The world had stayed white for a long time. The sound of crunching metal and car horn soon melted away to heavy rain outside and the eventual whine of wailing sirens. They seemed as loud as a rock concert in my ears at times, though they trailed as distant as one eavesdropping on an unimportant conversation almost as equally. I felt vaguely aware of my surroundings but the distinction remained lost in the glare of blinding white empty shrouding me. I felt the need to open my mouth and scream, to yell for help and my heartbeat quickened as paranoia danced menacingly on the outskirts of the white nothing.

If you can't feel your mouth, control your mouth, you can't scream.

I tried to move my mouth but felt no movement and doubted perhaps I'd ever speak again. I knew as crazy as that sounded I felt nothing at all. I didn't feel without weight or without senses, but instead heavy with the burden of it all. The burden of even trying was a bludgeoning distraction too unfathomable as I tried again to open my mouth. I felt an empty gasp deep in my chest, one of the few things I could feel. I tried to swallow and found the same raw void of inaction.

I also began to sense my heart slowing and quickening erratically. Even that seemed to fade as darkened shapes began to blur the achromatic landscape. I forced my eyes to the left and right and tried to blink. I strained against my own eyelids, which seemed weighed down by that same sad burden of effort and though each action was met with the same unacceptable result, I continued to try.

That had to be the trick. The malevolent and proverbial wool over the eyes, as it were. That heaviness, that blinding empty tempted and teased one to stop even attempting. For once it seemed my stubbornness would prove not a character flaw but a necessary trait. I would continue to try. As long as I never stopped doing that, I would be okay.

Maybe.

There was a moment of doubt and this time, I felt an actual ache in my lower body. A nervous tension that began as a dull throb then lit my entire spine with a howling fire so intense that I mocked a scream in my own head. It didn't seem my voice at all but that wasn't important. I would use that shriek as a focal point, a reminder that I would open my eyes and scream eventually. The pain came and went then the cold on my skin came next.

The rain was like shrapnel on my skin. I felt I was guided and being moved forcefully from the vehicle into the downpour. The rain was cold and it tingled my flesh with sharp pinpricks and I tried my eyes again. Shapes blurred and movements loomed all about me and for a single moment, I heard a man's voice. That was comforting.

As the storm raged on somewhere beyond the blank pale of my unconscious vision and the rain continued to slash at me, the gasp in my chest expelled once. The sound of heavy doors slamming came next. My skin cried in relief as the rain faded away into the vacuum around me.

"He's breathing but it's shallow," a voice to my left declared. The sound of medical and monitoring equipment whirred and beeped somewhere close by.

A female's voice agreed and added more clarity. "Blood pressure is high, heart rate is weak. Need to get him stabilized. God knows how long he's been out in this storm."

"Yeah. Look at his fucking legs and hip. Not sure who got it worse. Him or the car. Poor bastard's got some downtime ahead of him definitely." I wanted to kick him just to prove him wrong.

"I heard him groan when we lifted him out," she said reassuringly with a southern drawl. "He's in there somewhere, at least. Yeah, he's lucky he was so close to town. The woman who called it in was in hysterics. Friend or family?"

"I'm going to assume a friend at least. Poor bitch was crying though. Maybe more. She said she'd follow us to Memorial. Maybe we should've let her ride in the bus. It's a shit storm out there tonight." He paused a moment. "Hey, did ya see those lacerations on his arms and back? He's even got some scar tissue in his chest. It's small but looks partially infected. Think that was part of the crash? I don't fucking think so."

"Johnson, stop thinking and help me, damn it. His vitals are dropping! Even if he loses his legs ain't gonna lose the rest of him!" Her Louisianan accent became thicker as her concern began to escalate.

I shuddered uncontrollably at the possibility of not walking. I waited to see if anyone besides me would notice it. After several moments of silence and heavy breathing above me, I decided the shiver had been a cruel punchline and my crippled body the setup. I lay there as the imposing lack of color threatened to fade a little. Each jarring movement around me would bring flashes like lightning across my unblinking eyes.

Bits and pieces of the world around me swirled and gave chase. I vigorously pleaded with them to stay. If this ivory nothingness was what my reality was when fully aware, I began to fear what awaited me when I decided to finally rest at some point. I tried to focus my eyes, simply in defiance one last time.

I knew that somewhere, peering beyond the shapes of the paramedics desperately trying to stabilize my wrecked body, my answer waited patiently.

Her musky perfume had wavered all around the three of us even before the ambulance had begun to pick up speed. The frantic ramblings of the medics became evanescent as she enticingly filtered into view for a brief moment. Her lips parted and her sultry laugh drowned out the sirens and equipment and even rational thought.