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eight >> the aftermath

- PART THREE -
after

NATALIA'S P.O.V.

Date - March 25th
Time - 11:49
Location - Highway I-10

A scream came.

Then the sound of shattering glass.

I looked up from my phone, facing the once more appalling image of the traffic, now greeted with horrifying shrieks.

"What's going on?!" I asked my driver in my thick accent.

"People are a frantic miss! Some are coming out of their cars and crying out names. People are gone missing!" he exclaimed fearfully, pointing at the woman on the street whose face was in disarray.

"How can anyone go missing under the last minute?" I questioned quizzically just as my phone buzzed.

I swiped my phone and found out that it was the notification of a new news...

...under the reminder of my father's funeral.

Seeing it made me feel guilty, even if I didn't know him at all. He deserved some respect, especially from his own family, but I didn't give it to him.

It was the tenth anniversary of his death - or at least the announcement of his death. He was presumed dead after his ship sank, since he was a navy man.

His death should have meant a lot to me, but it didn't. He was never home, always leaving me with my temperamental Scottish mother. His death caused me suffering, especially from my mother.

A chill crawled down my spine.

No, just no.

I shook my head dismissively and stared at the news, feeling my eyes widen and my heart sinking.

"An accident occurred at precisely 11:47 in a stray road near Highway Interstate 10," I read the news out loud. "The casualties are high, with a victim of seven, but the five victims (Valerie Morton, 16; Giselle Brady, 15; Lisa Carey, 17; and Savannah Torey, 20) died from gunshots, poison, and an arrow, while the two drivers (Cole Devin, 19 and Patrick Joe, 36) died from the crash. From witnesses they say that the nineteen year-old driver Cole Devin went off-road and into the stray road that led to a farm, where a truck carrying a herd of cows crashed during their turn in the one way road. It was a heads on collision, with the certainty of death. The mystery still remains to how the girls managed to get out of their cars and arrive in the crime scene in such a short amount of time."

My driver shuddered. "How awful! And to think that the traffic is worse enough."

I bit my lip. I was getting a bad feeling about this, especially with the fact that this was the only anniversary that I missed for the last ten years. Was it karma at work?

I grunted. I was on my way to Phoenix for my friend, who was sobbing in the call last night:

"Nat, please come! Please it's important, it's urgent. Please Nat you're my only hope."

I didn't actually care for any other explanations, I just decided to hop on a car and drive through the I-10, but I didn't know that it would be this terrible.

Still...it kind of bothered me that all of these accidents happened during the day that I missed the proclamation of death of my father, but even so, it would be painful.

"Ma'am, be careful, the mothers and fathers of the dead girls are all peering into cars," my driver warned me.

A woman with dirty blonde hair and dopey gray eyes slammed herself face first onto my car window, tears streaming down and glistening on my window.

"LISA!?" the woman screamed in a plead.

I gave her a pitiful face. She must be the mother of Lisa Carey, who died so young, who's even younger than I was.

Gunshot deaths

Poison and arrows

That struck me suddenly.

What if...?

I quickly diminished the thought. It was irrational to think that way, especially living in the US where guns were allowed legally. Arrows and poison could be easily bought from any hunting store. Don't get me wrong, my driver has a gun stashed somewhere in the car for safe keeping, and I used to have arrows to shoot birds.

The woman looked at me wildly, and it reminded me painfully of my own mother.

I did not want to relive that.

She gave me one last wild look before she ran to the next car, still crying out her lost daughter's name.

I felt so selfish for not helping her, but I couldn't in a way.

I stared at my window, now tear stained and dirty, but then I noticed something else, I saw impressions on the bullet-proof window, and I wondered how that got there.

"Rod?" I called out my driver.

"Yes ma'am?" he replied in the same dialect as mine, his eyes still staring confusedly at the scene before him.

"Was this here yesterday?" I asked him, pointing accusingly at the window.

He turned and glanced at the direction of my finger. He looked confused, "Not to my knowledge, no."

"Oh," was all I could say.

I stared at it intently, seeing that those impressions resemble those of a result of punching.

Someone was trying to get in.

But when?

I heard my phone buzz and ping rapidly, sending me notifications which I ignored as I pressed the button and watched as my window rolled down. Not many bullet-proof windows roll down, but I asked them for it, and they obeyed.

I stared out, welcomed the polluted air into my lungs and the blaring sounds of honks into my ears.

All was so ordinary, so tiring.

And then everything just stopped.

I felt a jolt in my mind, a rise of panic in my heart. Everything stopped, the air didn't move, the noises halted, the heat pausing.

"Natalia," a sketchy voice intercepted my mind.

I felt my heart race into a deafening beat as I swiveled my head towards the voice beside me.

Everything was dark instantly.

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Dedicated to my dear reader Lele43Ed.

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