Somewhere Between Psychotic and Iconic

C H A P T E R_T W O

A warm breeze blew over my face, tangling my messy hair with my headphones. 'Mom must have opened the window at some point.' I opened my eyes only to be blinded by the early afternoon sun, I instantly shutting them once again. The sounds of my favorite song was the only thing I could hear. It seemed oddly quiet, I felt I should be hearing roaring engines and the beeps of rage filled drivers despite the high volume of my headphones. I stretched my arms above my head, and pushed my shoulders back against the car seat. Except there was no plush seat behind me, and instead of my arms being stopped by my head rest, they kept going until I felt the soft grass and sharp sticks below me.

My eyes shot open and I looked all around me. I was in a field all by myself. Mom's car was far off to my left, but it was upside down. It's tires spinning freely in the air, and smoke coming from the engine. Behind me was the highway we were driving on not that long ago. "Mom!" I screamed. I scrambled to my feet and started to run over to the flipped car. A sharp pain shot up from my left foot all the way up to my thigh. I looked down to find I had lost my shoe at some point, and my foot was bleeding uncontrollably. Somewhere beneath the mess of fabric and blood I could see the bone of my foot sticking out in a way that was humanly impossibly. I fell back to the ground as panic started to rush through my entire body. My mind was running at a thousand thoughts a second, the only one of importance was my mom.

I stood up once again and continued hobbling as fast as I could over to the car. I dropped back to the ground and crawled on my stomach as close to the car as I could get. "Mom?" I called out once again. She wasn't in the car like I had expected her to be. Although I wasn't quite sure what I would find, maybe our stuff thrown all over and my mother still strapped into her seat belt, cold dead hands gripping the steering wheel. Frozen in her last moments. But she wasn't. In fact there was nothing in the car at all. I turned back to the highway, hoping to see my mother hobble over the small shoulder of the road. Maybe scratched up a little from jumping out of a moving car, but okay. The longer I stared the more the pit in my stomach ate at my insides.

When I moved my eyes away from the strangely quiet highway and began to let the tears slip from my face that's when I heard it. Sirens. My head snapped up just in time to see several emergency vehicles drive into the field. I simply stood there and watched as cops and paramedics began to fill the scene. Two men in navy blue E.M.T jackets rushed over to me, picking me up like a rag doll and put me onto a stretcher. I hadn't realized how tired I was until then. I felt like all the energy had been drained from me.

"Miss? Miss if you are conscious please state your name for me." A paramedic said as he rushed next to the stretcher shining a small bright flashlight into my eyes.

"Ava... Easton." I croaked out. My throat suddenly felt like the desert, dry and sticky. I cleared my throat and began to speak again. "Did you find my mom?" I asked the man pushing the stretcher near my head.

"What? Your mom?" He questioned, but then blew it off and continued to look straight ahead. I couldn't find my voice to ask again. I felt dizzy, like I was slipping back and from from consciousness and not. I was loaded onto an ambulance surrounded by E.M.T's and one nurse who looked oddly familiar, but I wasn't sure from where.

"Is she hurt at all?" The nurse asked one of the E.M.T's.

"She has a severe break in her left foot, and she may have a mild concussion, other than some scratches and bruises that's the worst of it." He told her. I looked down at my foot, remembering the horrible sight of my bone popping out of the skin. They now had it wrapped up in gaze, although I don't remember them doing it.

"Ava?" Someone said. I looked to my right to see a paramedic standing over me. "Is there any pain?" I nodded my head, regretting it the moment I felt my head throb. I felt like my brain was being thrown around in my head. He cleaned my arm and poked me with an IV that instantly started to numb the pain. I felt like I was unconscious but at the same time I was aware of everything going on around me.