When I opened my eyes, everything was a blur. The radio continued to blare music from my mix CD, but the car was no longer moving.
As more of my senses recovered from the shock, I realized I was hanging upside down and my hands were submerged in water above (below?) my head. The water was rushing in through the broken passenger window and my panic rose with the water level.
I had to get out of here.
Why couldn’t I see?
I struggled for several long seconds with my seatbelt, and then I was on my hands and knees on the roof of my car. The water came up to my elbows and was still coming, but I didn’t think it would get much higher now that I was more aware of my surroundings.
My car had flipped into the ditch, where there was several inches of rain water. My glasses must have fallen off my face with the impact. I splashed around, found my glasses and my cell phone. The latter was probably useless after being under the water for so long, but it gave me a modicum of peace to have found it. And then I crawled out the broken window and felt the cold night air sting my face.
Once I was free from the wreckage and no longer worried about possible drowning, I took stock of my body.
My leg ached and each step sent pains up and down it and there was blood, but I felt certain the cuts were from climbing out the broken window.
I pulled myself up the steep incline of the ditch to the road and hoped someone would stop to help me. My phone was still on, but calls weren’t going through.
The road I’d been driving down only moments before was dark and completely devoid of other vehicles this late at night. My only option was to hobble down the street to the nearest house and ask for help. But even the thought of it filled me with dread and paralyzing fear.
And so I sat on the side of the road, my clothes wet and sticking to me, the cold and shock sending the shakes through me. And I hoped for the best. All the while, my mix CD blasted music into the night.