Hey, I'm going to start writing again; I've fallen victim to my own procrastination :| but I thought before then I'd put up my english writing piece to get some opinons on it. It's probably not that great but it's probably not going to get better :L Anyway thanks for any feedback! Also what age do you think I am from this?
In the space of twenty seconds four lives were extinguished, like candle flames snuffed out. In twenty seconds a brand new car was turned into scrap metal. In twenty seconds my life was turned upside down, inside out and any other way you can think of.
The silence. That came first. A desperate shout, from my father in the driver’s seat, and then nothing. As if a mute button had been pressed, all sounds simply vanished. But with the lack of sound came a surprising enhancement on every other sense. My nostrils were filled with the sulphurous stench of burning rubber as both our car and the truck coming directly towards us desperately slammed on their brakes.
And everything slows down, every minute detail imposed in my mind. My parents mouths opening uttering words unheard by me. I see the fear in my parents faces, in my siblings eyes I see how terrified they are even my littlest sister. At only two she can’t possibly comprehend what’s happening but looking into those hazel eyes I could have sworn she knew exactly what was happening.
My head is whipped round by the swerve of our car, swerving almost far enough to get out of the trucks path. Almost isn’t good enough. I’m blinded as the harsh headlights flare in my vision, my eyes squinting from the glare. Mere seconds of white pass before I can see again, before it happens. Before time speeds up in an almost unnatural way.
The jarring shudder as the truck slams into the cars side. The steel crumpling like a flimsy piece of paper tossed away nonchalantly, crumpling in on itself the door is mutated by the impact. And then we are airborne. The car flipping through the air, the air rushing through the gaps in the ruined metal. In that moment my mind finally processes the reality of what’s happening, and a scream builds up in my throat, but for some unknown reason it stays there. I’m silenced by own fear.
But through my own silence, sound returns to my world, and I’m almost overwhelmed with the noise. The screams of my family as they try in vain to shield their faces for the impact follows. There are so many different sounds, but I can somehow differentiate between them all. The sudden crash of the car landing on the other side of the road, the sickening crunch as the side of the car collapses against the solid tarmac. I hear the windows shatter as they implode, shards of them glass embedding themselves in my face.
As the car crashed to the ground the airbags in the front ballooned to their full size. And as my parents were flung forward by the momentum of the crash so too was I. But whilst they were cushioned by the airbags, I was not. The seatbelt I was wearing dug into my abdomen as I was hurled forward, my head impacting with the chair in front. And like that my vision began to go, a black haze filling my eyesight gradually covering up all I could see.
And like that I could not make a sound, nor could I move any part of myself, that I could tell anyway. But even then I could still consciously make out the noises of the destruction around me. The gasps of my family, or what was left of it…I could tell by the panic in my mother’s voice that something was wrong with my siblings, and in turn my father.
Her attention turned to me, calling my name frantically, in desperation. And I tried, oh I tried to respond in someway. But no matter what I did nothing was perceived by her, goddamn it. I prayed in that moment, for something, anything to happen, for some higher power to take pity on me. I willed my throat to release the words that in this moment seemed trapped there. I urged myself to find the power somehow, to move even just a single muscle to ease her suffering. But nothing happened, I continued to lie there unmoving, unseeing. But listening, and smelling.
I could hear my mother’s frantic calls dissolved into tears, and in turn to frenzied howls. It seemed almost inhuman how she cried, how she screamed and sobbed. And I heard as the car was approached by others, bypassers, witnesses. Fervently willing her to let them help, but she wouldn’t in some ways I don’t think she could. And so it was by force I assumed that my mother was pulled from car and to safety.
I could still hear them, even after they left the confines of the car. The muttering and whispers of strangers I didn’t know, and probably never will. And the frenzied wheezes of my mother, who still hysterically called our names.
It was only as the voices faded to inaudible murmurs, travelling further away from the car, that I noticed the scent that hung in the air, a scent I had previously failed to detect. Gasoline, a smell I once loved as a child, strangely enough. But I knew even then that it was not a good thing, it was too powerful, in the wrong circumstances. And this without a doubt was one of them. It was then it dawned on me why those people had been so desperate to remove my mother from the car.
With this realization a new form of panic stepped in. I could feel the rising heat around me, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the flames reached the fuel tank.
And yet I still couldn’t move, trapped by my own mind and body. As the flames travelled through the car, they flared up against my skin, causing deep welts of searing pain.
Milliseconds past, and then with a loud blast the flames erupted and I felt no more.
