Chapter Five: Flash... Bang
After getting home from school that day, Meg went upstairs to her room to put her backpack away... but then, she made a beeline for the bathroom and simply stared at the scale, feeling nervous and apprehensive. Eyes devoid of their reflective sheen, she took her shoes off and hesitantly stepped on the electric scale.
The numbers flashed... then, one hundred and fifteen.
Her eyes widened behind her glasses.
She stepped off the scale, then stepped on again, mouth falling open when the same numbers met her eyes.
Then she repeated the process, stepping off and back on.
As she did so, Brian came into view with Stewie sitting on his back: the two of them stared at her, watching as she practically danced back and forth with how quickly she jumped on and off the scale, then the child muttered something that the dog nodded to, giving a small bark.
However, when she unexpectedly broke into a broad grin, they stared.
"I... I'm really a hundred and fifteen pounds?" she whispered, lifting her hands as she flushed in delight. "No way... no way!"
"You?" Brian barked; the deep robotic voice made her jump and turn. "You can't be that thin."
"I am! Look!" she exclaimed, lifting her shirt; the dog cringed and turned his head away... but Stewie's eyes widened and he tugged on Brian's ear. When the canine hesitantly glanced at her, his ears flicked straight up in shock. "See? I... I apparently started losing weight a while back! I'm actually... skinny!"
Brian looked at her belly, then tilted his head the way most dogs were prone to when struck with curiosity.
"Skinny or not, you're never getting rid of your third nipple," he barked, making her flinch. "Shut up, Meg."
When Brian continued off down the hall, taking Stewie with him, Meg lowered her eyes to the ground, self-consciously clutching her chest.
It's not a third nipple, she silently muttered, pressing against a groove resting between her breasts. It's a bullet scar, you jerk.
Her eyes glazed over as she recalled the day her father had unexpectedly pulled a gun on her.
She'd been in a really good mood when it had happened... she'd gotten a good review on a writing website, she'd aced three of her tests, and a fairly cute boy had actually approached her while she'd been on her way home from school. The two of them had held a decent conversation about music for a good hour, and he'd even given her his actual phone number. She'd found out later that he'd only done it on a dare... but it had still made her feel nice at the time.
Meg had walked into the house and had put her things away like always, then gone into the living room, where her father had been sitting on the couch, slightly turned away from her.
"Hi, Dad," she'd greeted, speaking to him for the first time in a long time.
Before she'd been able to react, he'd lifted his pudgy arm and shot her with a pistol. No warning, no hesitation, he'd just up and shot her in the chest.
After she'd fallen, he had merely looked at her with a slightly disappointed expression since she'd still been breathing, and then he'd walked out of the room, leaving her there on the floor.
She'd lain face-down on the carpet for an hour... struggling to breathe, streaming terrified and agonized tears... she'd thought for the first time in her life that she would die. A part of her had been scared, not ready for it... but mostly, she'd been okay with the concept.
However, when Chris had walked in and seen her lying in a puddle of her own blood, he'd freaked out and called an ambulance. It had taken an extensive amount of surgery to remove the bullet. And for months after that, she'd been bedridden, unable to move or walk. Even after she'd been back on her feet, that scar had remained, and just like the one on her forehead it held a horrible memory.
Unlike her mother, who'd told her she was a mistake... her father's expression had spoken more than any words could have. He hadn't even needed to tell her to shut up... the fact that he'd shot her for simply trying to talk to him had been enough.
Shuddering, Meg walked downstairs.
She peered into the kitchen and sighed when she spotted her father, bantering back and forth with her mother while she worked on making dinner. He was sipping a beer and looked more than a little tipsy, but for the most part, he seemed to be in a decent mood.
"Everyone, supper is ready!" Lois called, turning the stove off and setting the plates on the table before unhooking her apron; after hanging it on the rack, she waited until everyone shuffled into the room. "Tonight it's vegan lasagna!"
"Ooh!" Chris gasped, blue eyes lighting up. "Thanks, Mom!"
"Smells delicious!" Brian barked, watching as Peter put Stewie into the high chair with yet another bored eye-roll. Not long after he was situated, the canine hopped up onto one of the chairs and sat down, tail wagging. "Really delicious."
"Yeah," Meg murmured, smiling at her mother in a halfhearted way. "Thanks for dinner, Mom."
When she sat down, she avoided thinking about how the air grew darker.
