I couldn't remember everything that happened that day—only bits and pieces. I think it was my brain's way of protecting me from what happened so that I wouldn't drive myself completely insane. But I still remembered moments, like the horrifying sound of my mother's screams as our car swerved right off the road. And I remembered the pain I felt, as the car rolled upside down, and my head smashed up against the window. And when I woke up again in the hospital, I remembered the pain I felt then too.

There was a pain in my head, my arms, my legs, it was everywhere. The throbbing in my head was probably the worst of it; it hurt so much my vision was slightly hazy and the light burned my eyes, worsening the headache. A doctor and a nurse stood over my bed when I woke up in the hospital room; I couldn't really remember their names. But I remembered them giving me a thorough checkup, making sure that I knew who I was, and that I was stable.

My older brother Faine had been in the room too. He stood at the far side of the room, tears in his eyes. Aurora stood next to him, crying their eyes out while holding my niece Winifred in their arms. At first, I didn't really understand why they were so upset—sure, I was in a hospital, but they shouldn't have been crying that hard, should they?

"Do you remember what happened hun? Do you know why you're here?" The doctor asked. I shook my head, wincing as my head throbbed.

The doctor frowned. Her gaze shifted towards my brother briefly, before back at me. Faine's face seemed to have crumbled then, and he turned his face away, wiping at the tears that fell. I furrowed my brows.

"You were in a car accident," The doctor said, "you and your parents. You were unconscious when the paramedics came, still alive and breathing thankfully, but...I'm afraid to say that your parents were pronounced dead at the scene. I'm so sorry, Nixon."

It was like my heart fell into the bit of my stomach when those words left the doctor's lips, my world fading around me into a hazy echo. No, my parents weren't dead. she was lying. She had to be lying.

She hadn't been lying though. The solemn look on her face and the agonized look on my brother's face told me that this was reality. My parents died in a car accident while I lived, and now I had woken up to a world where I'd never see them again.

Hot tears rolled down my face, a gut-wrenching sob escaping me. Faine rushed to my side, climbed into the bed with me and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly. He rested his head on top of mine, his body shaking as he held back his own tears. All I could do was lay emptily in his arms. My ribs ached with every sob that bubbled in my throat, and my head throbbed, and I was pretty sure that I threw up at one point, but the physical pain I felt couldn't compare to the emotional pain. My parents were dead, and no pain could compare to feeling the loss that I felt.

I didn't know how I was going to live without them.

But all I knew then and now still, was that I didn't want to live without them.