't remember them, which told me that I was either very young during the first encounter, or the first encounter never happened. I just stayed silent in the back seat of the car and prayed that they wouldn't be creeps as my parents took turns asking through the phone whether they were getting close or not.
It was snowing hard, the road practically invisible behind the onslaught of massive snowflakes. It really felt like we were in the cockpit of the USS Enterprise going at warp speed, which might have been fun at any other time, but with the bickering on the phone and the fact that it was night in play, it felt like a catastrophe waiting to happen.
"We should have brought the GPS…" I mumbled, putting on my headphones to drown out the outside sounds of slipping tread and irritable adults. Pushing shuffle on my phone took me to Drive by Pale Waves. Fitting, I supposed, if not a little slow in pace compared to the current situation.
Another twenty minutes or so passed and I suddenly heard screaming through my headphones, I figured said situation escalated beyond just petty arguments. I looked up to see if at least the visibility improved, but all I could see was black with a flurry of white being cut through by a pair of headlights getting way too close.
The collision was head on, my head bounced off the back of dads seat, or more accurately, the plastic caddy mounted on the back of dads seat., while his and moms bounced off the dash and steering wheel respectively. I didn't see it, but I could hear it, the crack of the plastic and the crunch of their skulls. It was strange how similar it sounded to snapping branches, if branches were also wet and squishy on the inside. Maybe a rotting branch is a more fitting descriptor.
I could feel my ribs fracture under the pressure of the seat belt as I was thrown forward, it didn't really hurt though; but that was likely due to the adrenaline pumping through me. I think the car tipped, but I'm not sure. Maybe it just spun, the road might have been too slick for our tires to catch and flip us, but it didn't really matter because up felt down and left felt right and the screaming of metal drowned out any sense of orientation I may have mustered if I'd tried.
It lasted only a few seconds, but strangely it felt like hours until everything finally stopped moving. My music was still playing and the current song was almost over. My face felt wet, something was dripping off my chin. I must have bitten my tongue, or my cheek, I could have even broke my nose on the driver seat or split my head open. It did feel like it was stuffed with cotton after all.
The air in the cabin was smoky, and I couldn't focus my eyes on anything. My ears were ringing and the pain was starting to set in. The edges of my vision were starting to darken, I was gonna pass out.
Don't do it you might not wake up if you do. You're not tired just concussed so keep it together, make sure you're okay, see if they're okay.
But there was no talking myself out of this. Soon enough I couldn't see anything at all and my surroundings started to sound muffled. All I could hear was the faintest hint of gurgling breath, or maybe a death rattle, but then the whole world went silent.