Chapter 1 - Trauma
“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.”
John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
My mind has always been somewhat analytical, even (or especially) in high-stress situations. I believe this comes from a life full of upheaval, learning at an early age that breaking down in a panic in the moment will not help, even hinder, so what else is an adrenaline or stress boosted mind to do but calmly analyze whatever situation one is in?
One such crisis came about when a fuel truck exploded as I was driving past it on my evening commute. For reasons that will become clear, I never did find out what the cause was. Whether it was a terrorist attack (unlikely), over-pressurizing of the contents of the tank trailer thanks to the Arizona heat (possible), or simply poor maintenance causing several problems at once resulting in the tank blowing up during transport (most likely), I would never really know for sure.
Once the world swam into focus, I felt numb from my waist down. Having some unpleasant experience with my body going into shock thinking it was catastrophically losing blood when I was trying to donate plasma a year ago, I was able to keep my wits about me when I looked down and saw a section of my van’s steering column shoved through my torso.
About a decade and a half ago, I had the opportunity to learn a few life lessons from a Viet Nam war veteran. One of the things he taught me was the “three breaths” rule. He had seen enough death during the war that he was able to watch the faces of people who knew they were about to die, and they always had about three breaths between the realization that they were about to meet their end and when that end actually came.
Almost like I was able to see the countdown in my mind’s eye, I knew I had seconds to wrap up my life.
...Three…
I reached into my shirt pocket grateful my phone hadn’t flown out in the explosion and that I hadn’t opted to put it in the windshield mount like I normally would. I unlocked it, opened the phone app, and tapped my ex-wife’s face on the speed dial screen.
...Two…
Miracle of miracles, she answered. “What have I told you about calling me at work?”
“JoLene,” I struggled to speak, “Shut up, I’m dying...accident on the freeway…”
There was a dead silence for a moment, “...what?” I could hear the distress in her voice. I always knew she still loved me, regardless of how much she denied it, if only because her anger was a sure sign of the passion that hid under the lies her family fed her for years about me, leading to her divorcing me a couple of years ago. Well, at least I’d die knowing she really cared about me in the end.
...One…
“Tell Freya…” my vision was fading, I couldn’t see the sunlight anymore, “...love her…” I realized I couldn’t feel my fingers around the phone anymore, I was almost gone, “...love...you…”
I only knew I’d dropped the phone when I heard her crying out my name through the tiny speaker that was probably an inch from my ear, but in a moment, I couldn’t hear that either.
It was the sudden cessation of pain that told me I was dead. I was actually a bit thankful that I didn’t seem to be hanging around the mortal world, I never did like having to clean up catastrophic messes, and I’d learned the hard way during the divorce that lingering around old relationships was just a good way of torturing yourself. I was actually somewhat eager to head into the light, though I was starting to wonder why I wasn’t experiencing the “life flashing before my eyes” thing near-death survivors reported. Two things and two things only seemed to sear themselves into my soul as I passed, the faces of my ex-wife and daughter.
-~<^>~-
Free yourself, my daughter…
Sensation started to return. Fully rational thought hadn’t, I was operating more instinctually than anything else. I started twitching. Flashes, green flashes, flickered around me. My back felt compressed, I had no room to move.
Awake, my princess…
As the thoughts stirred my mind to consciousness, I started thrashing about, my limbs slamming into hard walls, my lungs filled with fluid. The realization that I was not breathing air hit me, so too did the spike of adrenaline that kick-started my mind. Holding my breath, I stilled to assess my situation.
...Daughter!? the foreign thought invaded my mind, distracting me for a moment. It was accompanied by emotions, fear, near panic, and an outpouring of raw, parental love like I’d only ever experienced when my daughter was born. The alien nature of the emotions caused me to jerk my head back reflexively, bumping into one of the walls and top of whatever vessel I was in.
As soon as I reacted, the fear abated to a less...toxic level and the panic disappeared entirely, replaced with relief and excitement. Come, daughter! You must free yourself! It’s time to come out!
I was starting to experience oxygen deprivation, so I was inclined to agree. I shifted, rather like one would move about in a hot tub or swimming pool, and braced my back against one wall, and getting my feet out in front of me. Of course, since all I could see was a very dim green light, only barely visible through the walls of my confinement, I was guiding my movements by muscle memory and feel alone. The symptoms of oxygen deprivation were hammering my awareness, lending urgency to my actions, so when I thrust out, hammering the opposite wall with my legs, I made immediate progress. A crack of light could be seen, and the muffled sound of liquid flowing out of a vessel reached my ears. Encouraged by my progress, plus the outpouring of excitement and love from...wherever it was coming into my mind, I repeated my action. Then again. After the third such strike, the wall of the container I was in fell away, and I was swept out onto a warm floor by the escaping fluid.
Gasping and coughing, I heaved in deep breaths, my mind suddenly inundated with a cacophony of what seemed like whispering voices, but my ears were only reporting the sound of a single other voice, muffled by the fluid still draining out of my aural canals and a few other orifices and crevacis in my body I didn’t want to think about at the moment. The sensation of warm feather-light touches brushed my skin, and in what light there was I could only make out blurry shapes. Whatever the warm feathery sensation was, it was joined with the feeling of being lifted and dried simultaneously. Whatever they were using for their towels was damn fine material. Still hearing the sound of a voice, but unable to make out any words in English, I felt the sensation of being bundled up in a blanket, encouraging cooing becoming a pleasant background noise as the adrenaline rush turned into an adrenaline crash.
