The driver looked away for just a second, he was distracted by a crowd gathering on the side of the road. For just a second, that’s how long he looked away. That’s how long it takes to ruin your life.

****

I look over for just a second because people on the side of the road are making a lot of noise, distracting me. I put my eyes back on the road and what I see makes me jump in my seat. A blue car is speeding towards me way faster than the speed limit. I don’t see a license plate and his windows are tinted so I can barely see his face. I swerved to the right just barely missing him. My car spins two times and I start to get nauseous. It stops turning and I hear a loud crash as my car smacks right into a pole. My vision goes dark and the last thing I hear are sirens slowly going faint. 

I  wake up into complete darkness and I freak out. I try to move, but it’s like my lips weigh 100 pounds; like they’re super glued together. And then I realize I can’t move anything. “OMG am I dead?” I start to freak out. But before I can think another thought, I hear voices getting closer. They’re faint but familiar. Suddenly, I hear a door open and a few people walking in. Someone speaks and I could recognize that voice anywhere. “Dad!” I try to say but again, nothing comes out. He starts talking to someone else. 

“Will he be ok?” I hear him ask.

A woman with a stern but soft voice answers him,”unfortunately, he is in a coma due to his brain injury from the crash.” 

“Omg” my dad says at the same time as my mom as she starts crying harder and my dad starts to comfort her. 

“But don’t worry, I promise we will take the best care of him” The lady starts saying, also trying to comfort my parents. Someone walks over to my bed and grabs my hand. It’s my mom, she kisses my forehead and a tear falls on my face. After a few minutes she lets go and the voices start getting faint again and the room goes silent except for my steady breathing and the beeping of my monitor, the sound slowly gnawing at my brain. Bored and tired, I drift off into sleep.

 What feels like a few moments later, I jolt awake from sleep quickly reminded of the fact I can’t move. Slowly I start to recall bits and pieces from my dream. It was very strange. All I remember about it is a man speeding right towards another person. He looked vaguely familiar, the man. He was tall and muscular with an expression so powerful that it could kill. It was nothing like I had ever seen before. He looked passionate, but  not in a good way  though. It was mixed with a rage and fury so strong and I’ve never seen anything so frightening. It's as if he was wearing  a mask or had his expressions painted on. I only remember the dream to an extent. It cuts off right after he almost kills someone with his car, his face getting more furious and determend with each mile. I try to keep this image in my mind because for some strange reason deep in my gut, I feel like I need to remember this.  And then again, like some pattern I fall asleep.

I suddenly wake up to a sharp pain in my stomach and a cold sensation that engulfs my whole body. Suddenly I hear people running by and everyone starts screaming out commands. A cold hand is put on my stomach right where it burns. And they put what feels like a warm cloth over it while still shouting instructions. I wince ( or what best I can do while not being able to move) while they put something on me and wrap me up. I try to listen to what they're saying but there’s so much going on that I can barely hear what they're saying. “Someone call his parents!” I hear someone shout. Someone with cold hands touches my arm and  I feel a needle being put into my arm. I assume it was something like a pain killer or sleep medicine because the next second I’m out cold.

I have another one of those strange dreams. This one was about a man and I'm getting an even weirder feeling from it. All I remember is a man wearing all black. A black shirt, black shorts and a black ski mask covering his face. He is tall and muscular and his eyes are a vibrant emerald green. Something looks off about his eyes though. His pupils were dilated and they were filled with rage. They looked unhuman and it was terrifying. In his hand, he’s carrying something strange, and at first I can’t see what it is, but the moonlight hits it and I can see clearly what it is. He is carrying a knife, and that doesn’t usually mean something good. He starts climbing up a ladder to a window of a building I can’t see, but seems familiar. He starts off slow, but gradually gets faster and faster until he reaches a window. The man pauses and looks into the window doing who knows what. And then he goes in.

When I wake up there are people in my room talking in a whisper. 

“I don’t know what happened,” a man with a raspy voice says. 

“I’m not sure,” a girl who has a song like voice answers. “I mean, it looks like a knife stab, but that doesn’t make sense.”

“I looked over the footage and no one entered or left his room,” The first one says. “ Whoever did this must have come through the window.”

“I will contact the police,” is the last thing I hear them say before they leave the room. 

I start to freak out.  A stab! Who would stab me and why. I don’t- and then it hits me. My dream comes back to me, and I know it can’t be a coincidence. That man in my dream is the one who stabbed me, and I have never been so sure of anything in my life.

I don’t know why I feel so strongly about this, but I know for some reason I know I’m right. It’s the same gut feeling that I got with my dreams, but this time it’s even stronger. It’s as if there was a light up arrow pointing right towards this conclusion. I try to calm myself down and think about what to do. This is freaky. I don’t know what to do.I need to tell someone, I think to myself. Then I feel stupid as I remember for the hundredth time that I can’t do anything. I sigh giving up, defeated, and go to sleep feeling useless. And I realize that there’s nothing I can do, and I just have to wait for them to figure it out.

This time, I can’t fall and I lay there for hours growing more bored the second. Finally, after what feels like forever I hear talking. I quiet my breathing so I can hear what they’re saying, and I realize they must be on the other side of the door.  I have to really strain my ears because they are talking below a whisper. “I don’t want to freak any of his family out but we inspected his room, and it does seem as if a person had walked in. They were careful, so it was hard to find a clue, but after lots of hard work, we finally found a bloodied knife in the dumpster ,and the fingerprints match the ones on the window. The fingerprints match one person and one person only. And we found out that-'' Before I could hear who it was they walked away. No! I shout to myself. I was this close to figuring it out. I want to  cry and I want to let everyone else figure this out. I want to give up. I close everything out of my mind. I turn all thoughts off and just lie there, letting the constant beeps of the monitor slowly drive me crazy. I don’t try to fight it, and I let myself fall asleep. 

