chemistry of a car crash

Samantha Mueller

"I will not die, I'll wait here for you. I feel alive, when you're beside me. I will not die, I'll wait here for you, In my time of dying"- Time of Dying. Three Days Grace.

The last thing she saw was the headlights blaring into her eyes. The horn was loud, less than 5 feet away at first and then the front end of the semi went crashing over the small compact car. The last thing she heard was the radio coming to a screeching halt before going into snow. She blacked out, feeling blood pulsing out of her arm.

"Patient in room 926 needs another IV," A soft voice said, and she heard clicking of heels going farther away. Light flooded into her eyes and she shut them again.

"Someone turn the light off," She said, rolling over and shoving her head into the pillow. "Ouch," She sat up, feeling a pinch in her arm, and why did it smell like Lysol disinfectant? Looking down she saw a needle. "What the-" She said, looking around her. A hospital room? Why was she in a hospital room? She pulled the IV needle out from her veins.

She swung her legs off the side of the bed and jumped down, walking over to the small table with the newspaper. April 22nd? No, it was April 2nd, not the 22nd. It had to be wrong. She looked down at her feet. Where were her shoes? And why was she in a hospital gown, there was nothing wrong with her. She turned around as she felt someone come in the room. It was a nurse, in clacking high heels. The nurse bent down over the hospital bed. She nearly fainted. She was in the hospital bed still? How was this possible? She was standing looking at herself in a hospital bed.

She began to hyperventilate. She was dreaming. Just dreaming. It had to be a dream, there was no other explanation. "How is she, nurse?" It was her dad's voice. He was at the door, with her mother.

"Can you hear me?!" She screamed at her parents. Why was her mom crying? She was fine, she was right there.

"Not good, condition's gotten worse," The nurse said.

"I'M RIGHT HERE!" She screamed.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid your daughter doesn't have much time left."

"Who let this feeling die, when all I did was try? So I know that I'm still alive. Is there anybody out there? Is anybody calling? If what you say is really wrong, I'm not in control. I think I'm out of control."-Duality. Bayside.

The semi driver got out and staggered to the crushed metal. "What did I do," He whispered. He pulled out a small cell phone and dialed 911. "Hello, yes, I'm out on highway 31. I think I've killed a girl." The driver started to break down, kneeling onto the ground. "I didn't see her car, I was driving, alright," The 911 dispatch officer tried to calm him down but all he kept repeating was "I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"

She read her own story in the paper, on the table. Girl, 17, hit by a semi. There were even pictures; of her, her car, her horrible high school yearbook picture. Her parents couldn't even give them a good picture. She shakily turned the newspaper page and read on about herself. The paper listed her in critical condition, in a coma. Was she in the ICU? How could she be? She felt fine, and yet she was also staring at her own body.

She dropped the paper on the floor and wandered out into the hallway. She saw a couple doctors with coffees in their hands. She walked past them and saw one of them shiver, and look around. She kept walking, past a couple emergency medical technician collapsing a stretcher and bringing it back outside, past automatic doors. She put her hands on the desk in front of her, where a pretty young intern sat, typing away.

She had picked up the paper, right? So she could interact with things, right? She picked up the pen at the front desk and threw it at the wall. She watched it bounce off. So all she had to do was cause a commotion. She looked back at the desk, and suddenly the pen had reappeared there, as if she'd never thrown it. She tried it again, watching the pen fall to the floor, and the reappear in the blink of an eye back on the desk. What the heck was wrong.

She felt freezing all of a sudden and a hand reached through her stomach. "Oh my god!" She screamed as a male voice came through the back of her head. She stepped back and through the doctor. She could walk through people? She wasn't a ghost, she wasn't dead yet. She didn't even believe in ghosts. She went running back to her room, and lay down in her body again. She was gonna re-merge with her body and come back alive. That was exactly what she was going to do. It would work, she knew it would. She lay perfectly where her body was, but nothing happened. She sat up again, and looked down at her scarred face, and broke into tears.

"We are the dead ones, we are the lost cause, Because this city, this city is haunted. By ghosts from broken homes. Because this city, this city is haunted, and there's no hope left for these souls"- This Could Be Anywhere in the World. Alexisonfire.

The EMTs came rushing in, lights on and sirens blaring. The fire department sawed through the metal of the car frame like it was melting butter and the pulled the girl out. "She's still breathing," One EMT said, and the other 3 pulled out the stretcher, lifting her frail body onto it. "She should be fine, sir," A fireman said to the semi driver, who was still in shock. "Don't worry,"

"We got a cell phone on her," Another EMT called from the stretcher. He tossed the flip phone to the fireman. "Give it to the officers when they get here, they'll call a next of kin."

She had freaked out, pitched a fit, cried, sobbed, thrown things and after about an hour, she just sat. On the cold, hard, tile flooring, she sat with her eyes closed. She didn't know whether to lose all hope, or to gain it. She looked at the picture's on the bedside table that her parents had brought in, halfway through her fit.

