Raindrops

Quicksilvre

Note: I don't own the O.C., blah blah blah. Yeah, you know the routine. Warning: School is crazy right now; I don't know when I'll be able to write up chapters. So, hang in there.

-)-)-)-)

She remembered the sensation of being crushed and the smell of gas, but all of that...faded away. She lost the feeling on the metal pressing into her skin, or the seat she was strapped to...all that was left for Summer was an odd, floating feeling. When she tried moving her leg, nothing happened.

"Oh...oh no. No, this is...this is bad." It wasn't that it was broken–she would have felt pain if she tried moving a broken leg. She didn't feel her leg at all–or anything else. She tried to open her eyes, see where she was–

Nothing.

"Oh, shit. Ohhhhh..." She blinked her fluttering eyes. She could feel her eyelids move up and down, but she could only feel her face. She felt her eyes water; a few tears slid down her face, but when they dripped from her cheek, they fell to oblivion.

A sob broke through her lips unexpectedly. She tried to hold them back, but images caught up to her–lying limply in a hospital bed, a stupefied expression on her face; her being wheeled around in a chair; her prostrate in bed, accompanied only by a TV she couldn't see. Nothing could hold the storm back. Another sob pushed though, and another, followed by pure hysterics. Tears fell as hard as the raindrops, and her sobs roared like thunder–loudly, abruptly, and uncontrollably.

Cohen. Daddy. Marissa. Chino. Kirsten and Sandy. One by one, they floated through her mind–those she would never see again. They would talk to her and take care of her, but as soon as they were out of earshot, they would express their horror. From self-pity, anger entered her mind. Why? Why couldn't you've just taken the bus? Why did you have to take the freeway?

"Why?" More sobs wracked Summer's body. She hoped she was in a hospital somewhere; maybe a nurse would see her and try to comfort her. As if she could fix anything.

A slight breeze rustled by her damp cheek. Am I still in the car? That couldn't be, could it? Forgetting her blindness, she tried to look around. After blinking a few times, she could notice some dark blobs on a light field. It didn't look like the freeway, but it wasn't a hospital room, either.

"What...what is going on?"

She felt an ache from her stomach. Obviously, it had been strained by her sobs. Wait–my stomach? She put her hand down to feel what was wrong–My hand! She was able to stick it in front of her face. Her fingers still tingled, and she could only see a blob with five thinner blobs coming from it, but feeling and sight were definitely coming back.

She felt her feet touch something; her knees, not ready to hold her up, buckled, and she fell into a heap on the ground. She landed on something soft–at least, she wasn't hurt. She was able to roll on her side, and a few blinks later, her sight was almost back to what it was.

The sight that met her eyes made Summer gasp involuntarily.

Above her, from a height of maybe fifty of feet, people were slowly floating downward. Far above, two-winged creatures would fly in, with a person in their tow. After they got into position, their livery would be untied and would start his or her descent.

She strained her eyes. Ohmigod. Oh...my...God. Are those... The flying creatures looked just like people, save their huge feathered wings. Angels. They all had...odd expressions on their faces. Not the joyous ones she'd seen in books or the few times she'd been in a church. They all looked very busy, rather purposeful

Oh my God, I'm dead!! Her hands flew to her head. Looking up again, she realized how many of those floating down were old, or obviously desiccated by illness. Her vision blurred again; this time, she was able to feel the sobs rise in her throat.

She sat down, hiding her eyes on the inside of one elbow. "No, this isn't happening. I'm going to wake up in a few minutes, and this will all be fine, and I'm going to call Cohen and make sure I'm still alive." She slapped herself across her face, hoping that would wake her up.

Nothing. She tried a little harder, still, she saw nothing but the plain landscape and people floating down. She took a deep breath, reared up, and smacked herself as hard she could allow, so hard she knocked her own head to the ground.

For a few seconds, she rubbed her head into the ground and kept her eyes clenched shut. She missed her cheek and gotten herself square on the nose, and the pain was nearly unbearable. The huddled like that for a minute, convincing herself that her head was on her pillow, and her back was covered by a blanket.

