The rain poured harder, the thunder roaring above me. I kept running without knowing where to go until my eyes caught a car on the road, wrecked and almost unrecognizable, its glass shattered into pieces. My hands shook as I stepped closer. My mother’s voice was somewhere behind me, panicked, calling his name, but her words were drowned by the storm as another clap of thunder shook the air.
I screamed for help, my voice raw, but no one looked at me. Everyone’s attention was on the person being carried to the ambulance.
I cried louder, my chest tightening with each gust of wind, each roll of thunder. My body shook, and no matter how much I screamed, no one heard me. No one could ease the ache breaking inside me.
“Atasha!”
I jolted awake, my breath ragged as I sat up. My body was damp wi
