David awoke startled. He shut his eyes tight as the pressure behind them only very slowly subsided. He used his fingers to pinch the top of his nose.


    While he kept his eyes shut he released his nose and shook his head rapidly. His memories were still hazy. He felt around himself and realized he was on a cold stone-like floor.


    " What is going on" he barely managed to croak out. The feelings of his body were off. His brain told him something incredibly wrong was going on but he couldn''t point out exactly where it was coming from.


    Slowly he took a deep breath. This wasn''t enough to gather himself so he took another. He sat on this unfamiliar cold floor for a short few minutes, breathing and collecting himself.


    With resolve, David opened his eyes. He saw a massive window front. A cloud of smoke drifted into his view from beyond the window as well as some red light of a fire.


    David rose from his seated position and pressed his face against the glass scanning the surroundings. He saw many cars orderly parked within white lines. Further there was a street and many colorful signs. Past those he saw the cause of the smoke.


    A wreck. A red and yellow car had managed to avoid a full-on frontal collision, and there was minimal damage to the front of both cars. He scanned further and saw a power line bending dangerously close to the ground. Even some of the wires were loose causing sparks to fly in its vicinity. The yellow car looked as if it was stuck inside the base of the power pole.


    Immediately David took stock of the building he was in.


    " Right the Gym" he muttered to himself. A mass of people were lying on the floor. He focused in on the staff of the gym which was the person closest to him. After a few seconds of focus, he saw the rising and falling of their ribcage. Relieved David sighed and pushed open the clear Gym doors rather forcefully.


    He sprinted towards the street to get to the wreck as fast as he could. From afar he looked through the windshield of the red car. A female, with some blood on her temple parked in the green closest to the gym. Her arms were slightly moving. While she was not okay by any stretch of the imagination, her stirring from unconsciousness was a good sign, David thought to himself.


    Next, his attention went over to the yellow car. Sparks were flying but David could easily reach the yellow car without being in mortal danger. He ran up to the drivers side and attempted to open the door.


    Due to the frontal collision the front part of the car was deformed but after giving it a hard tuck the door flung open. While David didn''t rip the door off its hinges it recoiled and slammed back into David as he was trying to get the driver out. He grunted in pain, but he had been through worse in his life.


    Another woman was in the driver''s seat. She had more blood around her and there was even a big splash of it on her steering wheel. '' Probably hit her head severely. Conclusion and other factors to consider.'' these thoughts barely registered in his mind.


    David unbuckled her while pushing her upper body back into the seat. While some might have battled with the dilemma of leaving the woman in her seat, to not further aggravate the wound, David''s focus was solely on the power lines that kept whipping across the ground close by.


    As gently as he could, David slid his arms beneath the woman''s neck and her legs and lifted her out of her seat. It seemed effortless to David but he chalked it up to the adrenaline of being in a dangerous situation.


    He carried her across the street and gently placed her on the ground.


    " I feel like I''m going to throw up any second now," David said almost wordlessly under his breath. He sat down himself and pain assaulted him all across his body. A deeply ingrained pain as if he had been a chronic pain patient for his entire life. Not to mention his head that kept pulsing as someone was driving in a hot screwdriver every 2 seconds.


    " My son!" The woman beside him awoke while yelling. David''s head whipped around to her, then focused back on the yellow car. The power lines had gotten closer and closer to the car throughout a mere couple of breaths, and the interval of sparks had intensified. David''s body contracted upon hearing this, and his fight-or-flight response was triggered.


    Even though David was weary and felt as if his body was on fire and ice cold at the same time, he roused himself. With another short sprint, he got to the car. The back side of the car was luckily undamaged, so David easily opened the door.


    " Kids on the other side," David muttered. He gave the power lines another suspicious look and climbed into the car. There he was, a little boy barely more than 2 years old in his rear-facing car seat. Looking at the child''s chest the rhythmic motion of life brought a genuine smile to Davids face. Swiftly, as if David had practiced, he unbuckled the child and cradled him against his chest.


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    While it was difficult to climb out of the car with the extra package on his chest, David could barely feel any weight. Quite the opposite, he felt as if a weight had lifted off his shoulders.


    Shortly, he studied the pattern of dancing power lines closely. As he saw an opportunity, David took off. But luck was not on his side. One of the powerlines snapped viciously due to its high electrical charge and changed directions mid-flight. As if it were preordained the new direction was David''s center of mass.


    It would arrive in less than a breath of time, as best as David could he turned around to shield the infant in his arms. All of his muscles constricted waiting for the impending strike he even held his breath. While this was illogical watching from an outsider''s perspective, what other options did David have? This was his body''s natural response to the impending threat.


