Anniversary of pain and loss

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James stared out of the car window. The car was hardly moving because of all the traffic. The view from the window was nothing more than other highways with more traffic.
'Are we almost there?' Luke complained.
'Be patient, Luke. Asking it every five seconds won't get us there faster.' Their dad replied.
'You're the older brother, you should be an example for your sisters and James.' Their mom said.
'James is only silent because he's sad. You know tomorrow's the anniversary of what happened to Faith.' Luke replied.
'Don't talk about that, he's already down enough without the reminders.' Arianna hissed. James turned to look at his little sister.
'Arianna, don't do that. I'm sorry for acting like this. It's a hard time for you guys as well.' The blonde boy said.
'Yeah, but you were the one that was closest to Faith out of all of us.' Luke replied.
'Maybe that's a twin thing or something.' James's older sister added. James turned to look back out of the window.
'Can we talk about something else, please?' He asked. The car went silent. Nobody knew how to change the subject. James's mind wandered back to his lost twin sister. He felt guilty. He knew it wasn't his fault, but if he had been faster, he might have been able to do something. He missed her. His family was right when they said that the two had been really close. A single tear rolled over the blonde's cheek. Suddenly the horn of a truck blasted outside making the blonde jump and look up just in time to see the front of a giant truck coming at him with full speed. James didn't even have the time to scream before everything went black.

Everything hurted as James slowly opened his eyes. The bright light stung, so he quickly closed them again. There was a lot of noise around him. Weird sounds and voices. He tried to carefully open his eyes again as he tried to remember what happened. Suddenly the image of the front of a truck, speeding towards him came back. He quickly sat up in shock, or at least he tried to sit up. Pain burned through every muscle of his body and with a cry he fell down to the ground again. He felt that if he tried to move anything, it hurted like hell. He tried to look around him without having to turn his head. There was debris everywhere around him. Parts of the road, the truck and the cars. A little further away, there was a body. James felt his heart skip a beat when he recognized who it was.
'LUKE!' He yelled. 'LUKE, CAN YOU HEAR ME? PLEASE, GET UP! LUKE!'
The body didn't move. James felt his eyes fill with tears. Trying to ignore the immense pain he tried to crawl towards his older brother.
'LUKE!' He yelled as he managed to crawl close enough to grab Luke's cold hand. 'Luke? Please, wake up! Please! Luke, wake up!' James turned towards the damaged highway behind him.
'HELP!' He yelled. 'HELP! MY BROTHER NEEDS HELP! PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP! LUKE! Luke!' James started to sob against his cold brother's chest. He lay there, crying, for a while. Until he heard a voice yelling in the distance.
'There's someone over there! A boy! He's alive! Get the ambulance over here!'
James looked up to see people trying to get closer. The words he heard didn't seem to reach his brain. He turned his head a little to look more in the direction of the highway. Then he saw them. More bodies. A lot of bodies. People he didn't know, but also people he recognized as his family. His mom, his dad, Arianna and his big sister. The world seemed to stop. Everything looked as if it was in slow motion. They weren't moving. Why weren't they moving? James tried to get up and run towards them, but his own injuries prevented that.
'NO! NO! NOOO! PLEASE, NO!' He screamed, begging, praying it wasn't true. He kept trying to get to them as his body screamed in pain, until he couldn't take it anymore and everything went dark again.

James woke up with a gasp. Tears were streaming down his face and his pajamas were drenched in cold sweat. The blonde started sobbing, grabbing his pillow and hugging it tightly. He missed his family. He missed them so much. It wasn't fair. The accident had been two years ago. Today exactly two years ago.

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