Missing Death

I never found out where we were going. Mom and dad said it was a surprise for my 10th birthday. It had been raining heavily and dad was in a hurry. He kept saying “we’re going to be late!” Mom had laid her hand on his arm, telling him to slow down and that we would make it on time. He didn’t listen of course. Oh how I wished he had listened. It all happened in an instant. As we took the curved bridge over the river, the tires began to spin and then so did the car. Mom let out a cry and grabbed the dash to steady herself as dad tried his hardest to straighten the car back out. It didn’t work and soon we hit the guardrail and were suspended in the air. Mom and dad both screamed while we descended towards the water. I just held onto my seatbelt tightly, too scared to move or to scream with them. I sat frozen in fear when we hit. Stayed frozen when the windshield shattered, spewing glass onto my parents faces. The impact sent both my parents lurching foreword. My dads heat hit the steering wheel and despite all the loud noises I still heard the crack that came from his skull. The car rightened itself before slowly starting to sink. My mother, who had also hit her head, was bleeding but payed no mind to it. She was on a mission to save us. She quickly unbuckled herself and reached back to unbuckle me as well. She had to pry the seatbelt out of my hands because I was still frozen in fear and shock. She dragged me to the front with her and quickly ushered me out the broken windshield. The car was filling quickly and she still had to help dad. Picking me up she sat me down on the roof of the car. “Ok sweetie, mommy has to get daddy out too. Stand right here and I’ll be right back.” By this time the roof of the car was mere inches from the water and we were sinking very quickly. “If you can’t stand on anything I want you to kick your legs as hard as you can you hear me! Do not stop until I come back up and help you! Do you understand?” She stared at me expectantly and I stared back, confused. I had never learned how to swim. She was going to leave me here? “DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” She shook me lightly, snapping me out of my daze. “Y- yes momma,” I replied. “Good,” she nodded, the cold water was beginning to travel up my legs, “I’ll be right back. I love you so much.” She kissed my forehead and took a deep breath, ducking under the water. It was up to my chest now and my body shivered relentlessly. It sank further and I stood on my tippy toes, taking short, panicked breaths. The car disappeared from under my feet and my head was submerged. Panic set in fully and I started to kick my legs, flailing my arms to propel myself towards the surface. My head resurfaced and I greedily took in a gulp of air before I sunk again. Mistakenly, I let all my air out in a scream. I choked and fire made its way down my throat and into my chest, this time I had inhaled water instead of air. I kicked harder, resurfacing and coughing out the water. I couldn’t keep my head up long enough and inhaled water again. My legs and lungs were on fire. But I couldn’t give up. I told momma I would kick hard. So I did. I kicked with all my might but never broke the surface again. Instead it got a little darker and a lot colder. My body flailed around and I could no longer tell which direction was up and which was down. Slowly I began to lose feelings of my limbs and could no longer move. I silently apologized to momma for not doing what she said, I just couldn’t do it anymore. Death was a lot more peaceful than I thought it would be. It started out how I thought, really painful and I was sad. But as I slipped closer towards the line between life and death, the only the I could think of was how peaceful I felt. I wasn’t cold anymore and I couldn’t feel the pain in my chest. It was now completely dark but not a scary kind of dark like the closet at bedtime. It was like hiding under the blanket when mom and dad couldn’t find me during hide and seek. I could hear moms’ giggling as they checked everywhere but where I was. Dad saying “I wonder where Nova is?” I could feel the joy I felt when they pounced on the bed, ripping the blanket away screaming “there she is!” How we all laughed as they tickled me and showered me with kisses. Dying was like reliving all my happiest memories together, all at once. Then as quickly as I found my peace, it was all ripped away. The pain returned into my chest like a raging fire. The cold bombarded my little body and my teeth clattered so hard I thought for sure they would break. I vaguely heard voices around me but squeezed my eyes tightly shut, trying to go back to that peaceful place with mom and dad. When it didn’t work and my body shivered harder I slowly opened my eyes to the unfamiliar face of a man. I could hear him talking to me but couldn’t quite understand his words. “Where’s momma?” I whispered, my voice cracked and pain radiated down my throat. Without answering the man lifted me up off the bank and set me in his car. The heat blasted out of the vents and he placed a blanket around me as well, and then he was gone. I stared at him out of the window as he dove back into the water, probably in search of mom and dad. There was a woman as well, she held a phone to her ear and was speaking rapidly into it, staring out into the water where the man disappeared. I fixed my gaze on where he went under, unable to look away. I clasped my frozen fingers together like mom did when she spoke to God, and I repeated over and over. Please find my parents. The nice man, who I would come to find his name was Mark, didn’t find my parents. A diving team pulled them out almost three days after the accident. Mark’s wife, Shirley, had rode in the ambulance with me to the hospital with Mark following closely behind us. They stayed with me while they asked me all kinds of questions. They told me that everything would be okay when the cops came and asked me even more questions. Part of me wondered if Mark and Shirley would become my new parents since mom and dad didn’t come back. When I had asked them this, they both just looked at each other, having some silent conversation with their eyes. I had later heard them arguing about a place to stay and Shirley had said something about “not enough money to support a child” and I knew they wouldn’t be my new parents. They left me at the hospital that night, promising to come and visit in the morning. I never saw them again. They had kept me in the hospital for a while, I wasn’t sure how long. Then a lady came and picked me up and took me to a house filled with kids. A nice couple greeted us and gave me some food, the last good meal I would have until becoming an adult. After the woman left I had been severely mistreated. And that went on for the rest of my childhood. Every foster home I went to was worse than the last and I missed my parents everyday.