Chapter I

"Amy..." there's a man's face, so close to mine; he's whispering sweet words to me. "I'm so glad I met you that day." He's smiling at me now; his dark brown eyes are locked on my face, my lips. "I love you." He's closing the distance between us, I feel his breath gently blowing my hair.

He's so close now, I could simply lean forward a tad, and we would be kissing. "I lo---"

"Amy...?" A deep male voice drifts to my ears.

The man stops, backs up slightly and turns his head. There's another man standing there, watching me with keen, sharp, kind green eyes.

The first man retreats from me and stands near the second.

"You need to choose... Who will you pick?" The first says, his brown eyes becoming hard, cold.

I open my mouth to speak; I say nothing. No words will come. I snap my teeth together, and part my lips again, my voice comes out in a hushed whisper. "I---"

Everything goes dark. I can now hear rain hammering against the pavement, the windows, the metal of the car. I blink. I'm sitting in a car. I'm in the back seat with my father. My mother is in the passenger seat, my brother, Jerry, at the wheel. There's a layer of ice on the road. I have my headphones plugged into my music player, it's blasting rock music in my ears. I yank out one of the ear pieces; I look around. I recognize this scene. I glance at the clock; 3:48 p.m. "Stop the car." I whisper.

I could feel my father's gaze on me for a moment.

"Stop the car! Stop it now! Stop stop stop stop!! Something bad's going to happen!" I shriek; panicking, I clutch at my pant leg.

"Honey, what's wrong?" My mother asks gently. She shouldn't be calm. The car---the eighteen wheeler---the crash---the pipes---gas tank---all that blood---the deaths---. I've seen this all before, it was in a dream a couple of weeks ago; I look at the clock. Oh no. A speeding eighteen wheeler comes around the corner; it carries metal pipes in the back, the man in the front seat is hanging a hand out the window, a cigarette hanging from his fingers.

The wheels slip on the ice. No. No. No no no! I scream as the driver pulls his hand back in the interior, placing his second hand on the wheel as he tries to gain control of the vehicle. The eighteen wheeler spins on the ice, flips, the front end smashes against the guardrail. The chain holding the pipes breaks loose as the vehicle's back end swings around and hits something; the guardrail, mountain, another car? I don't know.

Jerry slams his foot against the break, our wheels slip on a patch of ice. A car behind us skids and hits our bumper. We're still spinning as the car behind us, out of control, crashes into the eighteen wheeler's gas tank. The shock of the explosion sends pipes flying from the vehicle. They embed themselves in cars, the mountain, off the side of the road. A car swerved to avoid a flying pipe and crashes into the guard rail, flips, and disappears over the side of the edge.

I hear the crack of glass and the grind of metal against metal. Something sharp found my shoulder.

Another car clips ours and we hit something on the road, flipping us upside down.

A darkness of unconsciousness overtakes me.

When I awoke, moments later, my left shoulder felt hot and sticky. The car was on it's side, my door against the pavement. I groan.

I glance a my father in the seat next to me. A whimper escapes my throat, "Dad?" his neck is bent at a horrid angle, a thin line of blood trickling down from his lips.

"Mom! Dad---Dad... He might be d---"

I scream. Two pipes had come through the front of the car. One front the roof, one from the windshield. One of the pipes had embedded itself in the left side of Jerry's torso. The second---I dare not say. There's so much blood; everywhere I look.

I scream until my throat is hoarse. I'm sobbing. My eyes feel puffy as the tears rolled down my cheek, across my nose, in my ear, and drip to the car door. My shoulder throbs; I almost don't feel the pain anymore, just the dull aching, and the warm, wet feeling from my shoulder as the blood soaks my clothing.

I hear sirens in the distance; loud, wailing sirens that ring in my ears.

Too late. It's all, much too late. They are fools. Surely we're all dead already. Is this what death feels like, I wonder?

I see the flashing lights of an ambulance, or a few, through the broken glass. Mom. Dad. Jerry...

+ + + + +

"Good morning, America. This is your host, Tod James, it's nine twenty a.m. Surely everyone is starting to get ready to go somewhere this morning? Brewing the coffee, toasting the bread, scrambling the eggs... Today's going to be a beeeeeeeautiful, sunny, cloudless day. Don't waste it by sitting home all day; it's summer! Have fun! Grab a hat and enjoy the sunsh---"

"Uuuuuuuughn..." I roll over; I glare at my radio alarm clock. "Shutdup, Tod... Too early for you to start spewing your c---"

"Amy."

I sit up in bed. Tod's voice still blabbing on and on, dull in the background. "Jerry?"

"Come here, Amy."

I stumble out of bed and throw a wool sweater over my head to keep me warm. I glance in the mirror as I pass; my dark black hair is flattened in the back. Bed hair. I sigh.

I flung my door open and peeked my head out. "Jerry?"

"Amy. Amy, come here."

"Jerry?" I entered the kitchen; there he was, standing behind the island counter. Just like he always did in the mornings, like nothing had ever happened. "Jerry!"

I run at him, ready to throw myself into his arms. Wanting a hug; no, this goes beyond wanting, I needed a hug from my older brother. I missed him so much.

The corners of his mouth turn up slightly, "You're a fool, Amy. A fool. You can't always trust what you see anymore..." A knife hits the floor, it was resting on the counter not two seconds ago.

I stop dead in my tracks. "Jer---"

"What a fool... You could have stopped it. You knew, didn't you? You had that funny feeling before we left, but you didn't tell mom and dad... It's your fault. It's all your fault, you fool!"

The bag of flour I had left out on the island exploded in a giant flour mushroom cloud. When the air had cleared, he was gone. No trace of his entrance, or his exit. "Jerry..." I placed a hand on the island, sat on a bar stool; I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face in my knees.

If someone would have walked into the kitchen at that moment, surely they would have thought I was crying. They'd be wrong though; I don't cry. Not anymore anyway. Grief and sorrow could fill me to the brim, but I won't cry. I might never cry again. What a relief it would be though; letting my emotions take me to somewhere far away, where I could cry as much as I wanted to... Well, that's theoretical speaking anyway, since there's no one in the house to see me cry even if I could.

I rest my chin on the top of my knee and look around the kitchen. I can picture my mother flipping pancakes on the stove; my father's engrossed in the morning paper. Jerry's stealing bacon off of the griddle, ends up burning himself, and is caught by mom in the end.

I chuckle humorlessly. My grandparents had offered to take care of me, but nooooo, I'd rather stay in a house full of memories. I'm an idiot.

Reviews

[A. L. Allen]

This is really mysterious. Is she like some sort of psychic? I really liked this, the descriptions were good, and the story is very unique (at least to me) :)

Nice job!