Max and the Crystal Gems

Crash

David set off in the direction of his apartment. After ten minutes of driving in silence he tentatively turned on the CD player and 'Wish You Were Here' continued. Max stirred on the back seat.

David looked at him in the mirror- his face was twisted up in pain and when the jacket fell off him, David saw the colorful blossoms of bruises forming on his exposed flesh. David sighed heavily and made a snap decision: he would go straight to the hospital instead of going home.

Max remained unconscious as David turned off onto a thin road which was lined by trees on either side: a little known short cut to the local A and E. He switched his head lights up and the blazing light lit up the windy stone road, trees branching high over their heads and leaning down to whisper. The wind had picked up and the night was thicker and blacker than ever. On either side of the road was nothing but a gaping drop; David's hands shook a little to keep the wheel centered and steady.

"So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell? Blue skies from rain?"

David kept his eyes on the road but kept glancing back at Max in the mirror. His hands shook on the wheel and his vision blurred from the sudden sting of salt.

Not now, he thought, forcing himself to keep it together. He just had to get off this road.

"Can you tell a green field..."

David took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to contain his emotions.

"From a cold steel rail..."

Suddenly the car rocked over a pot hole. The whole vehicle jerked and bounced. Max fell off the back seat and yelped, David slammed foot on the brakes. The car skidded in the road and, screeching horribly, it rotated and teetered on the edge on the narrow twisting road.

"What the fuck-" Max screamed, but it was all he could say before the car toppled right over the edge of the road and began its decent down the yawning slope.

First it just slid, then the side of it smacked into a huge rock and sent it flying up in the air- David and Max yelling at the top of their lungs. The door that had smashed into the rock was completely demolished and hung off it's hinges limply as the car sailed through the air. Max began to slip himself and tried desperately to grab onto something that would stop him falling out of the open door.

But then the car slammed into the ground again.

It bounced and rolled, sending the pair of then smacking into the roof of the car and then dropping onto the seats. One particularly violent jerk as the car fell down the hill sent Max flying out of the open door. David screamed but there was nothing he could do. Max hit a tree first and then kept going, slamming into things on his way down to the bottom of the hill. He traveled down it much quicker than the car, and when the vehicle and David finally came to a jarring rest, he was nowhere to be seen.

David gasped for air. He crawled out of the wreckage of the car and sat with his back against a tree, talking great gulps of oxygen and feeling like his lungs were corrupted.

He wasn't too badly hurt: smacked up, sure- bruised black and blue- but he didn't think anything was broken and although he felt incredibly weak and shaky, he thought he could probably stand if he had to.

The car was an absolute mess. It was completely destroyed beyond fixing.

But David's head didn't have space to worry about his stupid car now. All it could do was try to subdue the pain he felt all over, like white hot burning ice being pressed against his skin, and think of Max.

Max.