I wake up to a tickle on my neck. I freeze when I realize what feels like a breath on my neck. As if someone is leaning over me and staring at me, close enough to where I can feel his eyelashes brush against my skin. A deep scratchy voice sends shivers down my spine

 “I know it was you,” he says “ I know you did it, and I will not let you get away with this.” He stops, and I think he leaves. “watch your back, Jay” 

My heart starts speeding up and my breathing gets heavier. Seconds, minutes pass in silence, then I hear the door close and I know I’m finally alone. My thoughts start racing with my heart and I can’t think straight. It’s as if there’s a million conversations going on inside my head. What is he talking about,  what does he know?  What should I do?  I ask myself, questioning my every decision. Then it hits me like a bus and everything connects. His voice, I knew it sounded familiar. This man, this man who’s trying to kill me. I know him. Because I killed his father.

My heart drops as I make this horrifying discovery. I didn’t do it on purpose, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he’s dead. And it’s. All. My. Fault. And now. His son is after me, and he wants me dead. 

I don’t have any time to think because the next minute my mom walks in, and it sounds like it’s just her. 

Where's dad? I think to myself. And as if she can read my mind, she starts talking.

“Honey I- uh-” her voice cracks and she starts crying, louder than I’ve ever heard. And that’s when I know something is really wrong. She calms herself down enough to finish the sentence, “it-its your father, he he-uh he’s dead.” She breaks down on my bed as if once hearing it out loud, it sinks in. 

NO. NO. NO. NO NO NO. THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING. I have never wanted and needed to cry more. But I can’t. ALL BECAUSE OF THIS STUPID COMA, THAT STUPID MAN, MY STUPID BRAIN FOR NOT WAKING UP. I hate everything. And at that moment I knew. I need to wake up for my mom. I am all she has left. I will myself to wake up, strain, use all my energy. Anything. And then, my eyelid twitches. My mom doesn’t notice at first, but then my arm twitches. My mom stops crying, showing she noticed that one. And then, on some holy miracle, my eyes open. Very slowly but surely. My eyesight is blurry at first and I don’t really know what’s going on. Once my vision clears up I am blinded by light. “DOCTOR! DOCTER!” my mom calls basically screaming. I can’t focus while 20 people run past me back and forth. My eyes focus on one person and one person only. My mom. My eyes blurred with tears as she stood in front of me staring at me in shock. She starts crying and I can’t hold it in anymore. The tears fell down my face, having been trapped in me for weeks. I cried and cried and cried until there were no tears left in me. I cried about the car accident, I cried about having been stabbed and having that man come after me. But most importantly, I cried about my dad. Once I couldn’t possibly cry any more, I lay there thinking about everything. I tune everyone out as they continue to run around me and do tests. Then I stop to acknowledge that I can see everything, every single thing. From the nurses' dark blue scrubs, to my mom's dress that is a gorgeous dark red, and it’s beautiful, it all is. I listen in to see what the nurse is saying to my mom and I realize it’s my results. 

“She seems all good, but we want to keep her in for the night just to make sure she will be good to go. You can come by in the morning-”

“Can I stay the night? '' My mom asked, cutting her off. She doesn’t want to risk losing me too and I get that. 

The nurse looks hesitant, but also knows what my mom has been through already. “Ok…” she says slowly.

My mom's face rises instantly and she tells the nurse that she will sleep in the chair if she needs to. They refuse to let her do that and give her a bed, but my mom still ends up sleeping next to me, not wanting to leave my side. When I wake up, my mom is asleep on the couch, snoring lightly. I sat there for a minute just watching her. Thankfully I can have my life back. Just then a nurse knocks on the door coming to check on me. She has breakfast for me in her hand. It looks like oatmeal? This wakes up my mom and the nurse sets down my food. 

“ Thank you…Malenna,¨ I said reading her name tag. 

“You're welcome,” she says, smiling at me. “So I have some news for you,” she tells me. “ I´ve looked at your tests, and you're good to go home,” She starts walking towards the door. “I'll get your papers for you. Once you finish them, you can leave¨ She says before walking out. I sit there smiling just happy to be out of this place, to get to go back to my bed. 

Malenna comes back with the papers and my mom fills them out. We walk back to the car and drive home in silence, just thinking about everything that had happened these past few weeks. I had almost forgotten about my dad, almost. Until I got home. My heart drops as I look at the house, now dark and empty, and it fully sinks in. I walk in front of a family picture, me, my mom, my dad, all standing together. I was probably six or seven, and I was holding an ice cream cone with the biggest smile on my face, ice cream dribbling down my arm, and I know that I will never be able to eat ice cream the same again. Nothing will ever be the same again. Before I realize itś even happening, I cry hard and long just standing there in front of that photo. My mom comes up behind me and hugs me from behind, her hands cold against my skin. I stand there for who knows how long. Then, without any warning, I go upstairs but I don't go to my room. I go to my mom's room and hide under the covers, not wanting to be alone. A few minutes later, she comes up and gets in next to me. I know she falls asleep when I hear her snoring. I can´t sleep though. I hear the cars outside quickly driving by and the window lets in the moonlight shining right on me. It's a dull light but it still feels like a flashlight shining right in my eye. It reminds me of the dreams I had for some reason. Then I take a second to think. The only reason the man didn't kill me the last few times was because he wants me to suffer. He doesn't want me to die quickly and easily. Maybe he will try to kill me now, maybe he will make me suffer forever. But either way, that man is still out there, he still wants me dead, and I may never be safe again.