He saw his body crumple into the windshield and Chloe's body jerking forward as he felt himself fall backward. Wait a second, what? He looked around, stunned. Obviously he had just watched himself die in a car crash. Yet clearly he was standing outside the car on the road. He was dead, but he didn't feel it. Was this then Heaven? Asphodel? Or maybe the entrance to Hell?

"No, this is Earth, you idiot," someone said. Ethan turned to find himself face to face with a familiar face. Freckled, high-boned, and with stunning blue eyes, he suddenly realised he was seeing his sister as she would look grown up.

"C-C-Chloe?" he stuttered. She shrugged nonchalantly.

"A form you are familiar with," she said.

"Well, whoever you are, you're giving me the creeps," he shuddered.

"I never said you would be comfortable with this face." Chloe shrugged again and waved her hand at his surroundings. "Or with me pulling you to a different dimension. My dimension, to be exact."

Ethan was taken back by this statement. "Different dimension? What are you, God?"

The Chloe lookalike laughed surprisingly pleasantly. "No, no. I'm not God. I have been Krishna, Uranus, Odin. Stupid humans actually worshipped me once. No, I'm what some would call Eternity. The Universe, if you must." She ran a hand through her hair.

What would the universe want with me? he thought.

"Glad you asked," Eternity replied. "Normally, the Boss doesn't allow me to do this, but today He was feeling extra certain about you. The two people in your car. Your sister and your girlfriend." When she noticed the surprise on his face, she added, "I'm the sum of all human knowledge and experience. Including your knowledge. However, it doesn't take the living embodiment of the universe to tell you were careless and crashed the car."

Suddenly Ethan felt a tug and his body (soul? spirit?) moved forward on its own. Eternity dragged him to the side of the demolished car and passed through the door. A moment later, her head popped back through and she hissed out, "Come on!"

The car was crumpled like a discarded drawing, it's insides twisted into gruesome planes and angles. Ethan's breath caught when he glimpsed a disjointed leg poking from under the seat. He passed through to find its owner. In the backseat lay the bent body of Lucille. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth was twisted into a silent shout. Her arm was behind her head, probably pulled from its socket.
Lucille, how I loved you. And I was going to marry you, and have children, and we would grow old and tell so many crazy stories to them. You can't be--

"She is. Be thankful it was quick," Eternity scolded. Ethan was about to snap back when he heard a soft moan.

Next to the dead body was another trapped figure. Her head twitched and Ethan startlingly saw that Chloe was still alive. Her face and arms had been peppered by glass and bore lacerations. She twisted her torso around to look back at her legs and winced.

"Her legs are both broken across the tibia. Her spinal cord is literally millimeters from being severed by her vertebrae. In ninety-five percent of possibilities, Chloe will be paralysed from at least the waist down. In half of those cases, she will be fully paralysed. Alternatively, she will die in about seventy-five percent, and the possibility is very high that she will die in a few minutes. If she's lucky, she'll live and recover," explained Eternity.

Chloe crawled herself to the door. She pulled on the handle, but the door was locked. She pounded her fists on the window and screamed. Ethan covered his eyes as she wailed. It was too painful.