Before my eyes opened, I swear I had the world's worst headache. A sharp pain came from the back of my head, of which I tried my best to ignore. My eyelids seemed almost heavy, so I sat still for a moment, listening. There was a strange, almost metallic, smell. I would later learn what is was. The air was still and cold, the only noises keeping me company, the buzzing of insects, an orchestra of crickets, and the occasional passing car. Wait... car? I didn't live close enough to the street to hear cars passing, and no one left or entered at night, since we were the only younger family - all the other residents on our street were rich, old people.

If it weren't for the full moon and cloudless sky, I would probably have seen nothing - I'm still wondering if it would have better or worse if that night had been a few weeks later, instead. Everything inside the car had been almost completely destroyed. The glass had come out of the windows, and had been scattered across the inside of the vehicle. I looked over to the girl in the seat next to me. Haley, I think. She was unconscious. A fly crawled across her unnaturally pale skin. I put my two first fingers and placed them on her neck the way they'd shown us in the baby-sitting course I'd taken a couple of years before. I waited a moment for the blood to pulsate through her thin figure, which then became a minute, and as each minute passed, by hand still on her neck, I could feel a sick feeling growing in my stomach. She'd looked so peaceful, long brown strewn across her innocent, sleeping face. I didn't even know her name then.

I didn't check on the other two up front, who were friends of mine, the same way I'd checked on the other girl. I merely looked to see if they were breathing. Nicole, age 16. Ashley, age 15. I pushed as hard as my weak body cold against my door, which took a minute to open because of the damage that had been done by the thick tree. I stepped onto the leaf-covered ground, and realized that my left shoe had come clean off in the crash. I didn't want to go back into the car, so I went towards the highway.

The street lamps were nearly blinding, so I sat closer to the trees, and before long, I was relieving all the contents of my stomach. If the sun hadn't stayed out of sight, I would have said I'd sat there for days. Each moment, the sweet taste in my mouth magnified, telling me to get water, and my abdomen fought me with rebellious growling. I stayed still, looking into the night.

The headaches got worse with time, and at one point I paced my hand at the back of my head, and was thankful that my stomach was already empty. A sharp sting came to my hand, sending the message that something was stuck there. Feeling a small trickle of warm liquid running down my hand, I grasped the object, and pulled.

The glass had made a deep wound into my skull, giving one section of it a deep shine of red. I hadn't questioned of I'd been injured before that moment, and I received even more of a shock when I looked down. I'd received multiple wounds to my legs and abdomen, many of them surrounded by large wet stains in my shirt. My arms were sore, and some spots had already accumulated bruises.

I stood up, not really knowing what I was doing, and walked up into the road. I then noticed an irritating buzzing noise in my head, which didn't come from the insects. The sound changed its structure, until I could barely recognize words: "Look down, if you're prepared." I looked where the words pointed me to, and nearly went into shock. In the slight reflection of the glass I'd been holding in my hand, all I could see was a pair of fierce yellow eyes.

While I was totally freaking out, I hadn't noticed the sound of an oncoming car. And whether it was due to the shock from the crash, me waking up, or my loss of blood, I didn't even see it until I made hard contact with the vehicle and was laying on hard pavement. The driver stopped, and came out to see what had happened, and as each second passed, my vision grew darker and darker, and all the while I had one thought going in my head: "I really shouldn't have gone to that party."

I've always found it ironic that I was the only one in that car that had found alcohol disgusting. Of course, when I walked over to the host's house earlier that day, I'd had no idea that one of them was actually able to pull a fake driver's license (I'll have to find them and ask them where they got it. I need a new one. The last one was revoked when I was caught going 95 on a highway). Sure they've tried it before, but never got the results they wanted. By the time it was halfway through, everyone was going absolutely bonkers. I mean, acting like they just came from a pep rally bonkers. By the time we left, I'd already been next to four vomit scenes (one of them just barely missed me), and the medium-sized house had began to make me even more claustrophobic as many of the party-goers had begun to walk nearly side-ways. In all honesty, it was actually kind of funny, like the entire world had shifted direction, except for me and a couple of others. And then everyone started clearing, and I patiently waited for the ones I'd ridden over with earlier with.

If I had more driving education than my older brother letting me run our van out of the driveway every now and then, I probably would have volunteered to drive; I lived only a couple blocks over from Ashley, who the car belonged to, and it wouldn't have been hard to walk over, seeing that street crime was rare in our area. But I had practically no knowledge of how to operate any kind of moving object with pedals and a wheel other than the arcade games and the golf cart that my cousin let me drive with him when I was little, me steering and him operating the pedals. So I ended up with tubes in my nose, and one of those annoying hospital gowns.

