Drunken Insomniac Writer

You ever hear talk of those people on talk shows and tv shows late at night claiming to have near death experiences?  Better yet.  Remember that movie Final Destination?  The one where the kid has a vision of a plane exploding and suddenly it does.  The scary part not being the explosion but the deadly events that followed.

Well, let me be the first to say that I was fortunate enough to survive a plot nothing as crazy as the movie and badly enough… it was too close for comfort.  You my friends, are the first that I have ever told this story…

((Play to Hear Music while you read…trust me))

My twin sister and I were coming home from school.  Freshman year, winter break.  Snow and that nostalgic scent of the holidays among us.  We had both had killer finals in our varying classes and I knew for certain that I was happy to be going home to see our mom, family and friends.  My sister was driving home as I sat in the passenger side, fumbling with the radio and heat controls.  I couldn’t stop toying with things for some reason.  As a matter of fact I had this nervous feeling all that day since we had left campus.  We were nearly home and it started to get dark outside as the snow fall thickened.  A sign read Philadelphia 42 miles.  I believe that we were somewhere in Maryland or Delaware.  I finally dozed off as my sister continued to cruise 95 North en route from D.C.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and the car halted.  I flew forward but not fast enough to break through the windshield.  I felt as if my neck nearly shattered even though my seatbelt had been fastened and I was secure inside.  Blood was beginning to cloud my eyes and everything turned red.  I looked over to my left to see that my sister was gone and her door flung wide open.  My eyes felt heavy and though I felt woozy, I could feel my heart pounding inside of my chest.  I attempted to open the door on my side.  But it was jammed against something.  I hadn’t the strength to push it any harder so I climbed over the gearshift and middle console to the driver’s side.  I fell out onto the cold ground.  My hands were numbing already on top of the snow.

I attempted to stand but I couldn’t.  It was only after falling twice onto the hard, cold earth, that I regained my balance.  The air was cold, dry.  I stood to my feet and called out to my sister.  The sound of my voice echoed past the towering trees.  I looked all around me and I could still hear the sounds of cars going by on the nearby highway.  I looked over at the car.  It was totaled with my side where I sat smashed against a tree.  The front windshield shattered with a hole over the driver’s side and the front grill missing.

I called for my sister again, yet my cries went unanswered.  I looked around in circles seeing nothing but trees.  I heard her scream out.  I turned in a complete 360 circle.  I couldn’t figure where her voice was coming from.  I could only hear it as if it were a mere few feet away.  I ran through shrubs and and dried branches.  I heard her scream again, this time it felt as if I could hear my name in her cries.  I ran straight in the direction away from the wreck of a car.

Suddenly I stopped in my tracks.  I looked dead ahead and moved a couple of steps forward to see that I hadn’t been going in a straight path but a complete circle.  There was my sister’s car in front of me.  I turned away and tried to climb out of the ditch where we were stranded to see if my sister had wandered up toward the road.

I then heard my sister’s voice but it was a cry of pain.  No words just screams. I nearly made it to the edge but then there was this blinding light and scorching heat.  It was so powerful that it knocked me off my feet.  I landed back in the ditch of trees.  This time I couldn’t stand.  I continued to lay there.  I could still hear my sisters screams.  I was powerless.

Suddenly I felt my own flesh burning.  I wasn’t on the cold ground instead I was in some horrid inferno.  I could smell my own hair turning into ash.  I begged for God, for something or someone to help me.  I was on fire! My entire body engulfed in a prison of flames.  I cried out again.  But it was of no use.  I was going to die a painful and miserable death.  The burning increased greatly until the bright light turned to darkness.  It was done and I was gone.

Somewhere in between life and death I felt everything yet nothing.  I was awake yet unconscious.  Was it Heaven or Hell?

Somehow, I could still smell the odor of smoke and ash.  I felt the scorching pain once more but not as intense as before.  Maybe I was returning to my fiery embrace.  This time there was a hint of gasoline in the cocktail.  Out of nowhere I felt myself yanked from the sweltering heat.  I could feel warm a breath on my face not heat.  I could hear indistinct, muffled voices not from myself or my sister.  I was then pulled from the midst of all and helped to my feet by strange arms.  I looked around and regained my focus.  The car was still a few feet in front of me only this time it was a smoldering pile of burning metal and plastic.

Inside I saw my very own sister in the passenger side seat.  It was her flesh and hair burning!  Trapped by the very device meant to save her, the seatbelt.  I tried to run for her to save her but I was held back.  I could still hear her screams but for the life of me I could not figure out how she was there and I was out here.  I cried out to her.  I could still feel her pain as if it was my own body inside of the inferno yet again.  Her eyes bloodied as well as every cavity of her body.

My sister, my other half was dead and I was powerless to stop it.  She had been with me my entire existence and now she was suddenly gone.  There was nothing I could do but cry.

A few hours later I was told by the fire men that I had been driving and fell asleep at the wheel.  My car had went off the road, through the guardrails and into a forest-like ditch.  I was saved by the fact that I had forgot to buckle my seat belt.  I apparently was thrown ten feet from the crash through the windshield.  Yet I walked away without a scratch on my body.  The car had began to leak gas while I was “passed out” and eventually ignited into a burst of flames.

When I asked about my sister’s unfortunate state, I was told that I had been traveling alone.  There was no record of her going to school, going home or even traveling with me.  Some say I had an outer body experience where my soul was trapped in the car yet my body thrown from the car.  Others say that I was technically dead for a few moments.  There was even the idea that I was in shock.  The final theory, my fav was the one that I was carried by a person whom I had imagined to be an entity like a ghost in the image of myself, which explained my lack of injury.  Yet amidst all of these theories lies one question still unanswered…my sister?

In the wreckage there were no signs of any other bodies or remains.

To this day…my mother denies the fact that a twin sister of mine even existed.

This was what I survived…

10/16/2007