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The Accident

Crossroads

By Richard JonesPublished 6 years ago 9 min read
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6:00 PM. Turners school of Co-Operational Learning is an exclusive private school lying just outside of Seattle, Washington, designed for very special students. One of those students is Amber McGee, a 13-year-old girl from New Brunswick, Canada. Today, she lies in her dorm room feeling anything but special. She stares constantly at her school books on her desk wishing that her studies might remove the memories of the day from her mind as they had done for her in the past. As this fails, she allows herself to be thrown back into the disaster area.

5:45 PM. The school gym.

Nick Turner, the schools founder and headmaster watches as two of the schools other students, the 17-year-old French girl Tanya Devassino and 16-year-old, New York born, Edward Simmons complete a workout. “How’s Amber," Tanya asked, concerned, as she and Edward approached Nick.

“As well as can be expected,” Nick answered. “She’s been in her room for the last hour.”

“Poor child,” Tanya said sympathetically, “I can’t imagine seeing what she saw must be like at her age.”

“I grew up in the Bronx,” Edward chimed in, “cops passing my house every 30 minutes and not a doughnut shop in sight, but something like that I never saw.”

“Perhaps I should go talk to her,” Nick suggested uncertainly.

“Your pardon monsieur professeur,” Tanya interrupted, “you’re a good administrator, but something like this is better dealt with by her friends. Eddy and I will go.”

“Ohh we will,” Edward mumbled, “I mean thanks for volunteering me; without my permission that is. I mean I’m happy to help and all...”

“Eddy!” Tanya said severely as the pair walked away.

Nick smiled as he watched them go. Tanya was right, of course. He was good at his job, but having never been a parent, such an emotional situation was beyond his abilities. Indeed, he had approached them hoping they would “volunteer.” He simply would not have known what to say had he been forced to deal with Amber.

3:00 PM. Amber had heard the sounds of the crash five minutes earlier. She had been in the main branch library in Seattle doing what she had felt was vital research for an upcoming term paper. Vital, that is, until she had come across this. From the sound, she had known the accident was bad, but she was in no way prepared for what now spread out before her eyes. One of the two cars involved was still in the middle of the road. The force of the impact from the second car had split it literally in half. The second car had continued onward and was now smashed up against the sidewalk on the far side of the road. Terrified, Amber’s senses dulled unable to focus on anything other than the rescue operations unfolding before her. The man driving the smashed car was the first to be liberated. He had been rescued from his car unconscious, but suffering relatively minor wounds and was soon rushed to the nearest hospital. As Amber watched the second rescue operation, words drifted to her ears from eyewitnesses of the accident. They reported to the police that the driver of the smashed car had been driving recklessly before hitting the second car at a speed estimated to be in excess of 50 MPH. An open can of beer found in the car further made the police suspect that the driver had been drunk. The people in the second would not come through the accident as luckily as the drunk driver. The driver of the car, a man in his mid-20s, was pronounced dead at the scene. The women passenger, presumably his wife, was pregnant and in shock, had gone into labor. Amber painfully watched the delivery and when a healthy baby girl’s cries reached her ears, she was certain that these were not cries of joy, but of grief. The newborn’s mother was dead.

6:05 PM. As Amber replayed in her mind the scene of the baby being rushed to the hospital, her emotions shifted from sadness to fury. She herself had been an orphaned child raised by foster parents. Fate, however, had been kinder with her destiny. Her mother had been a teenage girl who had died in childbirth while her father remained unknown to the community. First, Amber became angry at the driver of the car, then at herself. She had been blessed with two gifts that most people were unblessed with. The first, having a genius IQ, the second, the power to command anti-gravity. “Yet,” she thought, “with neither of these skills was I able to do anything at a time when they could do the most good. What’s the use of having powers like these if I can’t help anyone?”

As Amber’s anger grew, her anti-gravity powers activated. She began to levitate a couple feet above her bed. The sheets were split in the middle and rolled up to opposite ends of the bed. As the anti-gravity fields intensity increased, CD’s and books on her desk near Amber began to be flung across the room. Within a couple minutes, even her bed and desk began to stir. “Amber, petite, are you ok?” Tanya asked as she approached Amber’s room with Edward.

“I believe this constitutes a no,” Edward joked ducking a trophy and a small library of books flying out the door at head level.

“No jokes Eddy,” Tanya scolded him. “Now put up a telekinetic field before she causes any more damage than she already has.”

