Nightmare

  The wind kept my dark blonde hair slicked against my scalp and trailed its amazing length behind me. My eyes were bright and clear, only tinted blue, like water; and as I glanced down, I noticed that in some miraculously short period of time, my body had become lean and muscular. The black, skin-tight leather body suit I was wearing had a neon-blue sheen from the dials around me.

It was then I decided this wasn't me. I was in some beautiful, poised woman's body. This wasn't me. I dressed in baggy clothes, to hide my imperfect figure, I would never dress like this. Never.

Thin, agile fingers with perfect, but plain nails, flew over dials and gripped a steering wheel with sudden force. I felt like I was one with whoever it was I had possessed. This body looked weak and fragile, but I found it sturdy and durable has I reached for a gearshift and jammed it back with grace that I couldn't recall having.

Who was I?

Suddenly that didn't matter as an eighteen wheeler truck came up on my right flank. It was dark, and the truck's headlights cut through the darkness the same way I expected a knife to cut through flesh. I glanced out my window and saw stars twinkle in the black sky before the eighteen-wheeler blocked my view.

As the cabin nearly scraped off my right headlight, I glimpsed a man in a red cap. He never looked at me, but I knew he was the enemy.

What was going on?

Again, the question would have to be left for later. Leaning dangerously low, as I realized my car had no floor, I forced the gearshift as far forward as it would go. I felt the tires gripping the road and gaining mind-blowing speed. The hillside enclosing the left side of this two lane highway was no more than a colored blur. If I wiped out now, there was no way I'd survive.

Despite this knowledge, the usual sense of crippling fear was absent. Instead, I found it thrilling, almost like being high. The girl whose body I had stolen, was giddy at the prospect of putting her life on the line for kicks.

Without warning, I felt her sick sense of enjoyment leave us, and purpose and determination replaced it. The man in the red cap was going to pay for something, and pay dearly.

I gritted my teeth with her as we jerked the steering wheel and tried to ram the over-sized U-Haul into the canyon below. He slowed down and we swerved, narrowly keeping the fiberglass car on the thin stretch of road. But before we escaped death for only the first time that night, I saw the blue-black glimmer of the water filling the canyon far below.

It wasn't only death that awaited us, but a painful death.

The truck had pulled ahead. I could feel her panic as she fought to retake the lead.

Why did it seem so imperative that we win?

Abruptly, the blonde woman spun the steering wheel again and we swung around the truck and in front of it. I saw the red-capped man's grin against his shadowed face while we left him behind. Dread filled us both.
But unlike me, this girl kept her cool and continued onward, seemingly unphased by the unsettling exchange.

We looked back quickly, only to see the truck dive off the edge of the cliff. It was clearly on purpose, and fear froze in my chest. I wouldn't wish that crushing liquid ice death on anyone. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to block out the horrorifying image of water smashing through car windows, invading it's unfortunate victim's lungs, bringing darkness and strangling death.

The girl forced our eyes open. The rock canyon wall was rushing at us. With our amazing speed, we'd be crushed and dead before we could feel the pain. I was ready to give up, even though I found death hard to accept, but she was still determined to live, to win.

The man was dead, wasn't it over yet?

Grimacing with the effort, she wrenched her body up out of the seat and forced the car to turn. The body we shared was nowhere near capable of what happened next. By her own will, the car veered towards the unrailed edge that the truck driver had leapt from. With another violent jerk, she dragged the metal creature back to its proper position on the road.

All of this happened within seconds somehow, boggling my overly-logical mind.

I was relieved as we escaped death. Evading death twice in under thirty seconds, that had to be some kind of record. But for some reason beyond my meager comprehension, the blonde girl was still on edge.

As she turned her face out the window with a grimace that was somewhere between worry and fortitude, I suddenly knew she was me. It didn't seem possible, but the slender, yet solid girl manipulating the world around with her with only will-power was... me.

I turned with her, pushing my bewilderment aside. A choking sensation assailed me as I watched the truck. The man hadn't driven off the cliff, he had jumped from one hill-side to the next. It really didn't seem so amazing as I considered the close proximity of the twisted hairpin turns snaking around these mountainsides. But in an eighteen wheeler? I didn't know what to think, but the me driving the car did. She knew exactly what she was doing, and exactly how grave a situation we were in.

The car leaned precariously as we exited the hairpin and entered another. I leaned into the wind with her as the truck came back into sight.

Where was the windshield?

We were catching up, at last, as we almost rolled in an additional turn. Again, we were tailgating the gas-burning monster. Its yellow headlights made me want to wretch as the more composed version of myself slid the car up the left flank.

