Spotlight

07

The wall seemingly made it's way closer and closer to me and all I could do was to brace myself for the impact. The moment before you crash is peaceful in a way, there is a certain calm that settles over you when you get beyond the point of trying to catch the car by counter steering or breaking. The world slows down and your head clears in a way that is almost impossible to recreate. You stop hearing anything at all, not the car, not the crowd and not the gravel crunching beneath you- it just goes completely quiet.

I took a deep breath, breathing in the damp, burnt rubber smelling air and closed my eyes for a split second, allowing myself to almost relish in the pre crash feeling as I let go of the steering heel and clutched my arms over my chest. An image briefly passed through my mind of me being hauled away from the track by ambulance but quickly faded. I knew it was going to be a bad one given the speed I had carried and the airtime I was experiencing, but then only one thought echoed through my mind.
This one is going to hurt.

CRASH

It felt like was standing as an outsider watching the contact between the car and the wall before the world came back into the right speed as my car flew into the tech pro.

The right front wing of my airborne car was the first part of the vehicle to make contact with the wall before the right side smashed into it, sending pieces of debris flying everywhere and leaving the right front tire hanging in an awkward angle.

My head violently whipped to the side as much as the neck brace would allow and my legs smashed against the interior of my survival pod. I could almost feel the pieces of metal and carbon fibers compressing and giving in to the extreme force as they snapped and cracked underneath me before everything went black.

My ears were ringing like crazy but that was just about the only sound they picked up, it blocked everything else out. I opened my eyes to look around and there were marshals rushing towards me with fighter extinguishers and I could not help but mentally groan, I had passed out which meant that the crash had been even worse than I had expected.

My whole body felt stiff from tensing and the ache left by the impact had started to sneak up on me. On top of that my head was absolutely pounding and blinding white spots were constantly constricting my vision,

"Emmy are you ok-"

I could vaguely hear Mark trying to check up on me before everything once again went black but after that nothing.

I woke up after what seemed to be about ten seconds feeling completely convinced that I was dead and reliving my death in the afterlife, until I saw the marshals now almost right by my wreck of a car.

"Emmy are you okay"
Mark repeated with a voice trying to conceal worry and maybe even panic.

"Yeah I'm fine, big one, sorry guys" I coughed, breathing in the powder from the safety crews fire extinguisher irritating my lungs, trying to look around but not seeing anything through the smoke and powder.

I gave myself one more second before starting to push off and out of my seat and removed the steering wheel.
This one is going to hurt tomorrow, or today probably

Grabbing onto one of the crews hands I managed to get out of the car and take a few staggering steps away from it.

Finally getting to take a look at it I could not help but gasp, the car was completely smashed and torn into two pieces. The rear had been completely torn off and the front wing was folded in half, honestly looking at the car it was hard to see any resemblance between the wreck I stood in front of  and the beauty I had started the race in.
That is one expensive fuckup.