Pain.
It came first, sharp, slicing through the fog of unconsciousness like a blade. Emerald groaned, her eyelids fluttering open to blinding sunlight and the violent sound of crunching metal and groaning steel.
Her vision swam as she tried to make sense of her surroundings.
Half of her body was dangling out of the shattered passenger-side window, glass embedded in her forearms and the biting wind whipping at her exposed skin.
The car was tilted at a treacherous angle, part of it hanging over the edge of the hill. The trees below looked miles away, and the drop… fatal.
Her heart leapt to her throat.
"Fuckk!" she gasped. "Someone there?!"
A sickening smell made her gag, and she turned her head, only to scream.
The driver was dead, impaled through the chest with a broken metal rod, his lifeless eyes staring ahead in a grotesque silence. Blood soaked through his uniform, pooling under his seat.
Her scream echoed through the woods.