They all started eating, but for some reason or another, there was a very strange atmosphere hanging above the dining table... almost as though a storm cloud were getting ready to burst and rain down on them. Only the scrapes of forks and knives against the porcelain china filled the silence of the room... but then, Lois spoke up.
"So… what's new kids?" she asked, looking at her children. "How's your schoolwork coming along, Chris?"
"Alwight," the boy cheerfully exclaimed, speaking through a mouthful of food. "I'm jettink much bwettel."
"Chris, don't talk with your mouth full!" Lois sighed, giving him a dismayed look. "Use your manners!"
Chris chewed and swallowed, then sheepishly shrugged.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "I was just excited... I couldn't help it. I got a C minus today in math instead of an F!"
"That's great, Chris!" Brian barked, looking surprised. "How long did it take for that to happen?"
"Well, I tried studying, but it didn't go very well... I couldn't focus," he explained. "My teacher kept yelling at me."
"What about you, Peter?" Lois inquired, looking at the man when he paused. "How's work going?"
"Going pretty good," he admitted. "Today, though some fat guy got stuck on the toilet while takin' a crap and broke the whole thing off the wall. He had to scuttle home like a crab since nobody could pull the toilet off his butt."
Meg muffled a snort and shook her head, since her father came home with the weirdest of stories, but then she recalled seeing a broken toilet beside the garbage can outside and paused.
When it clicked, she winced internally.
"Really?" Lois asked, looking at him with raised eyebrows. "Well, that's interesting. What about you, Brian? Anything new?"
"Nothing much," the dog said, tail wagging. "I've tried my paw at writing again, but it doesn't seem to flow well."
"Don't worry... you'll find an inspiration," Lois chuckled, shaking her head with a smile. "Writing can take time."
When everyone happily went back to eating, Meg decided to share her bit of good news.
"You know?" she tentatively piped up, not lifting her eyes. "Today I discovered that I've lost a lot of weight. I weigh only a hundred and fourteen pounds now."
Forks and knives fell still.
Meg knew she was stupid for trying again... she'd promised herself she was done with it. She didn't want to fit in, didn't want to attempt trying to... but she was unable to keep herself from doing so. Even though she was supposed to be done with it, it was like an addiction: she couldn't stop herself.
"You?" Lois drawled, looking at her in disbelief. "There's no way you're that skinny."
"I didn't think so, either," Meg admitted, then touched her stomach. "I really didn't, but I stood on two different scales... the one at school, and the one in the bathroom. Both of them said the same thing. I've... I've genuinely lost a lot of weight."
"Well," the woman sighed, giving her a sour smile, "that's... good."
The words were more than forced. They were ground out through teeth that didn't want to move.
However, Peter put what everyone was thinking into words, as per usual.
"Shut up, Meg," he said simply. "We're trying to eat."
Thus, dinner resumed and the uncomfortable air returned.
After the dishes were cleared and the table had been wiped down, Meg went outside for a breath of fresh air. Sitting on the porch, she watched as Stewie and Brian padded past her and started playing on the sidewalk. Cars drove past as she sat gazing at the sky, ignoring her brother and the family dog.
Then, in a single instant, it hit her.
Depression.
It was like a creeping wave that wormed and wriggled inside her body, constricting her chest, making her tired and sad and lonely.
She slowly buried her face in her knees and sighed.
All she wanted was to go to sleep and never wake up again. The world would be better without her. People wouldn't have to hate her so much. She could be free of everything.
She'd tried to commit suicide in the past, but had never found the courage to do it. She was scared, so scared, but she hated her life, hated it so much, and yet, fixing it was out of her control.
She couldn't fix it.
She was too scared to fix it.
After all, she was the mistake that needed to be fixed.
The sound of Stewie throwing his ball across the ground entered her frazzled awareness as she sat there. She listened to the noise for a few minutes, then lifted her head, but her eyes widened when she saw Stewie playing in the middle of the street.
Brian, oddly enough, was nowhere to be seen.
Getting to her feet, Meg hurried over to her little brother and lifted him up, carrying him over to the sidewalk despite his flail of protest. She dealt with his little hands smacking her face and tugging on her hair as he threw a fit, but once he was sitting safely on the grass, she squatted in front of him.
He glared at her with eyes that looked more intelligent than they should have for a kid his age.
"Stewie," she said, frowning at him, "playing in the middle of the road is very, very dangerous. There are cars going past that could hurt you. It's not safe, so don't do it, okay?"
