In Our Darkness - Prologue. Prologue: The Accident

If you prick us do we not bleed?

If you tickle us do we not laugh?

If you poison us do we not die?

And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

— William Shakespeare

The Accident

It happened in exactly two seconds. The first second, a black vintage Mercedes convertible glided down a secluded windy road—a few miles over the speed limit—on a warm summer night with its top leisurely rolled down. Technically, it carried two passengers, but had you asked the driver, David Andrews, he would have said it carried three: two adults, and one long awaited child, just a few hours shy of his official birthday. The next second, the scraping sound of metal on metal pierced the eerie silence of night, for just a quick moment. Then—CRACK!

David could almost audibly hear his left arm break, like a brittle twine, upon impact. That sound brought him smack in the middle of his now long forgotten childhood October afternoons, when he would amble along the New England woods with his baby brother, play hide and seek, battle each other with imaginary swords, and break non-pliable twines in half. CRACK! It was that same snapping sound. Except now, instead of a twine, it was his bones cracking in half. His body suddenly no stronger than a piece of dry wood. As if he didn’t guzzle milk every single day of his life—with his coffee, with his tea, and, to the disgust of his friends, by itself—as if he had some sort of grisly calcium deficiency. Except he didn’t. He was a perfectly healthy and strong adult male who simply didn’t stand a chance against the brute force of a three-thousand-pound machine plowing straight into him. The strangest part of it all was that it didn’t even hurt, he simply lost all feeling in the arm right away. It hung down, limp and useless. He knew that it was a clean break too, and not just a fracture. It would be hell to heal.

His head bowed down on the steering wheel at an uncomfortable angle. There was something wet slowly spreading on the palm of his right hand. Strangely enough, he could hear the crickets on the side of the road loud and clear. The crash didn’t spook them, but it did throw off their concerto into a spastic staccato rhythm. It’s odd the things a human being zones in on during a catastrophic event. It has something to do with survival and the senses focusing in on the most basic sensations: like sounds and physical discomfort.

When he finally adjusted, blinking rapidly to clear out the blurriness that clouded his vision, he saw that his other arm was laying on Elisabeth’s lap. Right before the crash he stuck out his right arm in front of her, an instinctual protective gesture to try to shield her from the oncoming hit. He noted that she looked anything but protected now. Her hair cascading down the dashboard, the space where a faulty airbag failed to deploy.

“Elisabeth,” he mumbled out, trying to rouse her. The car was making a creaking noise, and he needed to get both of them out to safety. She didn’t answer. He tried to move, but his body felt sluggish, still in a state of shock. Unable to complete simple movements, his joints felt like they were made out of wood. Everything seemed like it was happening in a slow-motion movie, or like he was trying to perform it underwater.

“Honey,” he croaked out, panic now spreading into his very core. What if she was really hurt, how would he carry her out with one arm? What if the car was about to catch on fire and explode? He had to wake her, and he had to do it fast. He tried to shake her with his right hand, the one that was in her lap, wet. Still, she didn’t move. When he pulled his hand up to grab her shoulder, the liquid on it, illuminated by the moonlight, was now made visible to him: watered down red. Elizabeth’s blood most likely mixed with amniotic fluid. His heart dropped into his stomach.

Suddenly, the adrenaline woke up his body and propelled it into action. Not only was his wife at risk, but so was his son. The amniotic fluid meant he probably didn’t have that long. Broken arm or not, David knew that too much was at stake, and he’d need to act fast or risk losing both of them forever. He tried to unbuckle himself, but the seatbelt wouldn’t budge.

“Come on,” he pleaded out loud to the Universe, wrestling with the buckle, but it seemed that help wasn’t on God’s menu that night. The belt was firmly jammed.

“Help!” He screamed out, looking over at the other car. At some point right after the impact, while David was coming to, the other driver had reversed the car that plowed into them. It was now idling a few feet away in the middle of the road, the glaring lights serving as a flashlight for the inside of the Mercedes. David couldn’t see what was going on in the other car, perhaps the driver had passed out.

His left arm was of no use, but vintage seatbelts were typically a little janky, so he tried to hoist himself up with his right arm and slip out of it. Unfortunately, during the impact, the belt had tightened, and no matter how hard he tried, it wasn’t coming loose. His body was trapped inside of a possible ticking bomb.

