Paradox

C H A P T E R F O U R

When I came back to reality, there was a shattered windshield in front of me with glass everywhere.

I brought my hand to my ear, because it was ringing so loud I couldn't hear anything else. Instead, I felt something warm and sticky dripping through my hair.

I glanced at my shaky hand as the scarlet liquid dripped into my lap.

I turned to my left and saw my mom, her torso up hanging out of her door window. Her legs were bent awkwardly between the steering wheel and the seat.

I felt salty tears stream down my cheeks as I struggled against my seatbelt. It had come out of the clasp but was held against my chest by a thick branch that divided my mom and I. Everywhere I looked was blurry, no matter how many times I rubbed my eyes. All I succeeded in was smearing my own blood across my face.

I pushed against the rough tree branch, but my hands were shaking and kept scraping across the rough bark.

"Mom?" I called out, my voice hoarse and cracked.

When I received no response, I tugged at the leather strap across my chest with a renewed vigor, but the material barely loosened.

I tugged as hard as I could until there was just enough give to slide my knee between my chest and the seatbelt.

I pushed against the back of my seat and shimmied out of the seatbelt's grasp. I looked around me, the scenery lagging behind my movements. The car had flipped, spiraling down the shallow, rocky hill of the highway, before landing on its side.

With a rigid new addition to the center console.

I noticed my mom's side was turned upwards, towards the sky, whereas I was on the ground.

All the glass was shattered, the trunk bent in on itself, as much as I could make out, anyways.

I reached over the branch and tried to pull my mom back through her window. With much struggle and desperation, I finally succeeded. Her body fell into the driver seat limply, folding in on itself in a way that shouldn't be humanly possible.

I screamed until my voice was hoarser, I screamed as the sirens approached, I screamed as we were lifted from the wreckage.

While the EMTs attached me to different machines, I sat high above in a tree branch, crying as they zipped the black body bag and loaded it into the ambulance.