I tried my best to forget what happened, but I usually wasn't the kind of person who woke up disoriented. I always wake up knowing exactly what is going on. Something spooked Ashley, causing her to swerve off of the road and hit a tree. Classic story that everyone shows on the news to tell people to watch the amount of shots before taking the new sports car out for a drive. I didn't feel shocked anymore, like I felt back in the woods. The only sensation that ran through me was a universal numbness, and it seemed to rush through my body like the world's worst disease. I felt the back of my head, already knowing that I was going to need a haircut to compensate for the large bald spot they'd shaved to work on my head wound. Annoying hair that no one can find to call the color except "somewhere-between-brown-and-yellow", good riddance. Well, for a while at least.

I surveyed the room a bit, just because I had nothing better to do (well, unless one would count being depressing and going over the whole "mourning process" thing, like a cancer victim in a soap opera). The other bed next to me was empty, the crisp sheets newly folded, as if someone had just left. There was a t.v. Screen in front of me, and a remote a close distance to my hand, but I didn't feel like using it. I'd just been in two car accidents in one night, so I think I got an excuse for being a bit lazy. I then suddenly realized that I was hooked to an I.V., and instantly drew the conclusion that there was a small pointy thing sticking into my skin at that very moment. I've never reacted well to needles. Ask the nurse who did my shots just before I started Kindergarten.

For quite awhile I just sat there. And no, I wasn't contemplating the tragedy or whatever. By then the numb feeling had almost left me. Yes, three people who I knew (well, somewhat) were dead. There was nothing I could do about it, so why dwell on it?

"Are you sure you feel that way?" I jumped at the voice I'd heard last night, though it seemed a bit clearer than it had the night before. When I thought back, I made sure not to speak out loud, in case someone would walk past and hear me talking to myself.

"Who are you? Seriously, one minute my brain is solely mine, the next I'm sharing it with some mystery person. I like my brain in its solitude, thank you."

"Too bad. I was just about to give a brief explanation on the recent events."

The little buzzing noise that came along with the voice then seemed to slowly decrescendo, and for a small moment I panicked. What did it mean, "recent events"? Last I checked, other than the whole "you-are-in-a-cheap-horror-movie-where-the-main-character-goes-insane" thing, my night was, by reality standards, pretty normal. Was it going to explain that (or should it call it "she"...?)?

I wasn't able to dwell on this for very long, because it was about then that a raging tornado called my mother rushed into the room, nearly hysterical, her short brown hair in a bundled mess, only one earring in, and pretty much how she is every morning. A few moments later, while she was nearly yelling in a strange language she used when I went through my "sticking-things(including my tongue)-into-electrical- outlets" phases, four people walked in: my three siblings, and a heavily concerned nurse. Byron, his blonde hair perfectly gravity-defying as usual, was muttering something to himself about physics homework. Tina was looking straight into her phone; Mom had probably confiscated her PSP on the car ride. Xavier was lugging a pile of comic books and adjusting his glasses at the same time, which I actually found impressive. The nurse walked over and tried to calm my mother down, but with no results; Bethany Lane was sometimes worse about her children than a Polar Bear (trust me, I've encountered one). I was then thankful that I'd woken up before visiting hours.

After a long string of nonsensical chatter, the chaos (in other words, my mother) subsided. I was used to our crazy family, so I was nonchalantly laying in the slightly uncomfortable hospital bed. Tina gave me an upward nod, and if I was someone else, I swear I would have been overcome with emotion at the fact that she acknowledged my existence. Xavier pushed his way past her, almost jumped on my bed, and started speaking in a really fast that he had always been famous for(I think he got it from our mom's side). The only words I was able to comprehend were "spider-man", "Deadpool", and "awesome". Tina muttered something, and they ended up having to be separated from each other after Xavier nearly broke her phone.

By the time the room was relatively quiet again, the nurse tentatively walked out, leading a smart-looking doctor in. To be honest, I wasn't really listening, so I didn't really get what he said, other than that they can't tell how bad the brain damage was...well, it you haven't already noticed, I have somewhat selective hearing, so I didn't exactly catch anything striking.

Other than that, all I could make sense of was that I'd have to stay in the hospital another night to monitor me, that I'd have to use crutches for a month(courtesy of the second car), and that I'd have to take a crap load of medication. Whoopee.

I didn't pay attention to half of what my mom said after the doctor left, other than the fact that I wasn't grounded for going to a party instead of Clare's place to study like I'd said (honestly, you'd be surprised how many times I've claimed I was going over to someone's to study. I was flabbergasted that she hadn't picked it up earlier). Xavier left the stack of comics on my bed stand, and I silently thanked him. I may have not been a comic person at the time, but it was better than watching whatever was on T.V.

By the time I was on volume five of one of the series, my eyes were practically falling, the soft beeping noises lulling me to a place that I'd never seen; a place that I would see again.