The flashing blue lights from the police car bounced off the cracked windscreen and crumpled metal. The sound of the ambulance sirens could be heard in the distance drawing closer. Onlookers craned their necks to get a better look, while passing vehicles drove slowly to catch a glimpse at the wreckage that tarnished their highstreet. Lanaya too should have been driving along the highstreet, but instead she was trapped in a warped hunk of metal that only a few moments ago was taking her tired body home.

A heavy eerie silence hung in the stagnant dusty air of the car, then a crescendo like an intense mechanical scream filled Lanaya’s head. Her head felt as if it had been placed in a vice trying to compress her skull to the thickness of a pound coin. Her ears were ringing; not the strange buzzing you get after leaving a loud rave, but a constant blaring like a train horn on loop for eternity. Lanaya could barely keep her eyes open. As her eyes opened and shut, her head bobbed and bucked as she attempted to raise it up. No external sounds were registering for her with clarity; it was as if she was underwater. Everything sounded muffled, murky and muddled; a combination of piercing and dull sounds, garbled and muddied together added to her disoriented state.

The smell of burnt rubber, sheared metal, and fumes pervaded her nostrils, making it hard to breathe. Her partially opened eyes stung from the smoky and dusty air in the cramped metal cocoon. She went to raise her arms but they felt heavy and unfamiliar as if they were not her own. As her unfocused gaze moved downwards, she was able to make out the deployed airbag nuzzled against her chest. 

PAIN! 

The pain hit her like a jackhammer. Lanaya’s head dropped back as she let out a raspy scream. The sudden realisation of the extent of the incident rushed in. Waves of shooting pain barraged her body. Lanaya was trapped in what felt like endless cycles of panic and pain. Her shallow erratic breathing increased. The dizziness it birthed, fed her fear. Her inability to calm down heightened her feeling of dread, yet in that moment of excruciating agony and fear, mixing together like a hellish cocktail, it was her husband Delroy that flashed through her mind.

And then, nothing.