A lot can happen in an instant. One second you’re laughing with your friends and the next there’s silence. What is an instant death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and lungs collapsed. When there was no air in her lungs; no blood to her brain, just raw panic. What the hell is an instant? Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. It’s doubtful that instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous.
--
“Heathrow, please.” She choked, absent-mindedly petting the small pug in her lap.
Becca was familiar with moment before she was about to get hurt. There was an eerie calm before the storm. Most of the time it was figurative, but sometimes literal; like that fucking tornado. (Though, if it weren’t for that, Becca wouldn’t have realized just how deeply she felt for Aiden.)
There’s a beat of nothingness, calm nothingness.
And then there’s the impact.
--
The wreckage was unlike anything Officer Mike Warren had ever seen. Remnants of both vehicles lay in a morbid modern art fashion. The coroner was scurrying around to call the time of death for the victims, paramedics struggling to get the few that weren’t pronounced dead on arrival into the ambulances
This was Mike’s least favourite part of the job; having to break the news to the victim’s friends and family. Unlike most, this particular victim’s phone didn’t have ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’, ‘the boyfriend’ contacts in her iPhone. So he tapped on the most recent outgoing call; Nathaniel Fucking Phelps.
“Bec’s, where are you?”
He swallowed hard as he braced himself for the crushing silence that was to come.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Phelps, there’s been an accident… Are you able to make it down to the station?”
