Between (Sparse Updates)

Two

I groaned and peeled my eyes open, squinting as I noticed large flakes of snow descending towards my face.

"Fuck," I groaned, sitting up when I noticed flashing lights down the road.

"Watch your tongue, young man," an older woman sassed me, and when I turned my head towards her, my eyes widened in shock.

"Grandma?" I asked, cautiously getting to my feet. "What's going on? How are you here? You're supposed to be dead."

"I am dead," she said quite plainly, coming closer to me and placing her hands on my cheeks sadly. "Look how handsome you've become."

"What's going on?" I asked her, placing my palms over her frail hands.

She turned to face the flashing lights, and when I turned too, I noticed they were emergency vehicles attending to what looked like a pretty bad accident.

I found myself drawn closer to it, and my grandmother only followed me as I approached the scene.

The car, though badly damaged, looked oddly familiar. There were medics scrambling around the scene, and I watched as they lifted one of the passengers onto a stretcher and pushed him towards an ambulance.

"Who is that?" I asked. He looked so familiar. All of this did, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I saw a woman approaching me and decided to ask her what was going on. "Excuse me-"

She ignored me, and I flinched in shock as she walked right through me.

"She can't hear you, child. None of them can."

"What? No," I said, feeling my chest, though it was solid enough to me.

I noticed two firemen using the jaws of life on the driver's side of the car, and felt horror consume me when I did recognize the person they pulled out.

"Is- is that me?" I stuttered, tears pricking at my eyes.

I was in bad shape. The whole left side of my body looked like it had taken the brunt of the force. There was blood everywhere. Blood and cuts and bruises and glass.

I followed my body as it was laid on another stretcher, medics swarming around it.

They blocked my view of myself, so I stepped back and tried to make sense of things.

"What's happening, Grandma?" I asked with teary eyes.

My grandmother put a hand on my shoulder in that comforting way she always used to do when I was a kid. Her words, however, were not comforting.

"You're dying."

"No. I can't die. Not yet."

"It's your time, sweetie. I'm here to ease your passing."

"We're losing him!" I heard a medic shout, and I immediately turned back to my body.

"No, no, no," I said as I watched them try to get my heart started again.

"Chris," I heard a groan from behind me, and I looked to see one of the other victims pulling at his oxygen mask and trying to sit up on his stretcher. He tried to get off and move closer to my body, but some more medics got him to lay back down.

"Why don't I remember his name?" I asked my grandmother.

"Your memories will return with time."

"I'm not ready to die," I said, scared beyond belief as I saw them sending jolts of electricity into my still body.

"No one truly is," she said sadly. "I'm sorry you have to experience this so young."

They stopped trying to start my heart. One of them felt for a pulse but shook their head in the negative.