“Touchy, touchy,” Edward chided as he utilized his telekinetic force field power to contain Amber. “There one telekinetic straightjacket made to order. But whatever you got planned you better act fast. She’s beginning to exert more force than I can hold back.”

“If Eddy’s field breaks while I’m in Amber’s room, whatever force she’s generating could be enough to knock me into a wall or through it.” Tanya thought. “Better to calm her down through an illusion of myself. She’s probably to disturbed to notice or care if it’s the real me or not.”

“Amber calm down petite,” Tanya’s illusion said presented in front of Amber.

“They died Tanya,” Amber wailed. “They died and because of me, a baby girl doesn’t have her parents.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Tanya consoled her. “There was nothing you could do to stop it.”

“But I should have been able to,” Amber answered her. “I have a power that no one there possessed. A power that could have stopped the accident from happening.”

“You have anti-gravity powers here, not predictive powers,” Tanya reminded her. “And if you could have predicted the accident, you would have been just as helpless to stop it without your anti-gravity powers. Mutants aren’t gods.”

“Then we should be,” Amber returned not willing to give up yet.

“But we aren’t petite,” Tanya pressed on. “For all our various abilities, we can’t stop the inevitable. We can act to make the world a better place and do all we can within the framework of existence. We help those we can and mourn for those we can’t. This is just the way life is and we must accept that.”

“It’s just unfair, Tanya.” Amber whispered as her powers deactivated and she slumped down on her bed. “Just unfair,” she said as she began to cry.

“I know, petite,” Tanya said going to the girl’s bed to comfort her. “I know.”

9:00 PM. Tanya had stayed with Amber until she had cried herself to sleep. Left alone to her dreams, Amber found herself back in New Brunswick at the orphanage where she had been sent for adoption. It was her adoption day and she sat in her room anxiously awaiting the arrival of her new parents. A look of surprise crossed her face as a young girl of 18 entered her room. The look melted into a smile as she recognized this person for the first time in her life. “Mother,” she said to her birth mother.

“Yes,” the girl answered in the same voice Amber had always imagined her to have. “It is good to see you my daughter.”

The two talked for what seemed like the remainder of the night about all of the things that a mother and daughter should talk about. They talked about Amber’s childhood, the taunting and teasing of the school children because of her intellect, the first scary moment she realized she was a mutant, her foster parents, and her current school. Amber feared the end of this dream as she did no other yet the last words her mother spoke to her she would remember forever. “I must go now,” her mother said sadly, “but I want you to know I am proud of you and I will always love you.”

One week later. 10:00 AM.

Amber McGee - Private Journal.

The talk with my mom has had me feeling much better about myself and my abilities. I know now that I am doing the best I can with everything life has to offer me. I have found out that the drunk driver has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and driving under the influence. When his court date is fixed, I plan on attending and seeing that he gets what he deserves. I’m going to the parents funerals today and I hope to be able to visit the baby in the hospital. I can’t help being nervous. I hope I am ready for this. Oh, and mom. Thanks for everything.

1:00 PM. A local cemetery in Seattle, Washington.

“Hello, Mrs. Redding,” Amber said to an elderly lady dressed in a black dress about to get into her car. I wanted to offer my condolences to you on your son’s death.”

“Thank you young lady,” Mrs. Redding said as she got into her car.

“I was wondering ma’am,” Amber asked politely, “what will happen to the baby?”

“Well my dear,” Mrs. Redding answered with some difficulty, “both myself and my husband, as well as my son’s wife’s parents, are too old to raise another child so we have decided to have her given up for adoption to a couple who can love her as much as our children would have.”

“Could I see her?” Amber asked.

“Yes, I believe so,” Mrs. Redding answered. “She should still be at University of Washington Medical Center.”

“Thank you ma’am.” Amber returned. “And again my condolences.”

12.00 PM. The next day. University of Washington Medical Center.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Tanya asked.

“Yes,” Amber answered. “It’s too bad Mr. Turner couldn’t adopt her,” Amber said as she walked towards the entrance.

“Now that would be a sight,” Edward called after her. “He can barely keep up with the five of us.”

The walk to the nursery takes more time than Amber expects it to. Once she is there she is led to a baby girl in the middle of the room. Holding the baby lovingly in her arms she begins to cry. For the first time when something involving the accident is involved these are tears of joy.

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