Shutter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things I

II: Memory

mem·o·ry

noun

something remembered from the past; a recollection.

It was not the excruciating pain that made Emilia want to cry, it was the inability to reach over and feel if her mother was even alive that broke her. Slow, fat tears slid down her cheeks as she leaned slumped over her seatbelt, awaiting death or saving. As she stared into the dull and fading blue eyes of her mother, she wished she were dead. But she knew better than that; she was going to be saved, and she was supposed to be thankful that she survived such a brutal car accident. Finding herself unable to close her eyes, she simply watched the snow blowing in through the shattered windshield, dusting the side of her mothers face. It stuck to the blood, then quickly evaporated in the warmth. Her mother was still warm, it had only been a few minutes since the accident had occurred, but it had felt like hours.

Groaning hinges would have startled Emilia, but her body was in shock now. Frozen to the bone, snow scattered over her as it blew in like an unwanted guest, Emilia finally found the energy to shut her eyes. She would pretend, if just for a few minutes, that she was having a nightmare. A beautiful, snow-filled nightmare. She noticed that night, as she felt herself being pulled from the car by warm, strong arms, that blood looked beautiful in the snow. The ambulances were near; the sound vibrating through her broken bones. She was unclipped from the seatbelt, arms stopped her from falling forward as they brought her out of the car. Why? Why would someone pull her from the wreckage?

The person stumbled underneath her dead weight, falling back in the snowy ravine. The crunch of glass could be heard. Emilia moaned in pain, although it came out only as a foggy whisper in the bitter cold winter air. The person got up, dragged her further away from the wreckage, and then she was left alone in the snow. The ambulance had arrived; she heard voices yelling, but she could not make out the words. This was still a nightmare, she told herself as her blue eyes pierced through the clouds way above her, the white snow falling over her face and chilling her. She was shaking with cold when the explosion sounded.

The snow turned from white to black as the ashes from the car fluttered down over her body.

This was no nightmare.

Just a painful memory.

Roll call ended and Emilia focused on the project at hand; each student in the class had to make a portfolio of the "Christmas Spirit" depsite it being October. For Emilia, Christmas and winter alone were a terrible time of year for her; creeping up on the second year anniversary of her mother's death, it never seemed to get easier. It would get easier, of course, if she had the support of her family. As an only child, she had no one to mourn with. Her father had been devastated by his wife's death, however, their marriage was broken well before that day. There were too many things left unfinished between them for him to move on, and so he withdrew and became unstable. He chose alcohol to numb his pain.

With an hour left of class, they had the remainder to either plan their portfolio or to begin taking photos of it as long as they were back before the final bell. Most of the students were quick to leave their seats to kill the time outside of the classroom. The teacher himself looked relieved as he took a seat in the chair at the back of the room and picked up a newspaper. Emilia, unsure of how to bring about images of her Christmas Spirit, stayed seated. Hunched over a notebook with nothing written on the page it was open to, Emilia remained invisible, or so she thought.