I could feel the car doing 360’s on the road, the tires screeching in protest. Our silver Volvo is covered in dents, my mom and dad passed out in the front seat, my brother passed out in the seat beside me.

I hear police sirens in the distance. There’s already two cars in the ditch, the people passed out, maybe dead.

All of a sudden our car starts rolling, lifting me up, pushing me into my brother, and then the window. We roll about six times before the car stops. I reach into the front seat and check both my mom and dad’s pulse, nothing. I reach over and check my brother’s, at first I don’t feel anything but I push down a little harder and I feel a faint pulse. It’s so soft it’s barley even acknowledgeable.

“Zaine,” I say softly, shaking his shoulder. I hear him moan like he does when he is starting to wake up.

“What?” I hear him ask.

“Mom and dad are gone,” I tell him, not completely sure of the words myself.

“What do you mean?” he is suddenly fully awake.

“They’re dead,” I say, tears beginning to fall.

“Are you sure?” He reaches over and checks their necks again, only to slowly pull his hand back, shock showing in his face.

“Come on,” I say grabbing his wrist with on hand and wiping away tears with the other. We push open our car doors and step out. The police sirens are ear deafening as they pull up. The ambulance shows up nearly a minute later.

Before they even look at us they run over to the other two other cars and our car, the people at my car send someone back to the ambulance and come running back with two gurneys with black body bags, I guess I was correct about my parents.

The unzip one of the body bags and go to the car, they open the driver side door again and pull my dad out. The same is done with my mom.

I see a paramedic walking up to me and my brother out of the corner of my eye.

“I need to take you and your brother to the ambulance,” she pauses. “Are you their kids?” she asks pointing to our car.

“Y-yes,” my brother stutters.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” is all she says and walks back towards to the ambulance.


The Next Day
There’s a knock at the door, I had been in the middle of planning my parents funeral. My brother had to stay in the hospital yesterday due to some internal bleeding they found in his lungs, he had gotten a piece of glass down his throat during the wreck.

I hear the knock a second time. “Coming!” I shout as I get up to go to the door. I open it up and a police man is standing there.

“Ms Tennie?” he asks.

“Yes” I say, my voice shaking.

“I’m sorry to say this but your brother passed while in surgery about an hour ago.”

“Zoey? What’s going on? Is everything okay?” my neighbor steps out and asks, nodding towards the police man.

“Just perfect,” I tell her and slam the door. I turn around and slide my back down the door until I’m sitting, tears rocking my body.


3 Weeks Later
The car pulls up to the curb and an old lady opens the door and says “Welcome to Sunny Kids Orphanage,” gray hairs fall from her head as the wind blows. “We just so happen to already have a couple wanting to take you in for a week, and if they think you are doing well they will adopt you.” She grabs my bags from me and motions for me to follow her to the car right in front of us. I can tell from one look at them that they are rich, this is probably going to suck.