Distant Road

Prologue: The Immense Fog

Have you ever wondered what it was like to experience death?

There was a crash.
It sent me flying across the road. As soon as I woke, I knew the horror that would await me. I could see my sisters lifeless body laying across the guardrail. Her eyes were always so full of joy and sparkle. They were looking at me, wide eyed. Instead of the normal excitement they held, I saw terror. The terror you feel when something hits you out of the blue. Something unexpected. When I looked over at the pile of metal, I could see nothing but blood. I couldn't move anything. I felt so helpless. I desperately searched for the other vehicle. Moving my head around slowly. I searched, but there was nothing. I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and I could feel the darkness pulling me closer. I wanted it to take me away. In my head, I begged it to take me. As I blinked one last time, a single tear drop fell from my cheek onto the wet ashpalt. I wanted it to take me, so it did.

When I opened my eyes for the first time in two weeks, I was confused as to why the darkness let me go. I didn't want to see the world as it was. Not without them.

I spent a month in the hospital with a severe concussion, six broken ribs, both legs broken and a shattered hip. I then spent two months in psychical therapy.

The pain I endured when I first woke from the darkness, sitting in that hospital bed, it didn't compare to the pain I would feel the rest of my life.

Before my older sister turned 18 we lived with our distant aunt who worked for an international firm. Even though she was our legal guardian at the time she was rarely home. When my sister turned 18, moving out and leaving the city wasn't hard for us. We were used to being alone, just the two of us. We made it okay. Our aunt made sure we left with enough money to support ourselves. After our parents died they left us a great deal of money in their will. For a while everything was fine. My sister Julie was a nurse at the local hospital and I was attending a decent public school.
Julie met a guy not long after we left our aunts. When Julie got cancer, he not only took care of her but he watched after me. Darren was the brother I never had. After about a year, Julie was in remission and that's when her and Darren got married. We were a family.

I had two friends in high school. Maggie had abusive parents and she stayed at my house most nights. We became friends after my sister and I saw her mother smack her in the school parking lot. Maggie was laying on the ground sobbing, her mother drove off. We took her in and she became a very great friend to me.
Rose was my childhood friend. She had lovely parents and was always the one to cheer me up. When my parents died, her parents let us stay with them for a few years. They stopped Julie from committing suicide and they made us feel important.

I lost them all that night.

I couldn't support myself after that, I turned 18 in the hospital and I didn't have any family. I tried going back to school for the remaining two months but I missed too much and the staring and whispers made me go insane.
Darren's best friend was a few years older than me. He was there when I woke up in the hospital. He would visit me everyday. He helped me walk for the first time after the accident. He was there every time I woke up from a nightmare. When I left the hospital, I stayed with him for a short while.
Once the fog came I went with it.
I left that place and everything I knew behind. I never went back.

Kasey didn't know I left. I thanked him the night before and in that moment was my first kiss. I was happy and the first thing I wanted to do afterward was tell Julie. When I realized I couldn't, and that everyone I loved was taken from me,  I couldn't let Kasey in.

Once the fog of my thoughts crept in I ran.