“Dad, did you see the finished U.S.S. Enterprise?” an excited voice sounded from the backseat of a red Chevy.  The man who was asked the question, Marcus, sat in the front seat, his focus on driving.  His son, Tommy, had just climbed into the car after school, and they were on their way to the Aquatic Center for Tommy’s swimming lessons.  Marcus pushed his blinker up, then checked the intersection for other cars before turning right.
“The Lego one?  I did.  It looked pretty good, but I noticed that you had Spock in the captain’s chair instead of Kirk,” Marcus answered.  He looked through the rearview mirror and examined his son.  Tommy had a Lego pamphlet open on his lap and was likely reading the directions for building the castle he had ordered on eBay.  His dark curls hung over his face as he tilted his head down to read.  He was a Lego fanatic, and his parents tried to provide him with new sets every now and then so he wouldn’t grow bored. 
Legos weren’t the only thing that caught Tommy’s attention.  Tommy’s father showed him Star Trek as well as Legos.  They watched the series together and tried the new movies, though they both preferred the older version.  Marcus tended to buy Star Trek merchandise for him, just for the enjoyment of sharing the love of the series with his son.  Even as he sat in the car, Tommy wore a faded Star Trek t-shirt, and his tin lunchbox on the seat beside him had Leonard Nimoy on the front.
Tommy shrugged, his eyes still on the pamphlet.  “Spock’s a lot smarter than Kirk.  He’d be just as good of a captain.”  They were driving through town and approaching the stop sign where they’d turn right again.  After that, it was just a quarter of a mile to the Aquatic Center.
Marcus nodded.  “I get where you’re coming from, but Kirk’s got a lot of qualities that make him a great captain.”  As he pulled the car up to the stop sign, he prepared to go into detail on why Kirk made a better captain than Spock, but he paused when he glanced in the rearview mirror again and noticed a black pickup truck not too far behind them.  Only once his Chevy reached a full stop did he realize how fast the truck was going, and that it was not slowing down.
In a panic, Marcus tried to turn the car to the left and move out of the way, but the pickup truck careened toward them faster than he could get the car moving again.  The truck slammed into the left side of the Chevy at full speed and pushed it across the road perpendicular to the one where they’d stopped.  While the pickup stayed upright, the red car took air and flipped over itself.  After flipping, it hit the ground and rolled across the road into the ditch.
The car came to a halt upright in the ditch.  Marcus lifted his head from where it had smacked against the wheel.  His face felt hot, and he could feel warm fluid dripping from his forehead and nose.  The air in the car was filled with a hot, metallic scent.  He looked around the devastated vehicle with a blurry gaze, still disoriented from flipping and hitting his head.  After a few moments, his vision cleared, and he turned his head to look into the back seat at his son.
“Tommy,” he croaked.  His son was on the right side of the vehicle, on the side that wasn’t crumpled in by the impact.  Even so, his head lolled to his shoulder, and the right side of his face was caked with blood.  Marcus quickly went to unbuckle himself, his hands trembling as he did.  Once free from his safety belt, though, his crushed door wouldn’t open.  He turned around to the backseat again, Tommy his main priority, and grabbed the child’s arm.  “Come on, Tommy, come on.”
The woman who had been driving the black pickup was standing on the edge of the road.  She had a phone to her ear and seemed to be hysterically talking into it.  She had a cut across her forehead, and her free hand hung awkwardly at her side.  Two other vehicles had stopped on the side of the road; a man climbed out of one and raced down the slope into the ditch.  He moved around the car and peered in through the broken window of the passenger seat before trying the door.  The stranger wrenched it open, then leaned into the car.
“Man, let’s get you out of here,” he urged, offering his hand to the dad in the driver’s seat.  Marcus shook his head wildly.
“My son… you have to get my son out.  He won’t wake up.  I think he passed out… he hit his head on the door maybe,” Marcus responded.  The man hesitated then looked to the backseat and saw the limp little boy.  He left the passenger seat and pulled open the door to the back where Tommy sat.  The stranger unbuckled the child and brought him out onto the grass while Marcus climbed over the passenger seat, the glass from the window cutting into his hands and knees.
Marcus leaned on his knees over his son while the stranger placed his fingers on the child’s throat, then pressed his ear to his chest.  The stranger stood up and started running back up to his vehicle, shouting as he went.  “Please, no.  God, no.  Come on, Tommy,” Marcus quavered.
There was now a group of people hurrying down to the ditch to see what they could do for the child and the distressed father.  On the edge of the road, the woman who had been driving the truck was being comforted by strangers who stopped to help.  In the distance, sirens wailed as emergency vehicles made their way through the streets, the sirens getting louder as they closed in.  They were rushing to an accident involving a red Chevy and a black pickup, where two were injured and one was assumed dead by a doctor at the scene.

