Page 129 of 2204 Hunter Lane
The lights blinded my eyes, the speed was too fast. We were spinning.
We kept spinning and spinning.
Spinning.
The force of another car pushed against my side door, throwing me off the road and into the ditch as my head slammed against the side window and immobilized my instincts.
My head. My fucking head.
My… my stoma –
The foul stench of vomit soaked back into my skin as I hurled all over myself, choking on bile.
“Mom,” I coughed. “Mom, Mom… Mom.”
I couldn’t see her, I couldn’t feel her. My hands were knotted around my seatbelt, the airbag and puke shoving against my face.
A shooting pain pierced my arm as I managed to push away from my seat and spit out all the saliva out of my mouth.
I tried to move.
I tried. I tried so hard but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t get to her.
A tree log had split and penetrated the glass window, separating me from my mom.
My mom who wasn’t moving. My mom who sat still, lifeless.
“Mom!” I tried, reaching out my right arm to her, cutting the tips of my fingers along the sharp bark.
“Fuck!” I grunted, pulling harder against my seatbelt but the blood flow in my arm was cut off, weak and limp.
Sirens wailed in the distance as I took a deep breath and tried again.
Her blonde hair was a mess over her face, those blue eyes buried beneath her lids. They wouldn’t open.
Why wouldn’t they open?
“Move! Mom, move!”
The sirens grew closer, louder. “Mom, there’s help coming, please…”
I managed to wiggle my fingers through a small opening beneath the tree, grabbing hold of a rough material that I recognized as her sweatpants.
A wet substance weeded through my fingers as I pressed down hard, collecting more of the gloop. When I yanked my fingers back out, bile rose to the front of my throat again when I realized they were covered in blood. My mom’s blood.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be happening.
This isn’t real.
This isn’t fucking real!
This… this doesn’t happen to people like me. This doesn’t exist in my world.
My hand shook violently, attempting one more time to reach out to my mom but she was unresponsive. She didn’t move. She was… she was a fuckin’ mannequin.
