Back to the Plains

Part 6: The Decision

"There will be today, there will be tomorrow, there will be always,

and there was yesterday, and there was the day before..."

- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

It is the smiles and laughs that Ali misses most and it amazes her how quickly the images that she thought she would never forget became covered by images of blank stares from lifeless bodies. No matter how many times she closes her eyes, the same images are always there. In her dreams, she walks the same scene over and over again, like a tragic movie on repeat. She can't even remember what is causing her, her brother, and her sister to laugh in their car, but she does remember the sudden force of crashing into the tree. She is in the backseat. Perhaps if she had been in the front, she might have gone with her family into Heaven. She remembers looking behind her in a daze, seeing the second car falling in mid-air down the hill. Just before the collision, she hears Sam call out, but the words are lost and the warning comes too late.

Ali's ears are ringing by the time she comes too and she feels like her head is swollen; like her brain is protesting the size of her skull. She can't feel the pain, as the impact kept her numb and unable to process fully what is happening. Still, she manages to stumble out of the broken window after cutting her seatbelt strap. She knows she pulls her hands and arms to look at them, seeing the dark red running, but again, not processing exactly what it is at the time. Her instincts have taken her over in a subconscious way. She can smell the gas and the metallic aroma of blood. To this day, Ali knows that those smells were what seemed to be what sparked her into further action that day. She calls 911 and gives the best location before the phone dies. She then goes quickly to work.

Ali had taken first aid during P.E. in High School. She hated every minute of it, but in that tragic hour, she took all the help she could get. There isn't much she remembers eight years after the class, but she knows she has to act quickly and be very careful. She knows she looks into the car and discovers neither of her siblings is in there. They have been thrown and she searches for a good ten to fifteen minutes before she finds Samuel and Holly. She remembers how heavy they are. Both are unconscious and of no help; nor is her dizziness of any help either. When they are at a safe distance from the car and in easy reach of the road, she then makes her way to the ledge and looks down. She already knows at this point. It is dark and foggy, but the light of the fire casts an orange glow up the side of the hill. She remembers falling to her knees in a state of numb semi-consciousness. She has never felt more helpless in all her life. There is no way she can make it down the near hundred-foot straight drop. She can see the silver bracelet on Nora's visible limp arm sticking out of the crushed, upside-down car's passenger window.

Ali goes back over to Sam when she hears him awaken. Samuel is the strong one; the one who is always there for everyone else. Ali's two brothers are her heroes and having already lost Oliver, Sam is the only one she has left. Her superhero is defeated and he is in bad shape, but she is no doctor and can't see just how bad it is. She tries to soothe and comfort him, to keep him calm, but her behavior only provides him the answers to his urgent questions; answers she is not prepared to give, answers she didn't even know fully herself. She remembers the sick feeling she gets when he coughs up blood, and the horrifying realization that there is a cut on his leg that she will never be able to stop the bleeding on. She was horrible at biology, a B- at best, but even she knew it is an artery. Still, she tries to stop it. She is helpless but desperate. She can feel the pulse through his body over her trembling fingers, and she doesn't dare look up when that pulse stops. She knows what that means. There is no way of bringing him back either; no way she knows of at least. Ali's pain starts to hit, but not the pain one might expect from a horrific car accident. It is emotional pain. She screams and she screams, until she finally passes out, either from emotional trauma, or the physical damage.