After the Crash

Chapter 1

I stared out of the car window, staring up into the endless sea of clouds, making out shapes and animals as Mommy drove down the highway. I could see cats, dogs, bunnies, and even more. Dad flicked the ashes of his cigarette out of his window, I watched the glowing flakes fly by, they were red and orange, and they were the size of tiny buttons.

Tommy always had his phone out, he checked it every five seconds. The blue glow of it kind of looked like the ocean, with all of the colorful fishes swimming everywhere. Tommy liked talking to his friend Christy a whole lot, he seemed to talk about her whole bunch.

I looked out the window again, but we weren't moving. We had stopped in the middle of the road, everyone ahead of us weren't moving either. I looked up into the sky, but the clouds were gone. The sky was gray instead of a blue.

"Mommy, why is everyone not moving?" I asked, the colorful line of cars looked like it continued forever. Even Tommy noticed it. He noticed Mommy looked worried.

"Don't worry honey, it is just a little traffic, nothing to worry about!" She said quickly, it still seemed like she knew something was happening.

"Just a little traffic? This is a lot of traffic. Have you ever noticed this many cars on this highway?" Tommy bursted out. He was in a hurry because he was supposed to meet Christy somewhere. "I can't even get reception here!"

"Thomas. It is fine." Dad said as he rolled up his window, Tommy looked at Dad, Tommy took out his phone again. I looked into the sky again, and saw something falling through the sky. It was the same color as the ashes of Dad's cigarette.

"Dad, look! It looks like one of the ashes from your cigarette!" I exclaimed, he grunted as he looked up.

"Dad. What is it?" Tommy asked.

"That ain't one of the ashes, that is a meteor! Thomas! Get your sister out of the car! Your mom and I will follow you!" Dad exclaimed, I didn't know what was happening, but Tommy unbuckled me and carried me out of the car, and ran. He ran as fast as he could away from the fiery thing flying through the cloudless sky. I looked behind me to see if Mommy and Dad were there, they were, but they looked like ants from here. They weren't going as fast as we were.

"Tommy, should we wait for Mommy and Dad?" I asked, he kept running, as his grip on me tightened slightly.

"They won't be able to catch up. They are too far away." He said quietly.

"But why are we running? Will something bad happen?" I asked, he didn't said anything, he just nodded. It was quiet for a while, but then, there was a loud bang that hurt my ears. I looked over Tommy's shoulder, I couldn't see through the large sea of gray that appeared when the object crashed. "What about Dad and Mommy?"

"We'll have to check for them later, if we go back, even worse things would happen." He said. I didn't know how things could get worse, but Mommy and Dad would surely catch up to use soon. Tommy and I were still moving very fast, and the smoke still hadn't gone away.

"When does later mean?" I asked.

"Later is when I say we go back." He snapped, he seemed annoyed by me for some reason. "All we can do now is go as far away from that meteor as we possibly can." He continued running for a while, until he saw something. "No. No! Another one? There were multiple meteors?!" He sighed. "We will have to go into the forest, it is our best bet." He carried me off into the green sea of trees, still not knowing what was going on, Iooked back towards the smoke, I didn't know what this meteor looked like up close, I wanted to know. But I couldn't yet.

A few days later, the smoke was gone, and Tommy and I went out of the forest to go check on Mommy and Dad. We walked carefully over to the giant rock from the sky. It made a huge hole in the ground. Tommy looked at all the sleeping bodies on the ground.

"Why are all of these people sleeping?" I asked as I looked at them. "They smell bad too!"

"Oh, OH!" Tommy exclaimed as if he realized something. "You don't know, do you, Olivia?"

"Know what?" I asked.

"When a person's heart stops beating. When they don't breath, they start sleeping, but not an 8 hour sleep like an average person. They sleep forever." He explained.

"How do we wake them up?" I asked.

"Y-you can't." He said quietly.

"But if they're only sleeping, then we can wake them up." I said, Tommy must be joking with me, no one can sleep forever.

"They aren't sleeping. They're dead." He said. "These people aren't coming back." I frowned, what if this happened to Mommy and Dad? I looked around the sea of bodies, everything stopped as I ran over to two bodies. Ones I knew. Mommy and Dad.

"Tommy!" I yelped, tears gathering in my eyes. Tommy ran over, I could tell he was holding back tears. "No, no no. They can't be." Tommy knelt down and put his fingers on both of their necks, he shook his head, and he frowned, stood up, and looked at me.

"They're dead." He said after about a minute. "Olivia, I'm sorry. There is nothing we could have done to help them."

"We could have not been on this highway." I said, attempting to hold Mommy and Dad in my arms. Tommy and I stayed near Mommy and Dad for hours, I wanted them to come back, I NEEDED them to come back, but they couldn't. They just couldn't. They were dead, dead meant gone.