He wordlessly kicked her leg and walked off.
She frowned, then stood up.
"Please just stay out of the road," she pleaded, letting out an exasperated sigh. "It's dangerous."
Dusting her jeans off, she walked back over to the porch and sat back down planning on relaxing for a bit longer, but then she saw Stewie.
Arms folded, he was ignoring her warning.
After a good minute of watching him stand there, wondering if it was perhaps some form of rebellion against her instructions, Meg stood up and turned to go inside... but then, the sound of a distant screech echoed into the air, making her stiffen. She slowly turned towards the road and looked in the direction of the sound as it grew louder.
Eyes flicking to and fro, she felt her anxiety rising since the screeches wouldn't stop.
"Hey, Stewie?" she called, looking at him. "Um... please get off the street. It sounds like there's a car coming."
The little boy didn't listen.
He didn't even twitch. He stubbornly remained where he was, back facing her, arms folded. Her heart quivered with a sickening little flutter when a red sports car careened around the corner.
The man and woman inside it weren't paying attention: top down, the two of them were laughing hysterically, and they didn't see him.
Her blood turned to ice.
"Stewie!" she cried, waving her arm. "Stewie, get out of the road!"
He still didn't move.
Arms folded, he refused to get off the street... not even looking at the screeching vehicle driving right at him. Face going white with horror, Meg tore off the porch and ran across her front yard, hair flying.
"STEWIE!" she wailed, sprinting towards him and flailing her arms. "STEWIE, MOVE! PLEASE!"
The sound of screeching tires split the air as the driver finally saw him and stomped on the brakes, and the car horn blared in her ears.
The car... it was going too fast... if it hit him, there was no way he would survive. She couldn't get him out of the way in time... it was impossible... she wouldn't make it... unless...
Unless she did the unthinkable.
In that instant, she made her decision.
She didn't think.
She didn't stop to think.
All she did was let instinct take over.
Her white tennis shoes left the pavement when she dove like a linebacker, shoving the child out of the way, but instead of the solidity she'd been expecting... she felt light plastic.
She watched in muffled confusion as Stewie's head fell off, not understanding what she was seeing... not comprehending what was going on.
What...? Meg silently asked, mind going numb. Stewie...?
By that point, it was too late.
The screech of the tires thundered in her ears, but even as it did, all sound seemed to fade away into a ringing silence. Meg slowly turned her head with a blank expression as time slowed to a near halt.
The echoing screech intensified… the sound of the distant car horn screamed in her ears. Her eyes slowly widened, hair billowing around her cheeks.
For a moment trapped in time, all she could see was a blinding red color, and strands of her own hair glinted in front of her eyes as it caught the sunlight.
Then the screeching sound intensified and a crushing pain smashed into her.
In that moment, her world changed forever.
She lost everything.
Peter stood up when the sound of Meg's shrill, high-pitched scream filled the air, watching with huge eyes as she rolled across the top of the car... smashing the windshield in before she was tossed into the air like a rag doll.
Time seemed to freeze as the sound of shattering glass and denting metal tore itself into his ears.
For a long moment, she seemed to be flipping in slow motion... glasses flying off her face, hat torn off... brown hair whirling as her arms limply flew out, as if she were reaching for something... but then, she landed on the pavement, hitting the ground neck-first before she went rolling.
Her body tumbled across the ground nearly seven times before it came to a stop on the street behind the damaged red sports car.
After that, several moments of silence reigned free.
Chris, who had been on his way outside, halted with shock on his face, and even Peter couldn't move... several of their neighbors had seen the accident from their windows, and many others had been walking along the sidewalks.
However, not a single person took a single step, for they had been frozen in place by what they had just seen. Not even the wind stirred... it was almost as though time itself had been shocked into stillness.
In that trapped moment of time, there was nothing but total silence.
But then... panic erupted.
"Oh, my GOD!" the woman in the car shrieked, tearing out and bolting over to her. "Oh, God... no... no, no, no!"
"I didn't see her!" the man in the car yelped. "She ran right into the road! Oh, man..."
A few front doors flew open and people came running outside.
There were hysterical shouts as people ran into the street and surrounded Meg's bleeding form, unintelligible words of panic breaking into the air as they knelt around her twisted body. She was lying on the ground, unresponsive to everything.
Hazel syes blank, she stared off at nothing, shuddering violently.