Early morning sun leaked through a large window into a white room with coats hanging on the walls and shoes lined neatly below them.  A middle-aged man tugged on a black jacket, then slung a satchel over his head.  In one hand, he held an old Star Trek tin lunchbox with Leonard Nimoy as Spock on the front.  He pulled open the front door of his house and shouted, “I’m leaving,” but didn’t get the chance to step outside before his wife came around the corner from the kitchen.  She rushed into the entryway with a black travel mug in her hands.
“Almost forgot your coffee, Marcus,” she teased as she handed him the mug.  Marcus took it gratefully with his free hand and gave his wife a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks, Gen.  I wouldn’t have made it through the day without it,” Marcus smiled, though his words weren’t said in a joking manner.  He hadn’t gotten much sleep that night, or any night for the past three years.  Marcus had been an insomniac ever since the car accident that killed his son, Tommy.  He’d been relying on three hours of sleep and up to six cups of coffee a day since then.
Gen smiled, though her cheer didn’t hide that she had been dealing with the same issues as Marcus.  She had dark bags under her eyes, and her face showed more signs of age than that of a typical 39-year-old’s.  Her once chocolate brown hair was streaked with grey.  “That’s not hard to believe.  You better get going or you’ll be late.  Have fun at work.”
Marcus made a face at his wife’s words, but Gen only rolled her eyes and shooed him out the door.  Marcus ambled across their porch and to the driveway, then climbed into his new grey Chevy.  He started the car, and took the 20-minute drive to work to begin what would normally be his seven-hour workday.

Four hours into the workday, Marcus sat at his desk finishing up an email to a customer.  Marcus’ job at his company was to deal with customers and answer their questions.  It was about 11:30 P.M. and he was getting ready to go on lunch break when his phone started ringing.  Marcus dug into his workbag and was surprised to see that it was his personal phone, not his work phone, ringing.  He saw that the caller was Gen, so he accepted the call and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Hey Gen,” he greeted.  He pushed himself onto his feet and grabbed his lunchbox to make his way to the breakroom.  He started through the hallway, but stopped when his wife’s voice came over the phone with an odd tone.
“Marcus, you need to come home,” she mumbled over the line, almost incoherently because of how fast and quietly she spoke.  She sounded almost afraid, but there was a peculiar manner to her voice that Marcus couldn’t identify.
Marcus turned around and walked back to his cubicle.  “What?  Why?  Right now?”  Though he was confused, he threw on his coat, balancing his phone between his cheek and neck,  and fished his keys out of his bag, frightened by the way his wife sounded.  He quickly shut down his laptop and stuffed it into his bag before swinging the strap over his shoulder.  Marcus left the cubicle and walked through the hall, receiving multiple strange looks from his coworkers, then pushed open the door to the parking lot and stepped into the crisp fall air.
“Okay, Gen, I’m on my way home now.  What’s going on?” Marcus threw his things into the open passenger seat and climbed into the driver’s seat.  He started the car, his phone still positioned between his head and shoulder so he could use both hands to turn the wheel and pull out of the parking lot.
“Um…”  Gen murmured shakily.  “I can’t explain it.  Really, I don’t know.  I just need you to come home.”  Her voice sounded as though she was on the verge of tears.  She let out a big breath and caused a moment of static over the line.
Once Marcus got out onto the road, he lifted one hand from the wheel and held his phone to his ear with it.  “All right, I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.  Is that too long?  Do you need me to stay on the line with you?”
“No, that’s fine.  Just get here fast.”
“As fast as I can,” Marcus said, then he ended the call and put his phone in the cup holder, placing his hand back on the wheel.

Marcus managed to cut the drive time to his house down to eleven minutes.  His car sailed into the driveway in front of the small, white cottage and came to a sudden stop.  He shut off the car and jumped out, then quickly closed the door and raced through the porch and into the house, leaving his belongings in the car.
The door flew open, and Marcus accidentally pushed it too far in his rush; the knob smacked into the wall behind the door and broke through the plaster into a fist-sized hole.  He pulled the door away from the wall and looked behind it  to see how bad the damage was, cursing under his breath.  After a few moments, he swung the door closed, satisfied with his inspection for the time being.  He called out for his wife, then ran from the entryway to the kitchen, but froze once he turned the corner.
On one side of the kitchen, against a white wall, sat a short, wooden dining table, and four matching chairs were set around it.  The lights in the kitchen were off, but the window above the dining table allowed enough sunlight through to light the room.  Gen sat at the table across from the window, and turned her head toward Marcus when he came into the room.  Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks appeared tearstained, but she smiled at her husband.  The two chairs across from her were empty, but beside Gen was a small figure with its head bent down so Marcus couldn’t see its face.
Marcus took a few slow steps into the room.  “What’s going on?  Gen, who is that?”  His voice was uneasy and he found it difficult to get words out of his mouth, though he wasn’t sure why.
Gen hesitated, then opened her mouth to answer, but a small voice answered Marcus instead.  “It’s me, dad.”
Marcus jumped at the familiar voice, and covered his mouth in surprise.  The small figure sitting beside Gen slowly lifted its head and leaned forward to gaze at Marcus, and he saw the face of a little boy.  As he looked at Marcus, his face was grey and expressionless.  As his blue yes locked on to Marcus’ green ones, Marcus realized how much the boy’s eyes matched those of the woman sitting next to him; their hair had the same dark tone and curls as well.
Marcus shivered and fell back a few steps then braced his hand against the wall.  He took a few long breaths, his eyes never leaving the blue pair matching his own stare, as a thousand questions ran through his mind.  After a few moments, Marcus finally found his voice.
He opened his mouth, and his voice came out as a hoarse whisper.  “Tommy?”