• The pain cut through my ribs, unrelenting, along with the shrapnel. The screams of horror and pain piercing my ears didn't sound like mine. But, my mouth was open, and I was horrified; in sheer pain, so they must have belonged to me.

    Everything was so blurry. I tried to focus through the pain, to no avail. My head was too light.

    I gasped for air, suddenly realizing I hadn't taken a breathe in more than a couple minutes. Nothing came in.

    I was confused. I didn't understand what was going on. A few minutes ago, I was driving down I-93, listening to Manchester Orchestra's "I can Feel a Hot One". What irony. I can't quite remember what came next- just something about a truck turning the corner. Then it's blank.

    After the short term memory loss, all I could see was a compilation of shades of red and orange. I was guessing it was mostly the blood splattered across the dash (From the shattered windshield driving through my stomach) and the fire engulfing everything else.

    Including me.

    But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was how the pain went from unbearable- the glass slicing through my intestines, the flames stinging my entire body and the shear heat burning the flesh off of my bones- that unreal pain that I'd never experienced in all of my life, to nonexistent in a split second.

    And in that same moment, the sound of my tortured screams faded into nothingness, and I lost control of all body functions. THAT was the strange part.

    Maybe I had fainted? Maybe the fumes of the burning gases invaded my nostrils and overpowered my brain to the point where I couldn't take it. But I could still hear everything. And see everything.

    The realization hit me like a tru-- Wrong simile.

    I focused my, now unblurred, sight, and I saw it.

    I saw my charred skin, tearing and chipping from the intense, hellish inferno sworling around me. I saw the '94 Chevrolet (My father had passed down to me) ablaze, and I could hear the car's screams and pleas for help, but not my own.

    I saw the other driver- a little bruised and cut up, but no permanent damage done- driving away as if he hadn't just murdered a sixteen year old boy. His face said guilty, but his actions said he didn't care.

    I watched from my vantage point- My bird's eye view, which was rising higher and higher into the sky every moment- as the truck dissappeared from sight; as my scorched body disintegrated in the flames. There were no other cars around us. There was no hope.



    And everything went black.