Stories To Be

Bits and Pieces of my stories. Some posts here will be continuances of a story. Some will be details or ideas for a scene or other part of a story that isn't next but I don't want to forget. Each post will be titled with the name of the story it belongs to, to keep things from being confusing.

Stories In Progress

  • Bane of Death
  • Tabled Unfinished Stories

  • Troia
  • The Lost Song
  • New Mutants: Angel
  • The Unending Story
  • Finished Stories

  • End, The - Feint of Heart Warning
  • Faith Winterfields
  • Flight
  • Chronicles of Gaia
  • Project, The
  • What's At S.T.E.A.K.
  • Poems

  • Sense of Wonder
  • Happiness In Health
  • Thoughts
  • Anticipation (of News)

  • Please let me know what you think!  Comment or e-mail me.  Both positive and negitive critiques expected!

    Tuesday, November 08, 2005

    NaNoWriMo Day 7
    - Chapter 2 Finished 

    2,613 words. I'm caught up!

    "After work?" Martin suggested.

    Alicia checked her watch. "Yeah, that would probably be best," she replied with a sigh. "I should try to keep my work schedule as best as I can, for now."

    Martin nodded in agreement. "And," he added, pushing her tray towards her, "you should try to keep eating."

    She gave him an exasperated look. "Look, Mom," she strained the word for effect, "I'm simply not hungry right now."

    He held up his hands. "Okay. I won't push." He paused for two seconds. "This time." He stood up from the table. "But if you don't eat anything tonight," he threatened, "I'm taking you out to dinner."

    Alicia looked up at him, wondering if he was truly concerned or if he had just asked her out on a date. She decided it was mix, and to let it pass for the time being. She had bigger things on her mind right now.

    They cleaned up their table, Alicia stuffing the copy of the journal into her purse, dropped off their trays, and headed out.

    Martin offered to drive that evening. "Meet you at your place about seven, seven thirty?" he asked.

    Alicia bobbed her head. "That sounds fine."

    "Okay," he said to finalize the plan.

    "See you later," they said together. They both 'Heh'-ed at the coincidence, then headed to their cars.

    That evening Alicia made sure to have a piece of fruit on hand to bring with her, so Martin would see her eat something and not fuss at her again. She also had a better idea of what she was going to ask D this time.

    Martin showed up a few minutes before seven thirty. He called up to her apartment, and having been ready for several minutes, she put her coat on and headed right down.

    On the way to the hospital, Martin looked over at Alicia. Her head was leaning against the window. Her eyes indicated her mind was off somewhere distant. She looked both tired and worn. For the first time it occurred to him that maybe her gift wasn't as great as it sounded. He couldn't fathom why, but it was clear from looking at her that there must be a reason.

    "What's wrong?" he asked as he turned his eyes back to the road.

    She turned to him with a "Hmm?"

    "I asked what was wrong," he reiterated.

    "Oh, nothing I suppose," Alicia answered. She looked down at her hands for a moment. "I was just wondering...." She looked back at him. "Thinking about all the good I might actually be able to do."

    Martin nodded slowly.

    "It's just," she continued, shifting in her seat to be able to rest her head and still look at him at the same time. "It's just that, I don't know what I can do. Really do. I've always wanted to make a difference in the world. Help others. That's why I volunteer. But even that hasn't really felt like enough to me. It's hard to see how my work, either my job or at the hospital, impacts others for the better." She hesitated. Martin opened his mouth to replied, but she spoke again before he could say anything. "And now all of a sudden, I'm a natural life saver. And I don't even have to work for it? That's great! But... I have no idea...," her train of thought fell off and she shrugged. "I guess I'm just a bit overwhelmed."

    "Of course you are," Martin backed her up. "How should you use your gift? Where? For whom? What can you really do? There are a lot of questions in your life now. Some, hopefully, will get answered shortly."

    Alicia nodded with a small smile. "I'm not as worried about visiting D as I was this morning. Like you said yesterday, if she was going to do something, she would have done it by now."

    It was Martin's turn to nod. "Assuming death could even do anything to you."

    Alicia gave him a curious look. "What do you mean?"

