Burning.
That's what I could smell, burning. Something was burning, the heat was searing against my skin. I opened my mouth like a goldfish, trying to breath in air, but I only choked on the smoke. It poisoned my lungs like an inhaled drug.
I willed my eyes to open. All around me was fire. It’s crackles echoed through my body as my brain registered what was going on. When I realized that the car was upside down, I wanted to scream out, but the smoke infiltrated my lungs, burning up my insides. My breaths were short and rapid as the oxygen depleted. I tried moving my arms, but only one seemed to work. Feeling around for anything - the window, the door handle, the seat belt. Something.
My body was alight with pain, it was all I could feel. The fire was so bright it stung my eyes, tears falling down my cheeks.
The window was cracking from the heat, and I pushed my elbow into it, the glass shattering around me into a million pieces. I closed my eyes, trying to slow down my breathing, trying to get rid of the pain. I grabbed onto the side of the car and with one big push heaved myself out.
I fell back onto the hard ground, feeling the shattered glass underneath me. Looking up, I saw we had left the main road, now in an embankment. The tire marks of the car were etched into the ground, clearly visible despite the dark night sky. There was no light from the sky, the pine trees too close to each other to let in any light.
My senses were on full alert. I smelled fire and blood - my blood. The flames grew higher and higher within the twisted and fragmented parts of the now ruined car. I looked like a wreck myself. My blue shirt was ripped from the glass and stained with dirt, just like my jeans. My shoes had fallen off when I had pulled myself out of the car, and I could feel the roughness of the soil on the soles of my feet. I could feel the clean break in my leg, the pain shooting through my entire body like the rapids of an overflowing river. I put a hand to my head, running my fingers through my blonde hair. There was blood running down both sides of my face, mingling with the tears.
It was then I realized that Ben was still in the car.

.