Chapter 2
The world was
upside down. At the same time, though, it didn’t seem like it was upside down.
I used to think that when you were upside down, something inside you still
explained calmly to you which way was up and which way was down. In most
circumstances, it does. Like on the monkey bars. The blood rushing to your head
also helps. But I realized that this is not always the case, like being in a
rolling car. Then everything just gets confusing. All of your surroundings are
in normal orientation, it’s only when you look outside that you realize the
trees have been planted in the sky and someone took the ground away.
In a rolling car,
you’d expect things to be happening too quickly to notice such things. But it
wasn’t. Well, actually, it was until it wasn’t. Let me start from the
beginning.
We were on a
lonely two-lane highway. The roads were slick. Not rain slick, black ice slick.
My mom was driving. We hit a patch and our car started drifting into the other
lane. Usually, this would be a horrible problem, as I said, it was a lonely
road. But there was a car coming, and it was way too close for comfort. Mom
overcorrected and we spun off the road, flipping hardcore. We hit the ground
once, the roof smashing into the ground, before we were airborne again. That’s
when everything slowed down. I was going to die. I knew it. People say who
suffer near death experiences always talk about weird things happening. I heard
things tended to slow down, but I didn’t know that when they said slow down,
they meant standstill. I also didn’t know that the whole slowing thing only
happened to the things around me. I was thinking clearly and perfectly able to
turn my head and look around me.
When I did, I
wished I hadn’t. My mom’s short golden hair was sticking up, or is it down,
mane-like. Her arms hung loosely, resting against the roof that was now smashed
in enough to make me curl my head toward my chest to avoid touching it. I
couldn’t see an injury, but in the few seconds that had passed since our car
said adieu to the road, she was covered in lots of blood.
Maybe I was dead
and that was my blood on her. I looked down at my shirt, a white blouse, of
course, it was dabbed in little spots of red, but I couldn’t tell if there was
any hurt.
The car was still
spinning, though slowly. It landed on its wheels, bouncing a little as normal
gravity resumed, and came to a rest. There would be no more spinning.
I looked at my
mom. A spider web of cracks spread across the half of her window that was
remaining. There was so much blood. I tried to open my door, but it wouldn’t budge.
I had to get out. I kicked at it, screaming.
Someone’s face appeared
looking in at me from the other side of the window. The next moment, the door
was gone, as in, completely gone from the car. I wasn’t in my right mind enough
to think about it. I tried to get out, but my seatbelt stopped me. I fumbled with
it but was having trouble getting my fingers to work. It clicked and I was free.
The stranger was pulling
me from the car. His eyes roamed over my body, looking for injuries. “I—No—Me—My
mom!” I choked out. So much blood.
The stranger looked
past me at my mother. “She’s gone,” he whispered hoarse.
Something about this
man looked familiar. He was my age. Did he go to my high school?
The slight familiarity
was all I needed. I wrapped my arms around his chest and sobbed.
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