Bloody Souvenirs

Chapter 8

"Mum, when are we gonna reach the amusement park?" the little girl whined to her mother as she jumped around in the backseat of the car.

Her mother laughed from the passenger side, "Just a few more minutes honey. Be patient."

"You've been saying that for the past 2 hours!"

Her father smiled as he drove, "Love, if you wait patiently, I promise we'll make a trip to the ice cream parlor too."

"Ice cream parlor?" the little girl's eyes lit up.

"Yes." The father replied as he glanced at the rear view mirror to look at his daughter. She looked beyond excited. She bounced around the backseat as her big hazel eyes sparkled with excitement. She had her mother's eyes. He had always thought they were beautiful.

He turned his eyes back to the road as they approached an intersection. But just as they reached the bend, a huge pickup truck came speeding in and rammed into the passenger side. The girl's eyes grew wide and her mother screamed as her father lost control and the car flipped over. The sounds of shattering glass and splintering metal were all that could be heard after the large crash of the collision.

The car finally skidded to a stop, still turned over the side. The little girl was crying now. Smoke and shattered glass fragments surrounded her in all directions. She had hit her head pretty hard and her world was spinning. She watched as both her parents lay still in the front part of the car, blood trickling down their heads.

Distant sounds of sirens could be heard now. The girl slowly crawled her way forward and shook her mother by the arm, "Mommy? Mommy, wake up!"

Her eyes grew more frantic as she did the same with her father, shaking him as hard as she could with her little hands, "Daddy, please wake up!"

Tears streamed down her face as she looked hopelessly from one adult to the other. Just then, uniformed men infiltrated the scene and pulled the little girl out from the flaming rubble of what had once been a car. She screamed and thrashed in their grip, "No! Please help them out! Please!"

Little did she know, her mother was never going to wake up again. Her father wasn't either.

I woke up with a jolt, my heart beating faster than a million miles an hour. Trying to steady my ragged breathing, I backed up against the wall beside my bed, pulling the covers closer. The bedside clock said 3 AM.

I sighed. I wouldn't exactly call that dream a nightmare but it wasn't pleasant either. I wondered if it meant something. Every person, every scene from the dream was still fresh on my mind. The girl, her eyes, the collision, the dead bodies, I could see it all vividly.

I laid back down in hopes of trying to sleep again but couldn't stop thinking about what I had just seen. Did I know that girl? What about her parents? Why had I seen that dream at all? Was any of it real?

"None of it was real." I thought, trying to convince myself. "It was just a stupid dream and dreams are senseless most of the time."

But I wasn't quite being able to push it out of my mind. Even after I closed my eyes, my mind kept replaying that crash.

................................

"Thank you, sir. Come again!" I said as a customer got up to leave.

I went back inside to as it was about time for my break. In the kitchen area, Sara was buzzing around with an excited expression on her face. When she saw me, she immediately came over.

"Kat! You can't possibly guess what just happened!" she squealed.

"Let me guess." I said nonchalantly, "You just found out you're the queen's lost daughter?"