She was about 6 months old in the first picture. It was right after her third open heart surgery, she was in her mother's arms. She had been born with a hole in her heart, requiring immediate surgery. They didn't expect her to live past the first one, but in her lifetime, she'd survived 5 surgeries on her body, 3 of them open heart, 2 of them transplants. She'd had to have her lung and a kidney replaced. She was the girl who lived. She was the girl that no matter what happened, she'd pushed through. "Miracle girl", she'd been nicknamed. Now she was the girl who was once again in the ICU.

Bad luck followed her around like a dark cloud, there was no denying it. She looked at the second picture, of her and her boyfriend. It had been at homecoming the year before. Would she ever see him again? Would she ever see her entire family again? Her dogs? Her friends? Would she die? There was too many things she needed to do before then. She had always planned on graduating, for one, and college was always in her plans. She was going to be an interior decorator. She was going to live in some big city and live large. She was going to live, she had to, she had plans.

"And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time, As I stared at my shoes in the ICU. 'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room, Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news. And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their headsBut I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die" So who's going to watch you die?.."- What Sarah Said. Death Cab for Cutie.

"My daughter is an amazing driver," Her father had just opened the door to two police officers.

"Sir, I think you need to head down to the general hospital," The older police officer said. "Your daughter is in intensive care."

"Honey, what's wrong?" A woman came up behind the victim's father. "What's wrong?" She repeated. The man looked into his wife's eyes, but couldn't see her through the cloud of tears.

She was remembering the ranch. Every summer until she was twelve, her family had gone up to Wolf Lake Ranch and spent all of July renting a cabin, in Michigan. It was a quaint place, with about twenty to thirty people renting cabins at one time.

The place had two ponies and fourteen horses. Every Saturday, they'd host a mini-rodeo, complete with little plastic trophies for the people who won in competitions like barrel racing and fastest riding times, jumping, things like that. She remembered the first time she won a trophy. She still had it tucked high somewhere on a shelf in her room.

They had closed down the ranch the year she turned 13. She'd sulked and her parents had told her they'd find another camp. "No other camp is gonna be the same," She'd said. No other camp would you have rodeos every week. No other camp would wake you up bright and early on Sunday to watch the sunrise and make pancakes over an open fire on a griddle. No other camp would have been as perfect as this one was. She wasn't going to even try to replace it.

She heard a monitor beep and she opened her eyes. Two nurses rushed into the room and checked her stats and one called for a doctor. What was going on? She looked down at her feet, which started to be see-through, like bad reception on a TV. It hurt, like her leg was slowly being sawed off.

She closed her eyes again, not being able to bear the pain. She pushed her head against the wall, and heard more people come in. "Charging," A deep male voice said. "Clear!" It was searing up to her knees now, the pain. "Charging…. CLEAR!"

She inhaled as the pain lifted. Her legs were back. The defibrillator had worked. The monitor beeped normally again. She looked at her body, laying limp on the hospital bed, and nearly fainted. How was she going to live through this? Was she gonna live through this?

"I'll be your distraction. My love will not die, please let it be known. Show a future that's kind. Those words were made for you. I'll be your distraction. I'll be, I'll be yours."- Distraction. Angels and Airwaves.

The surgeons worked for ten hours straight in three different operations. The first was to take a chunk of car frame metal from her shoulder. They tenderly removed what they could have before the chief of surgery came in to take over. Her parents and loved ones watched from above. With every ticking moment of the clock, they lost more and more faith.

She was standing outside the front of a house. Well, not a house, it was a condo. She was finally going to meet the grandmother she never knew. She'd waited for a year now to meet this woman, so why were her feet cemented to the asphalt.

Her grandmother came out before her feet moved. "Sweetheart," She was most definitely her mother's mother. Same voice, body type, same way of stretching out vowels nice and slow. Her grandmother enveloped her in a hug.

"My, you've grown," She said. "Then again, the last time I saw you, you were barely a year old." Her mother and grandmother had been estranged for several reasons. One of which had been because her mother had been on several illegal substances for quite some time before and during her birth. Her grandmother had insisted that maybe if her mom had "laid off the crack" during pregnancy, her daughter would be better off. Her mother insisted she'd been clean when she had been pregnant. The story had gone on, but she'd never been told the entire thing.

"How about you come in, sweetie. I made some cookies and lunch," She was glad to have a grandma.

"I just want one more chance to put my arms in fragile hands. Complaints of violins become my only friends. Remember to kiss the ones you love good night. I thought you said forever."- Paperthin Hymn. Anberlin.

"Yes ma'am, she was driving back from my house," Evan said to the police officer, who was currently talking to him. He swallowed and kept an eye on O.R. 3, where inside, the girl he was crazy for lay being cut open.

"How late had she stayed?" The officer asked.

"She wanted to leave by 10. She had a test she wanted to study for, but we'd started a movie at 9 and I wanted her to stay, so she left around10:45," Evan eyed the door. "If I hadn't made her stay, she wouldn't have run into the semi. She'd still be fine, wouldn't she?"

"Not necessarily," The officer said, looking up from his paper.

"It's my fault,"

She could remember the first day she met Evan clearer than anything. He'd taught her how to use a staple gun on one of the school play's sets. She'd joked that the world had to be afraid of her with power tools.

