It was a gloomy night when it all happened. I was asleep in the car when rapidly the little vehicle was pushed away by a truck and crashed an old tree. Immediately, the tree fell on top of the car. While the chaos was occurring the window near me cracked, and some parts of it injured my face. When the ambulance arrived I knew something had gone really wrong but the worst part was when I heard my father’s voice crying for help. Instinctively, I tried to open my eyes but I couldn’t, I was in coma…

I found myself inside an ambulance while the doctors were examining my body in many different ways: they were testing my ears, my mouth and, worst of all, my eyes. Afterwards, they connected me to a strange machine that helped me breath. It went up to my nose and down to my mouth. I paid loads of attention to every word I was hearing, in a failed attempt to recognise my parents’ voices. As the hours passed by I started to feel the fear invading by body and I could hear my heart beat faster every second, what if something had happened to them?

After a few minutes we arrived at the hospital, and I was feeling more lost than ever. The touch of the doctors’ hands lifting my body to take me away in a stretcher towards the emergency room was worrying me. I was making my best effort in order to wake up – but I simply couldn’t.

Every day my best friend, Alex, would come to visit me at that depressing hospital room but my parents didn’t come once. At first, I thought they were too frustrated to have the courage to come and see me in such a state. However, as time passed, I realized there must be a much obscure reason for their lack of visits.

Today Alex told me about my best friends, Isabel and Chloe.

“Isabel asked me to tell you that you must wake up soon so that you can go to Prom…” His voice went quieter as he spoke, until I couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying. Then, he must have noticed this and so his voice grew louder again.

 “Hey Katy, I know you can’t hear me, but I want to ask you something. I was thinking… would you like to go to Prom with me?”

Inside my head I was shouting “Yes! Yes! Yes!” but my lips wouldn’t move and not a single word came out of them. Then he would just sit there quietly, expecting no answer at all. Then, we were interrupted by my nurse, Linda, who had come to take me to be showered. It was time for us to say goodbye, and he did so by kissing me on the forehead. Now I was alone in the dispirited room.

Doctor James came into the room without a single bit of hope.

“Well Kate, It’s about time you should know something that happened the day of the accident: darling, your parents are dead… They died three months ago but we didn’t want to give you the terrible news given your state. I hope you can understand, and that it won’t affect you that much.”

I felt totally devastated. Even if a part of me had known it since the beginning, I had refused to accept the trauma of my parents’ death.         But now, this sudden realization had come over my head like a jar of cold water.

The month passed and I was still in the same state. Alex continued to come and Dr. James checked me every day. But today, I felt that something was going to change. The day started strangely, Alex hadn’t arrived yet and I was wondering when Dr. James was going to come. I hadn’t heard them since the day before. Even my nurse, Linda, hadn’t come to wash me up like she always did.