Connected

Chapter 1: What happened?

"Anger burns your lungs.

Tears sting your eyes.

All for what?

Just imagined lies."

She thought surely her end has come. What happened was dreadful, no one could have survived that. So, when she opened her eyes, she was expecting to see the bright lights of the afterlife and not this.

Leah was miraculously standing at the crash site beside her wrecked car. Earlier, she recalled floating in midair pressed tight to the driver seat. Shards of glass surrounded her before she felt the heavy impact of her car landing on the asphalt twirling two times before finally coming to a stop.

Blood oozed from her forehead, and she tasted the bitter taste of bile on her tongue. She remembered slowly losing consciousness and now she's here standing and seemingly unharmed by the incident.

A mixture of shock and confusion intertwined in her insides. She lifts her hands, quickly turning them over to see if it was hurt and it was perfectly fine. She patted her body to feel any broken bones and there were none. In fact, she felt so normal she wouldn't believe it if someone would have told her that she was involved in a car crash.

Yet she was. She can remember it explicitly happening to her.

The blue and red lights of the police car darting back and forth drew her attention to what was taking place around her. A small crowd has gathered around the crash site, loitering to gawk at the scene.

Her gray sedan and the red pick-up truck were sealed inside a yellow police tape. The pick-up looked less hurt compared to hers which was a total mess. The passenger door of her car was missing, and all her windows were broken.

Leah was hoping that her car insurance would be able to cover this wreckage. Now she doesn't know why this is what's running in her mind when she should be terrified, she'd turned into a ghost or spirit or whatever you call this state she is in, in a blink of an eye.

She must be because well nobody is talking about the girl standing in between the two cars!

Behind the crowd a police officer was navigating the flow of traffic managing a one-way lane for the passing cars. At a corner there was a lady crying and she was being comforted by another police officer who was trying to get a statement out of her. Poor soul, she must be the one she heard scream.

Then Leah spotted the lights of an ambulance from a distance, and she saw a stretcher being led inside of it.

A sudden intuition creeped into her skin. "Hey!" She shouted and without aforethought jumped out from the yellow tape weaving herself through the throng of people.

As she neared the backside of the ambulance though she slowed her pace. To her relief the only people present here in this area were the paramedics because what if. She couldn't finish her thought, spooked by it.

She stopped and leaned on the side of the ambulance, her hands clasping her shaking knees. She can feel her stomach coiling inside because what if . . . what if it's her inside.

And if it's really her inside, can she dare look at herself? What will she see? Will she cry? Oh, God knows she doesn't have the stomach for this.

Then she heard agitated murmurs inside and it worried her.

"This looks bad." Said a baritone.

"Survival is slim. The body is too damaged." An older female voice added.

"Shh, guys don't talk like that. The patient can hear you." A more vibrant voice chastised. "We have witnessed a lot of miracles in our line of duty and can't we hope for this one case too." She said to Leah's comfort.