The day after the school play was over, all of it's members had gone to Busch Gardens, an amusement park. She couldn't go on any of the rides; heart complications restricted her from going on the roller coasters. Evan got motion sickness, and he stayed off the rides as well. They'd both walked around the park together looking at the animals and going on the less compulsive rides. They'd spent the entire day together.

"Hey," A soft but deep voice said. She opened her eyes. Evan had come to visit. He'd brought her white roses and put them on the bedside stand. "Nothing really happened at school that's that important." He said, sitting down on the side of her bed, talking to her body. She went to where she could see his face. "I miss you," He said, holding her hand. She felt a tingle up her arm.

"Hello?" A child's voice called out. She looked away from Evan. A kid popped his head into the doorframe. He couldn't be more than 10. "Help me!" He could see her.

"Just turn away. If you could get me a drink of water 'cuz my lips are chapped and faded. Call my Aunt Marie, help her gather all my things and bury me in all my favorite colors. I will not kiss you. Because the hardest part of this is leaving you"- Cancer. My Chemical Romance.

"Do you want to keep her on life support?" The doctor asked. Her mother nodded as her father shook his head. "I need you guys to come to a conclusive decision." The doctor's pager went off. "She's just started breathing on her own. It's been a week now, we need to know," The doctor said before hurriedly excusing himself.

"She's gonna press on. I know she will, I know it, she always does," Her mother said. "She's gonna make it."

"Who are you?" She asked the boy, who came closer. She felt kind of bad, ignoring Evan as he spoke to her, but forgot all about that as the boy came closer. He had a huge scar reaching from the top of his head to his ear.

"Charlie, who are you?" The boy said.

"Emma, why are you here?" She asked him.

"I think I'm finally dying," He said it as a simple fact, so calmly. He wasn't looking for sympathy. It was alarming, his truthfulness. "How about you."

"I was in a car crash," She said, simply, still caught off guard by his truthfulness.

"Who's that?" Charlie asked, nodding in Evan's direction. "Boyfriend?" She nodded. "Are we both dying?"

The question was way too direct for her; she couldn't answer it. She didn't want to. Part of her was afraid he was right. "Are you afraid of dying?" He asked, reading her like an open book. He was so much younger, but so much stronger than her. "'Cuz I'm not." He smiled a broad, toothy grin. This kid wouldn't even live to get his wisdom teeth. "I think I'd be happier in heaven. Mommy says I won't be sick in heaven. Neither will you!"

Her eyes had overflowed by this point. "Don't cry," Charlie said, hugging her.

"Don't you want to grow up?" She asked, choking on the words.

"I think I'll be okay," Charlie said, "What's going on?" He looked down at his legs, which were becoming transparent.

"Charlie, hold on," She ordered at him. "Don't! Don't die!" She yelled as the boy smiled and faded.

"I'll be home," Those were his last words before he disappeared as if he'd never been there. She broke down into tears, and heard a woman in the next room cry out; and she assumed it had been Charlie's mother.

She had to live now. More than ever. Everything in her pushed to live, to be again.

"Here we are now, with desperate years in pain, We're awakening. Maybe it's called ambition, but you've been talking in your sleep about a dream, you're awakening. I want to wake up kicking and screaming. I want to know that my heart's still beating. It's beating. I'm beating. I'm Bleeding!" -Awakening. Switchfoot.

Evan sat at the edge of her bed, talking to her like the doctors had told him to. It was supposed to have been proven to help people hold on longer, help her come back to the world maybe. Evan wasn't sure it worked, but it made him feel a little less lonely.

Her heart monitor started beeping rapidly, and then flat lined. "Hey!" Evan yelled, "We need a doctor in here!" A couple people came running in, pushing Evan off the bed. "Charge… CLEAR!"

"And everything inside screams for second life". -Meant to Live. Switchfoot.

"Charge!" Emmaline's eyes opened wide a split second before they fired of a second round on the defibrillator. "Hold it!" The doctor said. Emma sat up and Evan, accompanied by her parents now, came running to her side.

"Charlie and the ranch!" Emma sobbed as her mother came to hug her. "Grandma and cancer and…" She trailed off, sobbing into her mother's shoulders, as she was rocked gently.

"What's going on?" Her mother asked softly, "What about grandma?"

"I… I don't know," Emma said, sitting back. God, her head hurt. A doctor came in, checking all her stats.

"We're gonna run a few checks, and we can probably take her out of Intensive pretty soon," He said, and Emma smiled. She was wheeled out, into an elevator with 2 crying people.

"Are you okay?" She asked them. God, they looked familiar. Charlie, a name popped into the back of her head. She'd never known a Charlie before. Well, she'd known Charlie's but she'd never been close with any of them. "He wont be sick, he's home," The sentence came out before it processed in her head. What had she just said, and why? The woman looked down at her, and smiled through her tears.

"Thank you," She said, and they got off at the next level. Emma had no idea what had just gone on and she wasn't sure she'd ever know. What she did know, was that living, at that moment, was okay.

"And here we go, life's waiting to begin." -The Adventure. Angels and Airwaves.