I wake with a start, my heart pounding hard.

Her body was unrecognizably disfigured after being hit by the car. There was blood everywhere.

I’m shaking so hard. I don’t know what to do. I can’t stay here. Run. Run.

Police finally identified the woman, but she had been long dead before they arrived. The driver says she came out of nowhere, not giving him enough time to avoid her.

I need to get out of here. Now, or I might suffocate. I roll out of bed and clumsily make my way across my room, fumbling for the door handle in the dark. I yank it open after a minute and skid across the hall, gripping the banister of the stairs as I go down so that I don’t fall and break my head. The living room leads to the kitchen which holds the door that’ll let me out. I throw it open and sprint outside in my bare feet and pajamas.

Jack is still as his body lies in the coffin. He was too young to meet this fate, they said. Such an unnecessary death, they said. It could have been avoided easily, they said.

My feet race across the rough pavement, and I follow them blindly, my ears ringing. My breath comes in pants and my legs burn and bits of gravel bite into the underside of my feet but I don’t stop. Everything hurts all the time. I don’t even realize I’m crying until I taste salt.

“I didn’t know something that hideous could even exist,” she smiled nastily. Her eyes raked over my exposed body, and I felt the blood rush to my face. “Disgusting,” she sneered.

I somehow end up at the park. It’s empty, which makes sense since it’s like three in the morning. I drag myself over to the swing set, sit down on one, and lean my head on the cool metal chain. Heaving sobs rack my body and I double over.

“Why, God, why did you have to give me this stupid life and this stupid body? I hate everything!” I shout.

I can’t hold it in. I scream and scream into the nothingness, but no one hears me. Or maybe they do, but nobody comes.