It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

35.

Darkness. All she could see was darkness and she refused to move an inch. Darkness was nice. Darkness... was painless and darkness was peaceful... except for that hissing sound. She wondered what the hissing sound was. Was there a hissing sound in heaven? Was she in hell? Yeah... probably in hell...

She realized that the reason that it was so dark, was that she had failed to open her eyes. She had failed to open her eyes because she refused to open her eyes. She didn't want to see anything. She didn't want to feel anything and she didn't want to know that her eyes opened she'd be seeing some sort of light and have the urge to follow it or something. She sat there for quite a while, listening as the hissing slowly began to stop. She began to feel cold, sitting there with her eyes closed, her body rigid and stiff as she refused to open her eyes.

Wasn't hell supposed to be warm?

With that thought, she slowly, very slowly opened her eyes. The first thing that she saw, was her hands. That's all she wanted to see, was her hands, herself, her skin, her body. Her hands weren't broken, that was good. They were clinging to the steering wheel tightly enough to make her knuckles white, but they weren't broken. She refused to look anywhere but at her hands, slowly, very slowly peeling her fingers from the steering wheel, she could feel the stiffness of her fingers as they had gripped the steering wheel, and as soon as she released it, they began trembling uncontrollably. Her fingers, her hands, her arms, her entire body began to tremble as she stared at the steering wheel.

Her hands still trembling, she tried to move her feet, finding that they were still attached to her body, yet not quite coordinated, she reached her fingers for the door handle and very slowly, very carefully pulled on the handle. She was able to move the door away from herself, the smell of smoke, oil, gasoline, and burned rubber filled the air as she coughed at the smoke hissing from her car. She lifted her leg with her hand, pushing it from the car, she found that both of her legs were intact, no noticeable injuries, just the feeling of jello in every part of her body. She felt the urge to cry, to scream, to yell, to shout, but could do nothing, she tumbled from the car, the door smacking her in the side as she landed on the ground, crawling across the cold, wet ground she looked at the damage of her car.

It was as if the front of her car never even existed as a whole. The entire front end of her car was gone, and her two front tires were off the ground, sitting atop something that she assumed was the deer, but refused to acknowledge. She rolled onto the ground onto her back, feeling the cold wet snow seeping into her jeans and her jacket, feeling the wetness of the road on her fingers and cheek as she rolled to her side, rolling to her stomach, she pulled herself up onto her knees. She wanted to cry, she wanted something but no matter how hard she tried, she was unable to form a thought, a word, a feeling, an emotion. Nothing. There was nothing.

There was no car, and there was nothing in her mind at that moment.

She carefully stood up, her legs feeling weak, and she knew that she needed to stand up, but she didn't know how she had done it. She put all of her concentration in that as she shuffled her way to the front of the car, or where the front of the car used to be, and she stared. She stared at the giant piece of metal before her and she didn't say, think, feel a thing. The cold December wind was whipping against her body as the evening began to fall around her. She was alive, and that was all that she knew.

She stared at the car for so long, and so hard, that she didn't hear the car driving down the road in the opposite direction. She saw the lights, but didn't think anything of it as she stared at the giant hunk of metal before her, the piece of metal that used to be her car. She didn't hear the door close, or the sound of the person's feet clomping towards her quickly, slowing beside her as they too stared down at the giant piece of twisted metal.