Tanner hits a girl in a car crash and finds himself dying on the side of the road.  It's up to him to deal with the guilt of taking an innocent life.  He broken beyond repair.  He stll has to face himself and come to terms with what he did.

This darkness was more than just an absence of light; as if this black was liquid, making it hard to move.  Blackness seeped into my mouth, into my nose and ears; into my very being.  It silenced everything, including my breath.  Still, I lay there, waiting for my body to become accustomed to it.  I had spent a lot of time waiting for things that would never come.
My body ached all over and the biting wind and frozen ground wasn't doing anything to help.  My eyes were open wide; searching for light to hoist myself to my feet.
I assessed my injuries to find that my forehead was covered in blood.  The warm, sticky blood had congealed on my face and the pain felt like every nerve had been set on fire.  My side ached and couldn’t tell if I had broken anything.
I attempted to push myself up, but my elbow buckled and I fell back to the hard-packed dirt. When my head hit the ground again, I whimpered in pain.  The black world spun around me and the frozen earth didn't feel flat anymore.  My fingers dug into the soil in a hopeless effort to steady myself. 
I lay there until the spinning sensation subsided and the ground stabilized.  My joints popped in protest, and my head pounded, but I managed to get to my feet.
Looking around, I saw a pulsing bright blue crack in the darkness.  As I watched, the blue would flash into red and then back again. Even when I blinked, they made a purple stains on my eyelids. 
Lights meant people, and I needed people.  In agony, I moved toward them.
My travel was slow; run purely by hope and my will to survive.  My feet dragged with each step and I could not persuade my shoulders to rise.
I fell three times in approximately two yards.  The third fall brought on a sickening wave of nausea that stopped me from attempting my pursuit again.
I lay there; hopeless and in pain, every nerve screamed.  My body didn’t feel like it was mine anymore.  I wasn’t looking at the empty sky, I was looking at me.  My form looked crumpled and broken, not like me anymore.  One arm twisted awkwardly behind my back.  My eyes were open, but they were empty just like the sky they seemed look upon.  But they weren't looking anymore.  They projected the illusion of sight, but not well enough for it to be believed. 
The glassy orbs projected something else as well.  It was pinprick of light that ripped through the black like a knife through fabric.  The white flashed across my vision and I was momentarily blinded.  When the light flashed away I realized that I was hurting again.  My head pounded in time with my heart and my neck ached from my fall.  I wasn’t looking down at my lifeless body anymore, I was my lifeless body looking up at the big black sky. 
The light beam flashed over my head and soon I could hear footsteps that crunched in the dirt in time with a slight bouncing of the flashlight.  I heard voices and more sets of crunching noises and saw more ribbons of light sweep overhead.  They would find me soon.  They would find my mangled body with glassy orbs looking at the black sky.  They would take me away and fix me.  No, that wasn’t right.  They could patch up my skin but I would never be fixed. 
I wanted to call out but the darkness laid too heavily on my chest.  I waited for what seemed like all eternity for the crunching boots to trample the dry grasses around my body.  Soon there were lights of all colors and I was on my back on something a lot softer than the frozen ground.
~*~

Something was forcing oxygen into my battered lungs and there were several needles stuck in the crook of my elbow.  There was a steady beeping that sounded by my ear.
The darkness had been replaced with a sterile, bluish light that didn’t quite get to the corners of the room.  I almost missed the black.  This light made me feel sick and cold; the emptiness had felt almost like a blanket that shielded my form from the outside world.
Soon my eyes had adjusted to the brightness and i could see that I was in a hospital room.  There were several layers of gauze that ran across my face and over one eye.  The room was all white save for the pale blue curtains that hung on one side of my bed.  There was a vase of pink daisies that were sitting on my bedside table that looked as if they needed some watering.
The door opposite my bed opened and in stepped a young woman only a few years older than I was.  Her dark hair fell in a shimmering curtain over her shoulders.  She was clothed in the same sterile white as my bedsheets except the shirt had a pocket that held two pens.  A thick folder sat in her hands; it was open and she was reading its contents. 
She stood in the entrance for a long time, staring at that folder.  I cleared my throat and the nurse jumped and her head jerked up.
“Excuse me mam’, is she alright?”  She looked at me, confused. “The girl I crashed into. Did she survive?”  Her expression quickly morphed into something.  Anxiousness with a dash of pity. 
“I’m sorry…”
She paused and glanced at the door like she was looking for an escape route.
“She didn’t make it out.  Her chest collapsed on impact.”

~*~
I love that time in the afternoon when the sun and the moon are resting in the sky together.  The sun blazes white hot on the edge of the horizon and the moon rests on the other side of the sky, at less than full glory.  It needs the darkness to highlight its beauty.
It is that time of day. The sun is cradled on the edge of the ocean.  It lights up the water, turning it fiery gold. The moon is peeks out behind a cloud, as if afraid to come out completely. 
I still remember being told as a child that the moon did not make its own light like the sun did.  That it merely reflected the sun’s glory.  I still thought it was beautiful.  That is why I come to the beach every evening to watch it shine.
I love the way the water seeps up the beach in a silvery sheet.  Little tendrils of foam curl up like fingers.  When they recede, they leave the sand that they’d touched a shade darker than it had been before. 
The setting sun stretches out the shadows.  The tide rises and with every wave it moves closer to my wheels.  It was eerily beautiful to watch the sand being stolen from beneath me. 
I didn’t deserve this.  Me, a murderer, did not deserve to watch the moon and the waves.   To watch pearly shells and broken glass shimmer and sparkle in the sunset.