The truck rammed us, and to avoid being crushed between it and the granite walls, we handed over the lead we had almost earned. I could sense that this perilous race was almost over. There was no way we would win now.

My leather-clad self sucked in a shaky breath, and I tried to scream as I realized what she was planning. Was she really so desperate to win? How far was she willing to go for an elusive victory? Why was conquering this challenge so essential?

I found that she now had complete control. I couldn't scream as she jumped our car off the cliff, hoping to jump the another one of the countless hairpin turns we had encountered.

I could feel the car fly through the air, see the still water below us through a non-existent floor. Liquid as black as the sky, small ripples, twinkling like stars, all of it clothing death in beauty. I didn't want to die.

It looked as though we'd make it, the opposite ledge was in reach. Without warning, we went into a nosedive. We wanted to scream, but couldn't draw air. Relieved tears sprang into our eyes as the front two wheels gripped the curved corner of an otherwise sheer cliff.

She leaned forward, smashing the gas pedal with resounding force and thrusting the gearshift even farther than I would have been willing to believe it would go. The car started to climb the hillside. My heart leapt as we were given a second chance at life.

I didn't care if we lost, at least we'd be alive. But something told me the unyielding girl in the driver's seat would rather die than lose this. She was crying as we thought of simply losing.

I saw the truck come by, I saw the red-capped man's leer, and the front tire of his vehicle hit our bumper. That was all it took. The car fell off the cliff-side backwards.

It shocked me to see the girl I had so quickly come to admire and accept, lean back into the seat, close her eyes, and give up. We had fought so hard, why I wasn't sure, but it couldn't end like this.

Suddenly, I was in the seat beside her, clad in my thin pajamas. She took no notice of me as we spiraled to an inevitable end.

"Don't give up! Please!" I grabbed her and shook her violently. She was silent, staring at me with pity as more tears streamed down her face. "NO!" I shook her shoulders as hard as I could.

Unexpectedly, I was her again. By losing this race I had lost everything, life after was pointless. Past, present and future had been hinged on this race. A part of me still couldn't understand why, but the hopelessness consumed me rapidly.

Letting the streams of air whip away my tears and dry my face, I watched the black, glassy water rise towards me. As we first hit, the car slipped under the water, as if I was in a bubble. I felt the impact before the water shattered a windshield we had somehow gained. I left my eyes open, welcoming the glass shards into them as my heart clutched itself in fear.

The glass never hit.

I woke up, eagle-spread and sweating profusely in my bed. I felt wet, like I had fallen into the icy, raven abyss, but my common sense said it was only sweat. Pulling myself upright, I felt the warmth of tears in my eyes.

Why was I crying?

The answer came to me with abrupt force. I was crying for the girl I left behind in the car. She had lost everything in seconds, and the given up on life. It seemed too cruel to even be imagined. But it had been so real to me, I couldn't shake it off, roll over, and go back to sleep.

I noticed that I was shaking as I laid myself back out on the bedspread. Telling myself it wasn't real, I pinched my eyes shut, hoping for sleep.

Instead, the horrid images of that still, black water assailed me. Breathing hard, I sprung back up, pulling my knees to my chest. I could see her looking at me, almost apologizing because she believed that I was going to disappear into those icy depths with her. A wave of nauseous guilt crashed on me, flooding my abused eyes with tears.

I didn't understand. How was it possible that the girl had been me? Why had everything dear to her been bet on that contest? Most of all, the horrid guilt at not taking her with when I awoke forced salty streams down my cheeks.

It was only a dream. No, a nightmare. Either way, it wasn't real. But that didn't change the merciless cruelty of her fate.

Forcing my breathing to slow, I imagined injecting the calm I desired into my heaving body. I didn't understand why this worked so well anymore than I understood the dream, but in seconds, I had regained my composure.

I mulled over the young woman behind the neon beast's wheel once again. Was that really me? It couldn't be. But something told me she was.

She had lost everything, there was no way to regain it, no way to move forward for her. Maybe death was best. I tried to imagine the pain she must have felt, but it was beyond my grasp, and I took a moment to pray that it always would be.

Maybe she was happier now. The childish thought eased my quaking, frayed nerves, letting me lay back down. The tears slowly ceased as I tried to imagine the girl I now seemed to know as myself, finding some sense of peace.

I had no closure, and guilt was knawing in my stomach, but the silent bout of crying had swiftly taken me down. My head rolled to the side as my eyes drifted closed. I fell asleep much like a terrified animal shot with a tranquilizer gun.

The world behind my eyes was black and empty, void of the mysterious girl.