    As if in slow motion David shut his eyes tight and shortly after he felt something striking his back. The force felt enormous to David, as it flung him a couple of feet into the middle of the street. He landed hard on the paved asphalt but luckily the infant hadn''t taken any of the impact.


    David was confused. Why was he not electrocuted he thought to himself as he glanced at the power lines. The copper wires had gone inert as if no power was running through them anymore. He sighed a heavy sigh of relief upon discovering this.


    David stood and jogged the short way to the mother.


    " Thank you, thank you, thank you," She howled in relief as David handed her the infant.


    David smiled a genuine smile as the woman cradled her infant son tightly and began rocking him back and forth. At first it was under his breath but soon even the woman and her infant were able to hear humming coming from close by.


    David had sat down and was humming. The woman recognized the lullaby every parent knew and shed tears while rocking her son back and forth as if he were the most precious treasure in the world.


    After a minute of David being zoned out and resting his battered and whipped body and thought hit his mind. The other woman in the red car had completely escaped his mind. Regardless of the ache of the newly acquired pain as well as the feeling of wrongness in his body he roused himself and began to jog towards the red car.


    More movement was visible from the car window now, so David lightly knocked on it.


    " Ma''am you''ve been in an accident. Please remain still you could have a concussion and internal injuries." David stated with a calm and professional tone.


    The woman in the red car had a cacophony of blond hair and wore an excess of make-up. David knew her and tried to recall her name, but between his headache and the pain all over his body, it took him a couple of seconds.


    " Nessa, it''s David. Stay there I''ll call EMS and get you some help alright?" David said with more a warm inflection. Nessa gave him a thumbs-up while resting herself against the headrest.


    David dug through his pocket until he caught the corner of his cell phone. He tapped the screen but it was all black and nothing happened. Almost furiously he tapped the screen multiple times before sighing.


    " My phone died, I''ll ask someone for theirs really quick," David said to Nessa, not wanting to frighten her with being alone. He walked back over the the mother and child duo.


    " Ma''am, do you have your phone on you by chance?" With a polite tone, David asked her. The woman nodded and handed him her phone quickly. Once again he tapped the screen but it too remained black.


    " What in the world," muttered David as he felt something was incredibly wrong. A claminess overtook his hands, as a cold shiver ran down his spine. His gut made him look just a short distance down the street towards some street lights. They were off too, not too surprising considering the power line was out. Next, his eyes went towards the big neon sign of his gym. Also off.


    " Wait right here, I''ll be back in a second." He managed to shout while already taking off to his car. David had a power bank in his car and he had charged it just last night.


    Quickly he opened the car doors, and he franticly began rummaging through the glove box where he usually kept the power bank.


    " Found ya," he exclaimed and pressed the side of the device while expectantly looking at the display. He expected to see the device light up as usual with a 100% charged line, but even this device remained dark.


    Now fear took over his body as his gut feeling intensified. David started to shiver. He fished the keys out of his pocket and slammed them into the ignition. With a deep breath, he turned the keys, but the only thing that greeted him was utter silence.


    His mind was racing at 100 miles per hour. So many possibilities blinked in and out of existence quickly within the confines of his brain. All the conspiracy theories, news reports, and even scientific data passed by his figurative mind''s eye. David slammed his fist into his steering wheel once with close to all the force he could muster. The leather and plastic deformed easily under this but he hadn''t noticed.


    David''s mind was still disturbed but he shoved it to the back of his mind. He gathered himself and ran back to Nessa''s car. In these cases usually a neck brace was important, among other tools that David was familiar with, but he had none.


    " Can I open the door, Nessa?" Another thumbs up is all that greeted him. David gently opened the door and grabbed her hand.


    " Everything will be okay, let me see that scrape on your forehead. Please let me know if anything hurts, alright?" All this was said as he gently examined her eyes first to deeply look at her pupils for deformities. Next both his hands touched her forehead with both hands. While his eyes scanned the blood there, his hands carefully rolled her head in a circular pattern. No significant signs of pain, he thought to himself and breathed out a sigh of relief.


    " Nessa, let''s get you over there to the nice lady with the kid, alright?" He said with the voice of someone who was adept at handling children.


    David slowly helped Nessa walk over to the duo still waiting in the grass. After Nessa had gotten comfortable, he sat down. His bodily aches came crashing down with vengeance as the adrenaline subsided. The tension his body felt from stress next left his body with a heavy sigh.


    Immediately the tension returned when his thoughts drifted back to the phone and car. He remembered an exercise his therapist had taught him long ago to handle excess amounts of stress. Clenching and unclenching his hands with a stress toy. While he had no such thing he mimicked the motions of it right in front of his face.


    " What in all...." he managed to breathe out as he discovered his whole hand had turned gray and his fingertips had elongated into claws. This drew Nessa''s and the other crash victim''s attention. They both screamed with utter horror in their voices.