Fool's Paradise

Prologue

Dedicated to a Wattpad friend. Here's to hoping I write something meaningful.

~~~

I gasped at the collision.

The car hit me with such force that I flew into the air, the weightlessness being prolonged as adrenaline pumped into my veins, slowing down time. I landed on the hard pavement heavily, hearing a sickening crack and knew that I had broken bones.

My vision faded in and out of focus as I heard screams of horror and footsteps hurrying to where I was lying. Finding that I couldn't turn my head, my eyes instead focused on the red substance that was trickling down my arm. Steadily, the stream made its way down my arm, and onto the ground. Staring dumbly at the liquid, my mind reeled from the shock.

"What happened?" I thought, "Why's that water red?"

Slowly, my head cleared enough for me to realize that the red liquid was blood. My blood.

"Miss, are you ok?" I heard a man ask from behind me.

"No," I wanted to say, "I'm bleeding, do you think I'm ok?" Instead, all that came out of my mouth was a groan and a cough. The cough quickly turned to hacking and when it stopped, I tasted something metallic on my tongue. Blood.

"Hello? 911? Yes, we've just had a hit and run at the intersection of Yale and Hastings. The woman's bleeding a lot and coughed up blood. She's dying."

Dying. Such a small word, yet so meaningful. Dying.

"I'm dying?" I thought to myself. "It doesn't feel like it."

And it was true, I didn't feel any pain. Numbness had enveloped me like a mother's hug, comforting me in its embrace. It hid me from my surroundings, blurring my vision, muting my hearing and giving me a sense of weariness.

I didn't feel the searing pain that my damaged nerves sent up to my brain.

I didn't feel the panic of the mass of people slowly gathering around me.

No, even when the paramedics came and carried me away, I didn't feel anything.