Chapter Text
The rain is the kind that blurs the world into streaks of grey, sheets of water hammering against the windshield like a desperate drumbeat.
You lean forward in your seat, wipers thrashing side to side, doing little to clear the smear of headlights and tail lights ahead of you. A soft, aching pressure pulses at your temples.
You haven’t eaten since noon. You haven’t slept well in days.
The city outside is half asleep. Streetlights cast long, glistening reflections on slick roads.
Office buildings blink their fluorescent eyes shut one by one, and shops curl inward behind steel shutters.
You grip the steering wheel a little tighter. Your fingers ache. Your coat is still damp from walking through the earlier storm.
Your phone buzzes in the passenger seat. You ignore it.
One of your patients, a boy, barely seventeen, tells you that silence scares him more than any noise.
"It’s when the silence comes that my thoughts scream the loudest", he says, voice barely audible, knuckles white on the chair’s armrests.
You write that down, cause it sticks with you.
The silence in your car is thick now. The radio is off. No hum of music to hold you. Just the wipers, the rhythmic click of your turn signal as you wait at a red light, and the slow, tired sound of your own breath.
Green.
You turn the corner, heading toward the on ramp that will take you home. The highway is usually quick at this hour.
Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, then a hot shower ad bed. You allow yourself a breath.
And..
Tires screech behind you. Headlights flare. Too fast. Too close. A horn, loud and panicked.
You glance into the rearview mirror. See nothing but white light and rain and-
Impact.
The world jerks violently. Your head snaps forward, then back again, slamming into the seat.
The car spins. Tires howl against wet pavement. A scream tears from your throat before you even process it’s yours.
Something shatters. You can't think, cause you don't have any time to register your thoughts.. Glass, maybe the side mirror? The steering wheel bucks under your grip.
Then comes the second hit. Harder. Meaner. Metal folds. The windshield spider webs.
Your chest slams against the seatbelt, forcing the air from your lungs.
You’re aware, distantly, of your body lurching sideways. Of your fingers losing grip.
Of the taste of copper in your mouth. Of a shrill, so high pitched whine in your ears, like the world itself is screaming.
And...-
Nothing...
No sound.
No motion.
Just… stillness.
You’re not sure how much time passes. A second? Or a minute? An eternity?
Your mind floats somewhere between awareness and the abyss. You’re not cold.
You’re not in pain. But you’re not present, either. You feel weightless. Untethered. As though the world has snapped its hold on you.
And then, you feel it
A breeze. Soft. Real.
Your eyes flutter open.
Sky.
Blue, endless sky.