    "Well," he replied with a shrug, "if you can prevent death, it stands to reason you can prevent your own."

    Alicia settled back in her chair. "Huh. I hadn't thought of that." She looked out the front window, and they lapsed into silence.

    A few minutes later, Alicia's head jerked. Abruptly her hand was on Martin's arm and she was pointing at a figure on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. "Is that D?"

    Martin turned his head for a glance, then quickly turned back to the road, tightening his grip on the wheel and sitting up straighter. "I think so."

    Alicia gave him a puzzled look. "She wasn't wearing her uni- Martin! Look out!"

    At the intersection in front of them a four by four coming from the left had run the light, and the car right in front of them was not going to have enough time to stop. Martin was already reacting, turning the wheel and hitting the breaks. Despite the attempt by the driver in front of them to weave, the two cars collided at near full speeds in the middle of the intersection, sending glass and car bits flying into the air.

    All of a sudden time seemed to slow down for Alicia as she watched the events unfold. The truck that had run the light rammed into the side of the other car so hard it caused that car to turn on it's passenger side. She was watching the wreck slide into the right lane, where another vehicle that had been next to them a moment before crashed into the other two, when she felt Martin's arm relax and drop from the steering wheel. She whipped around to look at him.

    He had the expression of a young boy who was meeting his favorite sports star for the first time. He grabbed her hand and said, "I believe in you."

    His whole demeanor alarmed Alicia. She needed to find out what was going on, why he had let go of the wheel. She looked out the front window, and saw on coming traffic that was way too close, and not at all still. A glance in the rear view mirror told her a couple of the vehicles behind them had tried to avoid the accident the same way they had, and like them also were not stopped yet.

    She screamed. "Martin!"

    The initial head on impact with the car in front of them lurched them forward, but their seat belts locked almost instantly causing the shoulder straps to keep them in their seats. Surprisingly to Alicia she heard no sound. Not the crunching of metal and plastic, nor a loud sound of impact as there had been with the other automobiles. Not even the sound of the air bag she glimpsed deploying in front of Martin from behind her arms, which she was also surprised to find she had raised in front of her face.

    The first pain she felt was the cutting of the edges of the shoulder belt into her chest. The second was her head whipping back into the head rest. After that it became a symphony of hurt all over her body as time came back to its normal speed, finally punctuated by a sharp stab in her right arm.

    Once the car had stopped moving, and the world had stopped spinning, Alicia hazarded a deep breath. It caused the many throbbing pains she felt to increase, but otherwise she was able to inhale and exhale without issue. She opened her eyes. The evening sun was glaring to her watering eyes, but she forced herself to blink against it, to try to adapt. She slowly turned her head to look at Martin. Her neck cried out at her in pain, but it only caused her to whimper and slow her pace even more. She had to know if he was alright.

    He was leaning back in his chair as if that was how he normally slept. Somehow the thing had taken up a new position that almost cradled him, though he was too close to the dashboard for his own good. His eyes were closed. Blood on his nose told her his air bag had done its job. But the bottom of the steering wheel against his stomach told her he wasn't going anywhere for a while. She could see the glass from window beside him was gone, but thankfully she couldn't see where it had gone.

    "Alicia?" Martin whispered, his eyes still closed.

    "Yes?" she replied, her voice laden with relief but strained by passing through gritted teeth.

    "I feel... like a punching bag," he told her weakly. "But.... But, I'm okay. Go... see to others."

    Alicia stared at him for a moment. Then her mind started working again and she realized what he was saying.

    "There may still be time, for them," he continued slowly, sounding as if he was either very relaxed or very drunk.

    The instant she started to nod, her neck lit up in pain again, forcing her to stop. A short cry escaped her lips. Her eyes started to tear up from the intensity. "I'm not sure I can." She moved her eyes instead of her whole head this time, searching for the door's handle. "But I will try."

    She unfastened her seat belt with her left hand, and slowly let it retract. So far so good. When she went to reach for the door handle was when she discovered her right arm was broken. The pain of that was quite different than that of the whiplash. More intense, but easier to bear as it didn't shoot up into her head. She reached over with her left, and pulled the handle. The door opened as if there was nothing wrong.