"CALL 911!" someone wailed. "CALL 911!"
Right around that moment, Lois walked outside... but when she saw the commotion, her face went white.
"WHAT HAPPENED?!" she cried, tearing forward before glancing at Peter. "Where is STEWIE?"
Peter didn't respond, stunned as he was by what had just happened. However, when Lois saw her son sitting in front of him and staring at the scene with huge eyes, she looked past them.
The world around the woman suddenly turned grey and she slowly began to hear a rushing noise that drowned out her senses.
She couldn't comprehend what she was looking at.
Red... there was a red smear along the street.
Slowly following that trail of crimson, she felt her stomach flip when she realized the source was hidden by the crowd.
Hastily stepping forward, she pushed through her gathered neighbors, shrugging her way towards the source of the crimson trail, but when she broke through, her eyes widened with a jolt.
Meg.
The brunette was lying twisted on the ground, shuddering violently.
Something came over her then.
Some part of her maternal instinct.
"MEGAN!" Lois choked, instantly squatting down with horrified eyes. "What... what happened?!"
"M... Momm..y..." Meg squeaked, voice coming out as little more than a croak. "Help..."
"Don't worry, you're gonna be fine," the redhead soothed, shakily touching her shoulder; the girl's body was... horrible mangled, and even though the sound of sirens were already filling the air, she was convulsing slightly. "D-don't close your eyes, Meg... stay with awakr!"
"It... hurts..." she wheezed, pupils utterly enormous: she was breathing rapidly, and she seemed to be struggling violently with it. "Mom... I... I can't..."
"You can," the woman snapped, shaking her a bit. "Keep your eyes open!"
"I..." she panted, breathing growing even shallower, "I can't..."
"SHUT UP, MEG!" Lois screeched, clutching her daughter's bloody shirt with shaking fists.
Her daughter slowly turned to look at her, then opened her mouth as if to say something... but her eyes widened. Irises losing their reflective sheen, she struggled, mouth opening and closing. Blood began trickling from her lips like a waterfall as she stared at her mother with a blank expression.
Horrified, the woman shook her a little.
"Meg...?" Lois squeaked, heart going numb; when the girl shuddered again, she shook her harder. "Meg...? Megan?!"
Aside from another terrified look, and more working of her mouth, there was no response.
"MEG!" Chris finally cried, shoving through and looking down at her. "Meg, say something! This isn't funny!"
Still no response.
"MEG!" Lois cried, roughly shaking her body. "SAY SOMETHING!"
She still didn't speak: her eyes were glazed and she looked as though she were losing consciousness.
"MEG!" Chris wailed, falling to his knees and smacking her arms. "MEG! MEG! MEG!"
However, there was no response... no amount of chafing, punching, or smacking had any effect.
Up until this point, Peter had been watching from afar... but he slowly approached, still holding the camcorder in steady hands.
The sound of the ambulance broke through the commotion around them, and the Griffins looked up as two paramedics burst out of the vehicle and made their way toward her body.
"All right people!" one of the men shouted. "Clear a path!"
"She's here!" the other called, sprinting over to where her battered form was lying. Lois fell backwards when the man nearly crashed into her but stared worriedly when he pulled out a pocket light and shone it into Meg's eyes. "Shit... let's get her on the stretcher! She's going into shock."
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Lois squeaked, raising a hand as fear shot through her chest; the two men simply ignored her and pulled out a stretcher. "What's wrong with her?!"
"Hurry," the second man instructed, ignoring her frantic question. "Radio in a call to the hospital. Tell them to have a room in urgent care open and ready."
The Griffins watched as they lifted Meg onto the stretcher and shoved her into the back.
"You!" the first man barked, pointing at Lois, who jumped. "Are you her mother?"
"Y-yes!" she stammered, eyes wide. "I am!"
"Get in!" he instructed, pointing to the ambulance. "We're taking her to Quahog Hospital."
With legs like rubber, Lois hopped into the ambulance and the EMT jumped in with her. Then, the doors shut and the vehicle drove away with the siren on. Peter slowly turned to look at the people they'd been surrounded by, but what held his attention was the red car with the tire-marks and long blood stain stretching behind it.
"I can't believe it..." Brian barked, robotic voice coming out in a stunned manner. "Meg's..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
Nobody did.
All around them, people were staring straight at Peter.
A few of their neighbors had been watching him pull the prank.