Memory Lane Up In The Headlights Novels & Stories

The car is silent. Marcus’s laptop still glows between us, the frozen image of my father’s car staring back like an accusation. Rain. Headlights. The impossible moment before impact. Marcus exhales slowly. “Well. That’s… deeply disturbing.” But I’m not listening anymore. Because something feels wrong. Not emotionally wrong. Technically wrong. A faint pressure builds behind my temples—the way it does when a memory tries to surface but can’t quite break through. I stare at the timestamp on the screen. 02:17 AM.

Matthew drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, mind already half on work, half on the lingering warmth of the morning. His phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then frowned. Another buzz. He reached for it, eyes flicking down for just a second— The sound came out of nowhere. Metal and glass. The world lurched. And then— Nothing but the scream of brakes as Matthew Taylor’s car collided head-on with another.

A pair of headlights appeared suddenly in my lane. “Shit!” I swerved hard to the right, tires screaming in protest as an oncoming truck barreled past me, missing my door by inches. The truck driver laid on his horn, a long angry blast that echoed down the road. I didn’t even flinch. My heart was pounding, but not from the near miss. My thoughts were already somewhere else, dragged back to her face, her voice, the way she’d looked the last time I’d stopped her from doing something reckless.

He didn't want to go blind from staring at the light that seem too bright to behold. Mr Gordon felt a wave of breeze push him on the back, he falls flat on his face before passing out on the cold floor. * Melanie pulls the car to a halt in front of a house that seems a little similar to the mansion from the outside, the gate slowly opens on its own and she drives in, glancing at Archie who seems a little shocked at what she has no idea what it was.

she finally looked up at me chuckling while introducing herself “Hi” I forced a smile Two SUVs pulled ahead of us, and another lingered behind, forming a convoy. The engines roared to life in unison, and we rolled forward into the night. I pressed my back into the leather seat, but no amount of softness could ease the tension in my body. My fingers trembled in my lap. My mind raced in circles. A head. A human head. On a platter. Right in front of us. I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe if I didn’t see it anymore, it would stop replaying. But it didn’t. It was still there, flashing behind my eyelids.

I drove, knuckles white on the wheel, my mind already trying to piece the rest together, but as we turned onto the highway, we had to slow. Lights. Smoke. A crumpled shape just off the road, hazard lights flickering weakly. “Looks bad,” Frederick said grimly. My gaze swept over the wreck and the two cars involved as we passed by. Something clawed at my gut as I recognized the car, the color of the bumper, and the missing headlight. “No…” I whispered, slamming on the brakes. “What—?” “That’s Mila’s car.” I threw the SUV into park, barely waiting for it to stop before I jumped out. Frederick shouted after me, but his voice was just a dull echo behind the blood roaring in my ears.

I remember dying. Not in the vague, dreamlike way people claim when they “almost” do—no hazy lights, no muffled voices calling me back. I remember it with a clarity so sharp it still slices through my thoughts like a blade. I remember the warmth leaving my fingertips first, like the tide receding from a shore. I remember the metallic scent of my own blood flooding the air, clinging to my tongue with every shallow breath. And I remember—most of all—the eyes of the person who killed me.

I needed to find them! My head was whipping left and right as I ran, watching each new memory playing in the darkness. I saw my first meeting with Lena, then meeting Chuck at a bar and Lena gushing over him. I relived my university years in the blink of an eye, then Lena and Chuck’s departure. I relived my first meeting with Dominic and then Kat… Flashes of the car accident burst through my mind, and I remembered the rental car tumbling down a hill and crashing against the trees at the bottom.

She hands me the groceries, and I concentrate on fitting them all into the small boot space, like a puzzle — because Lamborghini clearly believes luggage space is for peasants. That’s when a black van glides into the empty lot and pulls up beside us, its tinted windows swallowing the lamplight. Late-night snack run? I think. Or maybe someone else’s pregnant wife is demanding pickles at midnight. “Did you buy the whole darn shop?” Mel asks, wistfully clucking her tongue like a disapproving aunt. “SHIT!” she suddenly yells. The word slams into me like a gunshot, and I whip up so fast I bump the back of my head on the open bonnet. Stars explode behind my eyelids, and I clap a hand to the throbb

But I just could not help it any longer, being face to face with a wolf had everything flooding into my brain, and I wanted to scream my lungs out. Blood. It was blood that I saw. My parents' blood, spilled on the wooden floor around their heads. I saw their lifeless eyes and still bodies, and wounded faces. I saw my eleven year old self crying and screaming for them to wake up and look at me again, to call me their baby again. But that did not happen, it never happened. And I saw the people that had done that to them, their smug faces and crooked smirks, their hands stained with the blood of my parents, and the set of tattoos on one of their forearms.