The voice returned to my mind, relief, joy, and parental love pouring into me, Sleep, little princess. Having had one hell of a day...or however I was going to measure time now that I was dead, I opted to do as the voice suggested.
Stats
Page generated in 0.018 seconds
Total duration
641 users online
852,142 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Interesting start. Always happy to read new fics featuring Chryssie.
The cellphone scene was a little too cheesy in my opinion, but the rest was well written.
Yay a quote from John green makes anything better :) very well writain chapter :)
Probably was empty, fuel liquids don't like exploding. Their vapors sure as heck do though.
Hmmmmmm, I like the concept so far. Now to see how the execution is.
7943430
It was cheesy, but with just the right amount of pepperoni and garlic. Mmmm...
7953092 I am so glad I have a Pizza when reading this comment :D
Well that's a crappy way to die
8139278
No kidding... And concidering what ive seen from dashcam footage posted online....that kind of thing could be very possible...scary stuff.
7953092 My hero... sandwich would go great with that. The author seems like a great connoisseur of heroes.
You’ve obviously done you’re research. And it helps that as of the moment you wrote this, you were a fantastic author. I applaud you and your story.
8585199
Thank you so much!!!
The author wrote : "I’m one of the oldest Bronies in the fandom, certainly the oldest I know of personally. (I’m 40"
Hah, I'm 45.
Yeah!
I am older.:)
Yay!
I win now!
I went to Trotcon last summer and while you're right that the percentage of bronies over the age of forty is in the single digits, there are still quite a few more of them than you'd think.
I know she must be in an egg, but in scenes like that I like to image them saying something like "I summon you!!!", in the most dramatic way.
This was a really nice start, I like that. I guess he still has his memories like the last sentence is suggesting?
Most surprising part was that smartphone didn't hang for more than 1000ms during every step of 7-10-step process of calling someone. Honestly, modern cellphones suck, I could call someone in less than a second with phone with actual buttons, while modern one takes 22 seconds minimum.
Eh, don't mind me. I complained when I switched from Win98 to WinXP too. Same with Office 2007.
8747886
early 2000's Microsoft Office was BEST Microsoft Office. 2007 was fucking EVIL. 2003 was the best one IMO. I however disagree with you on 98 vs XP. XP was a LOT more stable than 98. 98 had a hardcoded resource pool limit vs XP's NT Kernel based OS didn't have that sort of limitation. 98 lacks even basic in OS security and frankly around the time XP came out people were finding ways to hijack computers running 98 just like you could with those running 95. The only downside to XP was that at launch it didn't run well on minimum specs, but the service packs mitigated this significantly. The only reason you'd ever run windows 98 is if you have a computer not connected to the internet with absolutely abysmal hardware specs compared to pretty much anything you could have had in the mid 2000's. And even then, with some tweaking XP runs amazing on low spec machines. I managed to get it running quite well on an old thinkpad with a 333 pentium and 64MB of ram vs the 128MB recommended for XP. Plus, 98 is really just a shell over DOS. it's not even a real multi-tasking OS at all, and it's limited to FAT32 formatting for file storage. If you wanted DOS, you can still run DOS programs on XP with a bit of work.
Hey! A fellow Arizonan!
Scenario extrapolation suggests a nearly empty double tanker, southbound Loop 101, mid-afternoon, temperature 117. Despite the limit being 55 due to construction, traffic maintained at 75, moderate density. But one aggressive driver cut off said truck causing the driver following him to collide with the rear and initiating a buckle-fishtail between the two tank sections. The joining middle then pushed into your lane and downward into the engine, which did not trigger the airbags but still caused rapid deceleration. Due to stresses on the tanks the hull was breached and a puff of aerosol'd gas escaped into the environment and subsequently lit from the sparks being generated as the destroyed engine (and rest of the van) continues to drag on the highway. This only pushes the two vehicles apart slightly, but it's enough to finish driving the engine to the ground and immediately halting the van, crumpling it in the process.
.... Not sure which projection is more realistic after all... 😊
9774544
It's funny, this is the most heavily anylized part of my fic, period. I've done research on calendars, language, geography, show canon and fannon; but one little scene about a traffic accident brought out THE SCIENCE crowd like nothing else I've written.
9774784
It's the death that was deepest in the uncanny valley (so to speak). Everyone else falls through holes, trips through a mirror, gets run over while walking but this? It just twinges on the edge of possibility while not requiring hand-wavy "it's just random chaos magic, just move on and don't question!" as a backbone. It's straight-forward, yet not.
One hell of a way to go...
ouch... At least he/she will not be to hung up on her new life if the character is so accepting
9774784
Finish it..... Or ZOMBLES will seige your house
Holy fuck. That's quite a way to go.
Stories been on my Read if Updated for a while, glad to see it alive, so, here I am.
Damn... Going out like that was quite... High note
Better luck this time...
My mind works the same way!
Rereading because reasons, still a good opening
Truck-kun strike again! This time it's jihadist truck!