He wanted to panic desperately. After all, the car could light up at any minute, kill his unborn son, and engulf his beautiful wife in scorching auburn licks of death. A tragic ending to a most beautiful life. Because he had to admit it to himself, he’d had one hell of a great life up to that point. Everything tended to go in his favor ever since he was a child. Maybe God finally decided that enough was enough. He’d grown up with amazing parents, traveled the world, never lacked for anything, had amazing friends, met and married the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, had a job he loved and a beautiful house and now he was about to become a dad—not a bad inventory. His body felt so tired, and his brain hurt, and all he really wanted was to go to sleep. Someone would find them eventually; the other driver would call for 911. Help would be on the way soon.

His eyelids were gently shutting down when he saw it. It was a vision, but he felt like he was right inside of it. He could see himself at the small park close to their house. It was autumn, golden leaves adorned the ground like a blanket.

“Papa,” the little boy exclaimed laughing and throwing up a handful of leaves in the air, and David felt his heart expand ten times its size. The emotion he felt towards the tiny human was a hundred times stronger than anything he felt towards his family or his wife. Stronger than anything he’d ever felt before really. The drugs he experimented with in college, the daredevil activities he participated in while traveling, none of those thrills stood even close to this. This was something entirely different, as close to the divine as he’d ever gotten. It was love like he’d never experienced before.

“Papa,” the word reverberated throughout his brain. It was a strange word choice since he himself called his father “dad” or “pop” and didn’t know anybody who used other terms. Yet somehow, he knew the boy was talking to him. He was papa.

He shook awake with purpose, some prehistoric instinct inside of him kicked in, a caveman survival mode washed over his nerves like ice water and forced his brain to come up with a solution: Elizabeth’s makeup bag, containing a small pair of nail scissors.

He reached over towards her feet and felt the smooth leather of the large Louis Vuitton tote laying on the floor with his fingers. He strained every inch of his muscles to get his hand inside—the seatbelt viciously cutting into his body. He felt around aimlessly trying to discern the contents.

Her cellphone - no.

Her calendar - no.

Her wallet - no.

Her spare pair of flip flops - no.

Her hairbrush - no.

Then finally his fingers brushed against a cotton fabric: the makeup bag. He took it out and bit into one side of it to hold it, then pulled the zipper with his right hand. He reached inside, fumbling around with different makeup products and causing some of them to fall out into the dark pit of the car—never to be found again, especially not with the jammed seatbelt—and just when he thought he might have dropped them, the sudden feel of the cool metal beneath his fingers made him cry out in hope. He pulled them out and clumsily cut the seatbelt off in less than a minute, then dredged himself out of the car, holding the limp arm with his right hand.

“Help!” He yelled, making his way towards the other car. The headlights blinded him. Suddenly, the other driver revved the car, and then…he hit the gas pedal, the car aiming directly at David. He jumped out of the way, falling down at the edge of the road. The other driver sped away, leaving him in the darkness of the night.

Was this a bad dream? It must have been a nightmare, because none of it made any sense to David. Just an hour ago they were having dinner with friends and getting ready for the arrival of their first child. And now he was laying on the side of the road with a broken arm, and his 9-month-pregnant and non-responsive wife was stuck inside of a vehicle that could explode at any second.

David didn’t know what would be more dangerous, moving her and risking internal injuries to her or the baby, or leaving her in the Mercedes. But the car wasn’t leaking anything or making any noises, so he made the difficult choice of leaving her to go get help.

He improvised a sling for his broken arm with his button down shirt, then kissed Elisabeth on the head. He ran down the dark road for what seemed like forever. It was a secluded path that cut through the woods, and he couldn’t remember where the nearest gas station was. His cellphone had no service, and there were no cars coming by. He forced himself to continue running as fast as possible, until he finally saw a sign signaling a gas station.

He must have looked like hell, because the cashier’s face froze in shock when he entered.

“Call 911…my wife….my wife is pregnant…she’s bleeding out! She’s in a black car down the road. Hurry,” he managed to get out before his overexerted body gave out and hit the floor with a thud. And then everything went quiet, almost like it never happened.