Ain't No Mountain High Enough

"Another One Bites the Dust"

My name is Randall Riggs.

Wow, okay. Maybe that's a really bad way to start a story. I mean, in my high school writing class I read that we were supposed to open a story with action -- you know, something to really pull a reader in. My name is nothing interesting, so I'll have to give that a do-over.

But like, where do I even start? My whole life has been something of a trainwreck, but I can't really start from the day I was born, can I? That would be a boring story. Yikes, now I'm just stalling.

I guess I'll start things up with the day I almost died. Nothing says "edge-of-your-seat-action" like a near-death experience, am I right? Yeah. It's as good a place to start as any.

It's pretty much when my life started down a whole new level of trainwreckness, if that's even a word.

~ ~ ~

It started out like any other day in late September. It was a Saturday, so I was looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing even though I should have been working on a giant thesis that was due the next week. But hey, I was stressed that day, and I really wanted some time off from working.

I walked out into the living room of my apartment to find I was the last one to wake up that morning, which wasn't really that much of a surprise, I guess. I shared the apartment with two other freaks of nature, Keto and Veronica Osvaldo. They were twin siblings, and the three of us had known each other since middle school. We were pretty much the outcasts in society -- you know, the geeks and nerds -- so we banded together, and yeah, we've been friends pretty much ever since.

Veronica was laying in the middle of the floor chatting away to someone on the phone about who knew what. She was still in her pajamas.

Keto was sitting in the big blue beanbag with his eyes glued to the TV screen. He was playing Kingdom Hearts for what had to be, I don't know, the tenth time? I've lost count. The guy's a Kingdom Hearts megafan, and a little intense to be around because of it.

Neither of them paid any attention to me as I stood there rubbing my eyes. The rainy weather was making them itch. After a good minute of being ignored, I went into the kitchen and made a beeline for the fridge, only to find it partially empty. I heaved a sigh at the sad sight. "All right," I called. "Who ate all the food?"

There was a short pause before Veronica appeared in the doorway. "Oh, sorry, I forgot to pick some stuff up when I went out yesterday," she paused her conversation to tell me. She was in charge of grocery shopping, but sometimes she forgot.

So much for my day off. Oh well. "I can run out for some things real quick," I said as Veronica hung up the phone.

"Are you sure?" Veronica put her phone on the kitchen counter and straightened out her pajama shirt.

I shrugged. "I got nothing else better to do." I grabbed the keys from a little basket full of knickknacks on the counter and started for the front door in the living room.

Neither of them said goodbye as I walked outside. It was still raining, and according to the notifications on my phone, there was some flooding in the roads, too. But that was nothing old Leon couldn't handle.

And by Leon, I mean our dirt old sedan. Keto had named it after Squall Leonheart from Final Fantasy 8, but as he is named in Kingdom Hearts. I'm telling you, the guy's a real nerd.

Anyways, I got in the car and started the ignition. Leon sputtered a bit before starting up, but I was soon pulling out of the parking lot. The Mario bobble head sitting on the dashboard shook like it was having a fit. I started putting together a mental list of everything I needed to get at the store as I got onto the highway.

I'll say this before moving forward. Leon was like, maybe twenty years old at this point. He'd broken down multiple times, and we literally had to fight to keep him going. His brakes needed to be replaced something awful, but we didn't have the money to do it then. Basically, in order to stop, you had to plan ahead and really hammer on the breaks if you wanted to stop. And when it came to moments where you had to stop fast? Well... I'll let you figure out what happens then on your own.

I was about halfway between the apartment and the grocery store when I pulled up to a red light. The rain began coming down with a vengeance, so I hit the windshield wipers, but they were so slow it didn't do me any good.

The light turned green, and I had to really press on the gas pedal to make Leon go forward. I was in the middle of the intersection when a car on my right, which was supposed to be stopping at their red light, ended up skidding on the water in the road. I slammed on the breaks the instant I noticed there would be trouble, but I knew I was never going to make it.

I always figured the moment I died, my entire life would flash before my eyes. There wasn't any time for that at all. A chorus of tires screeching against the pavement was the last thing I remember happening before the unfortunate BMW smashed into Leon. After that, there was nothing.

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Thanks for reading! 

This chapter is named after the Queen song "Another One Bites the Dust"

Peace ✌  ~ A.J.