Impact
Willow woke slowly.
Not with panic. Not with pain. Awareness returned in fragments, drifting rather than arriving, as though her body had decided there was no need to hurry. She did not move. She did not open her eyes. She simply existed, suspended somewhere between sleep and something else she could not yet name.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound repeated at even intervals, close enough to feel personal. It was not loud. It did not demand attention. It persisted.
She listened without urgency. The air around her felt cool and damp, brushing lightly against her skin. A faint metallic scent lingered beneath it, sharp enough to register but not unpleasant. Rain, she thought distantly. Or something like it.
Her breathing felt shallow but steady. Each inhale came easily. Each exhale followed without resistance. She waited for pain to announce itself, for pressure or heat or anything sharp enough to break the calm.
Nothing happened.
That surprised her.
Drip.
Drip.
She assumed the car must be leaking somewhere above her. Cool liquid often found new paths after accidents. She had seen videos. She had read articles. This made sense.
Then she reconsidered.
The sound was too precise. Too close. It struck with a consistency that felt deliberate.
She opened her eyes.
The world presented itself at the wrong angle.
For several seconds, she could not reconcile what she was seeing with what she knew. Gravity pulled at her in a direction that contradicted instinct. The ceiling pressed against her shoulder. The side window stretched upward, catching rain that slid across it and vanished into darkness.
She blinked slowly, allowing the image to settle.
The car lay on its side.
Her body hung suspended, held firmly by the seatbelt. The strap dug into her ribs and collarbone, creating a dull pressure that registered more as information than discomfort. Her cheek rested against cold metal. Water slid across the interior in thin streams, collecting along surfaces that should not have been horizontal.
She did not move her head. She resisted the impulse with surprising ease.
Memory returned in flashes rather than sequence. Headlights. A horn. The sudden sense of something moving too fast. She acknowledged the images and let them pass, unwilling to chase them yet.
Drip.
Her eyes followed the sound this time.
A dark droplet slid from her hairline, crept slowly along her temple, and fell onto the metal pin of the window latch beneath her cheek. Each drop made a small clicking sound before disappearing.
She watched it without reaction.
Blood, she thought.
The realization carried no weight. It was simply a fact.
She tested her fingers, moving them one at a time. The motion felt distant but obedient. Her toes responded next, a faint wiggle confirming sensation remained intact.
Good.
Her breathing continued without effort. She took another deliberate breath, waiting for resistance, for fire, for something to push back.
Nothing did.
The silence pressed in around her, thick and encompassing. There was no traffic noise, no voices, no sirens. Rain softened the world into something hushed and distant. The city felt very far away.
Time stretched. Or collapsed. She could not tell which.
She turned her eyes carefully, inch by inch, avoiding any movement of her neck.
Miles hung beside her, suspended by his own seatbelt. His head tipped forward slightly, as though he had fallen asleep mid-thought. His suit was immaculate. No torn fabric. No blood. No glass caught in his hair. His face remained slack and unreadable.
She searched for movement.
After a moment, she saw it.
The slow rise and fall of his chest.
That was all she could be certain of.
"Miles," she said.
Her voice sounded flat, detached, as though she were speaking into an empty room rather than addressing another person.
He did not respond.
Fear did not arrive. It lingered somewhere distant, uninvited, waiting for a moment that had not yet come.
The car rested awkwardly against the curb, crushed along one side. The windshield was gone entirely, leaving the cabin exposed to the rain. Water pooled along the dashboard and dripped downward in uneven streams, joining the steady rhythm near her cheek.
Drip.
Drip.
She noticed shattered glass scattered across the interior, glittering faintly where passing light caught it. It reminded her of spilled ice, sharp and unmelting.
So this is how it ends, she thought.
The idea arrived fully formed and calm.
Not dramatic. Not loud. Just quiet and unfinished.
At least there is no pain.
The thought brought an unexpected sense of relief. She held onto it, grateful for the absence of sensation, for the stillness that wrapped around her like insulation.
She wondered who would find them.
She wondered if anyone would notice they were late before someone noticed they were missing.
She wondered if Miles had known, in the last second before the impact, that tonight had already gone wrong long before the crash itself.
She wondered if that mattered anymore.
Minutes passed. Or seconds. The distinction felt meaningless.
Then the quiet cracked.
Footsteps approached, splashing through water. A voice called out, distant and muffled, as though carried through layers of cotton.
"Hello?"
A beam of light cut across the interior of the car, sweeping over the crushed door, the dashboard, then her face. It lingered there, bright and invasive.
"Ma'am."
She did not answer.
Another light joined the first, harsher this time, forcing her to squint.
"Ma'am, can you hear me?"
The word felt foreign. It did not belong to her.
More voices followed, closer now, faster, overlapping.
"There's someone inside."
"Vehicle's on its side."
"Careful. Stabilize it first."
The calm shattered instantly.
Sound rushed in all at once. Radios crackled. Doors slammed. Instructions overlapped. The rain no longer softened anything. It amplified every noise, turning the scene into something sharp and overwhelming.
Hands appeared at the edge of her vision. Gloved. Steady. They touched her shoulder, then her neck, firm and deliberate.
The pain arrived as if it had been waiting for permission.
It surged through her skull in violent waves, radiating outward until her vision blurred and darkened at the edges. Her arm ignited with a deep, tearing agony that stole her breath and forced a sound from her throat she did not recognize.
She cried out, the calm breaking completely.
"No," she said. "Stop."
Her body rebelled now. Pain flooded every nerve, overwhelming and absolute. The drip she had been watching dissolved into heat and pressure as blood pulsed against her skin.
"It hurts," she said, panic breaking through. "It hurts."
"I know," someone said close to her ear. "You're safe. Stay with me."
The words sounded practiced, rehearsed, spoken many times before.
Someone cut the seatbelt.
Gravity reclaimed her without mercy.
She screamed as her weight shifted, pain ripping through her arm and neck. Strong hands caught her immediately, lowering her carefully onto something hard and narrow.
A backboard.
Rain soaked through her clothes, icy against overheated skin. She sobbed openly now, breaths coming in ragged bursts she could not control.
"Where's Miles?" she cried. "Is he awake?"
A pause followed.
Too long.
"He's being checked," a voice said carefully.
She tried to turn her head toward him and was stopped at once.
"Don't move."
Lights flashed across her vision. Red. Blue. White.
Sirens wailed suddenly, impossibly loud, shredding what remained of her composure. The quiet she had been grateful for vanished completely, replaced by chaos and pain and voices calling over one another.
Straps were secured across her chest, her hips, her legs. Hands worked quickly, efficiently, as though her body had become a task rather than a person.
Rain continued to fall, striking the metal nearby.
Drip.
Drip.
A paramedic leaned into her line of sight, eyes sharp with concern.
"Stay with me," he said. "Tell me your name."
"Willow," she whispered. "My name is Willow."
Pain surged again, hotter and more insistent. She screamed as they lifted the board and carried her toward the ambulance.
As the doors closed behind her and the siren screamed to life, she caught one last glimpse of the car.
Sideways. Crushed. Silent.
Miles still hung suspended inside it, unreachable.
The quiet was gone.
And it did not come back.