Crash

The world went completely black just as the bus turned the corner towards me.

The ten ton weight pushed me off my feet and slammed me into the library wall. I felt something leaking inside as I scrabbled for purchase on the hot metal. The smell of burning rubber and the crunch of bone washed over me as more cars spun off the road, and I prayed for survival.

I prayed for sight.

It all came back at once. I opened my eyes and gazed at the dead and dying. Men, woman, children, all wrapped around the wreckage of the bus and half a dozen other cars it smashed along the way. Rivers of blood and broken bits splashed down the streets and pooled in the potholes and ran through the grates. Some of them still lived, writhing, sobbing, clawing at the wreckage of the world around them.

I sprawled over the hood of the bus and felt my life drain out. The pain faded with my senses, and I craned my neck to gaze upon the brightest blue sky I’d ever seen just one last time.

As I slipped away, I could just make out the blocky words printed in the clouds:

“Dumping physical memory to disk: 35”