    She used her left hand to tuck her right arm against her torso. Carefully she moved each leg on at a time, testing for pain first as they bent at the knee, and then as she put her feet on the ground. She did her best to take care of her neck by moving her shoulders and her head in conjunction, and keeping her head up straight. She had to lean some and slide out of the car to make it work, but the reward of minimal hurt was worth it.

    As quickly as she dared, Alicia moved between the vehicles to check on their occupants. Most people, all those in the cars around the initial two, were banged up, but conscious and seemingly stable. Two men were already out of their SUVs, also moving around to check on others. Some children were crying. One person was hyperventilating, but that meant she was breathing. And even if the woman passed out from it, she'd still breath, her body would see to that.

    One of the men, on the down side of the hill age wise but still sturdy looking, tried to get Alicia to sit down and stop moving. "Miss, you're not alright," he said to her more than twice.

    "I have to try," she informed him, trying to push him away with her good arm.

    "Please, miss. You don't want to see that," he insisted.

    She looked him in the eye. "I have to."

    The man may not have understood why, but he understood she had need to see the center of the accident. He trailed her as she carefully made her way.

    Alicia didn't have to approach the truck to see how the driver was. He was laying half out the front windshield in an extremely unnatural position, shock fixed firmly on his still face. Seeing no one else in the truck, Alicia turned her attention to the car on its side.

    The other man who had been out checking on people was currently pulling a car seat out through the back side door that was facing the sky. The child in it was screaming as hard as it possibly could. A good sign. When Alicia finally reached the car she found an older child crying on the ground, calling for his parents between sobs next to the man fishing out his sibling.

    Alicia leaned against the roof of the car, and peered in the now upside down car, from her perspective, through the driver side window.

    The woman in the passenger seat looked to Alicia. Tears were streaming down her bloodied face. Her hands where clutching the unconscious man in the driver's seat. "Please help us," she begged. "Please. He won't wake up. Please help. My children.... Pleeaase."

    "That's why I'm here," Alicia replied calmly. She reached out and placed her hand on the woman's, and partially on the man's arm at the same time. "You children are alright. You will be too."

    "Please help us," the woman continued to implore Alicia, apparently not having heard or understood Alicia's words.

    Alicia resorted to making a soothing "shhhh" and patting the woman's hand softly. Soon neck started to no longer allow her to hold up her head. She oh so slowly turned her head and rested it against the distorted window frame as best she could so that she didn't have to leave the couple.

    On the nearby corner she saw D standing. D wasn't moving at all, simply standing and watching. But the odd part was D wasn't wearing a doctor's coat or anything else Alicia had always seen D wear. Instead D was wearing what Alicia pictured a serial killer would wear. Alicia stayed as still as D was, except for her hand which occasionally switched between stroking and patting the hand of the woman still stuck in the car.

    Not much later sirens were able to be heard. Alicia was grateful, for she wasn't sure she was going to be able to get herself up from the position she was in, and she could feel things were getting worse as muscles tightened on her. She kept watching D. As the sirens came closer, she thought she saw D getting lighter. Once the EMTs from the first ambulance started to swarm the car on its side, D started to back away.

    They helped Alicia off of the side of the car first. She wouldn't have let them take her too far away, not that she had any recourse with which to stop them. But thankfully they wanted to examine her before moving her any more. They had only taken her off the car because she had started to move herself and so that those inside, who appeared worse off, could be reached sooner.

    Right quick a neck brace was put on Alicia, which made her feel significantly better. After that she was turned over to the older man who had shadowed her to be carefully led to an ambulance while the fire department worked with the EMTs to get the man and woman out. Only after Alicia checked all the corners for D and did not see D anywhere did she let herself be guided away.

    The next hour was a blur to Alicia as everyone who needed to be was cut out of cars, the police took witness reports, and those who needed medical attention were taken to the hospital. The same hospital she and Martin had been heading for. She and Martin rode there together in an ambulance, but didn't share anything more than a knowing look. Alicia decided once they reached the hospital she would stay as close to the man and woman as possible for as long as possible. Considering that's where D worked, she was sure to be around also.

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    posted by Jennifer Michelle  @12:40 AM


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