No such luck. She laid out on the ground, on her side. The ground was completely featureless, and as white as the sky.

She felt her body shutter again. "No...I'm too young to die...." Curling up into the fetal position, she tucked her head in helplessly. "Wake up...wake up...waaaake uppp...."

-)-)-)-)

She woke up. She jolted up and looked around her surroundings for a moment in confusion, but then she remembered–the wreck, the dying, the floating, the landing.

She sat back down, and laid back, her legs folded under her. Still people floated down; the sky was positively thick with them. Many of them, especially the older ones, seemed quite happy to be dead. Upon landing, they all headed off–and in the same direction, to Summer's left.

"Well, I guess, if I'm going to be dead, I might as well...get moving." She picked herself up and headed in the same direction. To be sure, there was no way to tell that she was headed in the right direction–it still looked like she was inside some huge, white building, with those white, padded floors. But, everyone was headed that way...and it felt oddly right. That way, it seemed, lead to safety.

She looked a little more at those around her. By their appearance and their clothes, it seemed as though death had excellent representation worldwide–not surprising. No one was speaking, or doing anything else other than stretching their necks forward, seeing if heaven was ahead.

Heaven. The place where people went where they died, supposedly. If they were good. If. Summer was pretty sure that didn't include spending all day at the mall and drinking at 15. She rubbed her shoulders, trying to convince herself of a good fate–she was still in her uniform. Crap. It was hardly the way she wanted to present herself.

She realized she needed a hairbrush, badly, but she decided to not expect one.

She walked on. There wasn't too many people who looked like her; a lot of kids her age were putting off death for a later date. However, there wasn't anyone stuck, unable to walk; even the most rickety great-grandmother was moving at a brisk pace. They all seemed as healthy as ever–a good sign, she thought.

An hour passed, then two. Or so she thought; there was no way to tell. Didn't look like it was going to be too much longer, though–the black horizon was giving way to a huge crowd. A din could just be heard in the distance.

-)-)-)-)

It looked like there could easily be ten thousand people around her–and that was just those she could see. They were packed fifty and sixty deep against a wall, trying to get in though a bunch of gates to...hard to tell.

Summer sucked in as much of herself as she could and moved, sideways, though the sea of people. She was able to slide though thin spaces, especially if she shoved, but by the time she was halfway there, she hit a roadblock. Two huge lunks, in identical fatigues, blocked the way in front of her, and some old chubby guys boxed her in on the sides. "Oh, well, this is just great."

She heard shouts behind her, right before the woman behind her was launched forward by those behind her. "Oof! Watch it!" Someone to her right was a little too eager to get in, too; one more hard push sent her flying into the chubby guy to her right. Summer couldn't quite tell, but she could swear the guy she bumped into tried to cop a feel.

"Ewww! Out of my way!" Just enough space opened between the two soldiers for her to move between, and soon, the crush thinned as she neared the door. It took twenty minutes of shoving, squeezing, and getting her feet stepped on, but Summer slid through the gate, and walked down a short, black corridor.

Before her was a bright, white light. She went forward. Won't have to wait much longer now, I guess.

-)-)-)-)

Seth was in his bathrobe–as he had been for the last two weeks.

It was bad enough she died, but he had been the one who had to identify her. Her dad was out of town, Marissa high-tailed it out of Orange County as soon as she heard, and her step-mom...who knew where she was?

It had taken the rescuers sixteen hours to free her–she was long gone by then. Her face was still mostly intact, besides some scrapes. But the body....

It was a closed-casket funeral, had to be. The preacher talked about Summer being swept away at the height of youth, her suffering on Earth quenched early. Nothing of being crushed to death under twisted steel and a shipment of tires.

He poked his head into the fridge, for the eleventh time that day. In the door, right where it could be best seen, was a Chinese dumping, sitting in a plastic bag. Seth looked at the dumpling for a moment, as he had the other ten times, and then, slowly closed the door and wandered back to bed.