A Twist of Fate SERIES (Pentatonix)

(2) No

( SCOTT )

I can't feel. I can't breathe. I can't move. Not even when I hear more vehicles show up, radios go off, voices fill the air. I vaguely comprehend somebody's deep voice telling me to get out of the way, picking me up and pushing me off to the side as I catch a glimpse of the Jaws of Life.

A strange sound starts to build up in the base of my throat, threatening to release itself, though I can barely breathe with the knot that has already lodged itself in my vocal cords, as if the letters of my friends' names are there, impeding my thoughts and encumbering my abilities to do anything.

That's when I hear a loud crunching sound, and I turn to look at Kirstie's car; several uniformed figures surround it, trying to extract her from it. Then I look back towards Mitch's car, the officials' shouts sounding muffled and distant as they bounce off my eardrums; they're folding back pieces of scrap metal to get to his body.

And that's when I feel my knees give out, and I collapse to them on the pavement, pressing the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, noticing that they—and the front of my shirt—are covered in Mitch's blood.

"Hey, it's okay," I hear a soothing voice say, and then I feel a hand on my back between my shoulder blades. Despite the rock in my throat and the nonexistent earplugs in my ears, the familiar voice slices realizations into my brain, and I look up towards the source.

"Kevin?" The syllables that exit my mouth don't sound like my voice at all; they're strained and weak, even sounding like they're being blocked. But, nevertheless, Kevin stands there, his face illuminated in blue and red flashing lights, his eyes wide with recognition.

"Scott?" he asks softly, the sound emulating mine. He immediately removes his hand from my back, and awkwardly moves it to the back of his neck, as if, once he knew it was me, touching me suddenly became a sin.

I open my mouth to say something, though nothing comes to mind. I'm interrupted, anyway, by a loud curse from the paramedics around Kirstie's car. My attention immediately snaps towards it.

"Don't...look over there," Kevin says quietly, side-stepping in front of me to block my view, so now I'm staring at his legs. I turn my head back up to meet his eyes, which now have tears swimming in them. "It's..." He sighs. "It's not pretty."

"That's Kirstie," I say quickly, her name tumbling off my lips as if I've been saying it all my life. The lump in my throat feels like it's decreasing, like the letters of her name really were there. I nod towards the other car, though I don't dare look. "And that's Mitch."

Maybe I shouldn't have said it. Because now it really looks like Kevin is going to cry. He has this shocked expression on his face, mixed with sadness and disbelief; it's so emotional that I can't pinpoint what he's exactly feeling. It looks like he's going to collapse on the pavement right beside me, but he holds his composure, and his attention immediately snaps away from me when one of the firemen call for a stretcher. He goes running, swiping at his eyes, and I'm left alone again, still covered in blood.

The amount of emptiness I'm feeling right now is unfathomable. It's like someone went into my body and extracted everything, pumping me full of lead and replacing my blood with sand. It's like I'm feeling so many emotions at once that I can't even feel anything anymore.

I push myself up off the pavement, almost in slow motion, when I notice a heavily-uniformed fireman gently laying Kirstie's limp body down onto the stretcher that Kevin had provided. He immediately places an oxygen mask on her face as another paramedic takes her pulse and checks her eyes. I force my legs to move towards them, and I can feel my heart jump back into my throat.