You never know what the future has in store for you. With the clouds, darkness, and the strong swirling storm winds around us, how was I supposed to know that this was a day I really needed to wear my seatbelt? It started in the morning; the winds were just starting to pick up and my dad was hollering at me to hurry up. The flight to Germany was in two hours. We were going to visit my grandmother; she lived in a small town called Rothenburg ob der Tauber, which looked like something out of a fairy tale. The family reunion was taking place there. It was the first one in ten years. Some of my family won't even know who I am; yet again, I won't recognize them either.

"Nox, hurry up! I've been calling you for fifteen minutes to get down here!" my father called.

I grabbed my bags and my guitar and ran down the stairs. My guitar was put in the back with my dad's bags and mine were thrown in the trunk. I climbed into the front and kicked my feet up on the dashboard. Of course, the second my feet touched the dashboard, my father knocked them down.

"What do you think you're doing? My dash is not a footrest!" I mumbled an apology and tried to get comfortable. It was a long ride to the airport.

My dad drove as carefully as he could while the storm started developing behind us, whirling around and going every which way. The ground was flooded and our little car could barely get through it. Lightning struck not too far off, the thunder only two seconds away. Fog laid across the cemented street, making our view ahead as difficult as spotting a single strand of hair in a pile of straw. A blanket was covering me, hiding the fact that there was no seatbelt underneath it.

"Dad, when are we going to be there? We've been in the car for hours!" I complained as I looked over to my father.

"Nox, be patient please. It's been twenty minutes. We have an hour and a half until we get to the airport. Don't make this a stressful car ride," he told me exhaustively.

"Do you need me to drive? You look a little tired."

"I'm perfectly capable," he kept his eyes on the road, trying to hold them open.

I turned to the window and tried to look out of it, but it was too wet to see through. The storm raged outside but we kept driving on, ignoring it. The rain hit so hard that we failed to see the fallen tree in front of us. My father was falling asleep at the wheel. When I finally saw the tree, it was too late. I grabbed the wheel and turned it hurriedly, trying to get out of the way. All of a sudden, it all was a blur. The car toppled over the fallen tree, waking my father up, making him shudder and scream. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he was out like a light. I fell forward and up and down again as the car fell sideways over the tree and the blanket fell off as I hit my head on the dashboard. Everything was dark after that.

I woke up thinking that I wasn't actually awake, but only hearing the voices of unfamiliar people around me. I had no recollection of what had exactly happened or where I was. All I knew was that everything was dark and everything was loud.

"So how are we going to treat this, Doctor?"

"I'm not sure it can be fixed. There was a cascade effect in her optic nerve endings. We're quite positive that she will never see again."

At that note, I spoke. My voice was raspy and soft, "Never see again? What do you mean?"

I heard footsteps getting closer. A woman who I assume was the doctor placed a hand on my shoulder and you could hear the sadness being held back in her voice as she asked me, "Do you remember anything from the crash, dear? What's your name?"

"Crash? Oh... crash. There was a tree and the storm and my father..."

"What about your father?"

My voice shook, "He was falling asleep... at the wheel. I tried..." I felt tears falling down my face, "to turn the wheel so we'd be out of the way but I couldn't do it."

"Calm down. What is your name, sweetheart?"

"Nox Krause. Where's my father. Can I go to him?" I tried to stand up but I couldn't. A shooting pain went up my back, ribs, and my neck. My head felt like it was going through a compressor.

"You can't stand! Not for a while! Your back is bruised, you've broken some ribs and your ankle, and you have whiplash. Lay back down and try to rest," the doctor said to me.

"Please, just tell if my father's okay. He's all I have left. I don't know where I'm gonna go if he's gone. Please," I sobbed my eyes out, and I couldn't even see the blur of the tears in my eyes.

"Your father is in the ICU. He has a lot of internal bleeding. He's in a coma, but we are doing the very best we can to make sure that he stays alive."

I laid back down and closed my eyes.

I spent around two months in the hospice since I had nowhere to go while my dad was in the ICU. Every morning for the first two weeks I'd get up to go to the bathroom and I'd look in the mirror and try to remember what I looked like: blonde hair, blue and brown eyes, tall, thin. All of it was jumbled up in my mind and eventually I had stopped trying to remember. I never got any visitors but my family in Germany called and asked why my father and I didn't show up to the reunion. I said it was because "something came up." My mother never called. She was notified by the doctors via voicemail, but never a call back, not even a text left on my phone. My whole life (for 8 weeks) became an endless routine of workouts, eating, and sleeping. Never anything else.

School was going to start soon and my breaks and bruises had healed almost completely. I could walk, just not run. I could breathe, just not at night without a machine. I could walk normally, but only with a stick to tap on the ground. Nothing seemed real anymore. I was technically discharged from the hospital, but nobody was able to release me without a legal guardian, who happened to be in a very... unconscious state. I wouldn't go to school except tutoring in the hospice until my father was awake or my mother came to claim me. Obviously the latter of the two was unlikely since she was busy with her new husband and kids.

About a few weeks later, my father's brain activity returned to normal and he woke up. His speech patterns were low and his muscles were weakened but he could wheel around and stutter his words. He was okay to go home, but unfortunately he couldn't drive us home. We called an Uber and we arrived at home just as we had left it.

Over the next few days, my dad had enrolled me in school, and hired a driver to take me to and from school. It was going to be rough, but how bad could it be?

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