I distractedly follow Scott away from the cop car containing Mike's deceased body.

Perhaps I despised Mike, a feeling that was preceded by my disgust for everything he stood for. What I know for certain, though, is that recognizing a cadaver is the opposite of light-hearted.

/At least, when they're already dead, you don't get any false hope./

My colleague's thought is not cynical, it is rather an emotion resembling relief that I hear beneath it.

His point of view troubles me, but there is not time to pause and discuss our values in a long philosophical conversation. In a high school debate, our question would be "Is there such a thing as false hope?". Two of my close friends were members of our high school's debate club, and I attended many of their sessions. I loved the principle of it, even if I would not have dared to join. My frequently unmanageable fear of public speaking was the reason I gave to those who asked for one. My real reticence came from my fear of inadvertently revealing my beliefs to people. I knew I was developing many opinions that contradicted my friends' views and our families' judgments. I did not want my disagreements or my identity to be exposed through hearsay, I wanted to explain it on my own terms to the people I cared about.

What I believed to be an improbable coincidence, being acquainted with deceased victims of the abnormal road incident, keeps occurring. With growing unease, I find more and more people I have met in the giant, flooded wreck of shattered vehicles.

All of them dead.

An unsettling proportion of them are people I have briefly engaged with as Esperanza, which does not steady my nerves in any manner.

Dragging my boots through bloody puddles of rain, lifting fragments of cars, prying open automobile doors and cutting through seat belts... My flashlight hovers upon their lifeless faces and the memories strike me in the stomach like knives.

A woman I distracted at a pawn shop. A mobster who kicked me in the shin. Gangsters, crime lords and petty criminals alike, individuals Foul Play and I stole from, tricked, knocked out... Now, misfortune or a twisted destiny, maybe God's impenetrable ways in a divine plan, or more obviously death itself has robbed them of a chance at redemption.

There are also insignificant beings, who I remember vaguely, but their existence getting cut short is equally unfair.

A cashier from a terrible gelato shop. An employee at the grocery store who did not know where the tortilla chips I was looking for were, but accompanied me through four alleys to find them. A waiter who dropped my glass of water. A substitute mailman that I have encountered at my apartment building.

Scanning the web of thoughts around me, shoving away the eery feeling of knowing a proportion of the people who perished and directing the focus I have left on stitching up a young boy's lower leg, I barely register that someone is knocking on the back doors of our ambulance, that I left ajar. Scott knocks again, nervously calling my name over the commotion as he opens the right door.

"Tanza! You've got to see this."

Once I am done with the patient, I hurry behind him. He leads me three minutes of fast walking away from our transport, nearly at the opposite end of the accident's site.

The ginger indicates a currently crushed luxurious car with his left hand.

"You recognize that car?"

It is a pretty standard expensive vehicle, painted in once shinning white, now covered in dark scratches... We keep advancing, and I catch a glimpse of the plate. I immediately connect the dots.

"You don't think..?"

I give up on completing my question.

I stop and stand behind Scott, glancing through the tinted windows of the car, half of them have been shattered. There is a limp silhouette inside.

The paramedic jerks the door open, and the owner of the automobile slips off the seat, his upper body tilting, curving and, finally, dangling above the wet concrete. Aghast, we stare in afflicted wonder at Dr. Russell.

Rain is dripping down his chin and falling up his nose. His bruised skull is hanging only a few inches over the asphalt. The doctor has ceased living prematurely.

I cannot contrive to detach my eyes from his sagging upside-down face, it is as though his scornful half-grin still pinches his lips together.

My heart is beating sluggishly, and Scott's voice is warped into an echo that is reaching me from miles away.

"Scott Wallace, here. I thought I should report that we found Doctor Russell's body, he's died. Over."

Every drop of rain seems to explode against his bloated skin in slow motion, hitting him, the road, his car... Each miniature collision reverberates like a gunshot.

There are shards of glass sprinkled on his clothes and forehead, but none of his cranium incisions are bleeding. I step nearer to the corpse, aiming my flashlight inside his vehicle at his legs and his car seat. The rainfall, in its unsteady abundance, has entered the automobile, however there does not appear to be any bodily fluids that seeped through his pants. That's... Unlikely. It doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, the heavy rain and the inevitable rebellion of the sewers is preventing me from detecting any smells. If he died recently, the body could still be holding his waste... But then the broken glass wounds would be bleeding. I guess if he went to the bathroom before driving off, there is a probable chance that his intestines have not released anything yet.

I glance down one last time into his glossy eyes, devoid of contempt for once and of anything else for eternity.

I wipe rain off my shoulders, exhaling. Listening once more to the procession of mind chatter around me, I follow my coworker back to the ambulance.

We are helping an elderly woman climb out safely from the back of a city bus when I sense him, finally. My heart leaps with relief at the sound of Colin's voice.

/Using the walkie-talkies to ask for their position would be unprofessional and kinda foolhardy. Tanza and Scott are probably busy helping a patient, I should get to work and we'll find each other... /

More than an hour later, Dorothy Chapman releases her forces from the scene. According to the information I pieced together from the minds of officers and to the clues I interpreted by listening to the hospital's communication channel, the power rupture was caused by a metropolitan train that derailed and compromised vital electric lines. Colin's psyche corroborated this hypothesis, since members of Squad 76 were sent over to the train accident's location to tend to the injured passengers.

Scott carried the last patients in our ambulance to the hospital, and I am waiting for him to come back to pick me up. I am drenched in rainwater regardless of my company issued water-resistant uniform and shivering even with the layers of shirts and sweaters I have on. Luckily, I am standing under my umbrella, which I am allowed to hold because I am not caring for a patient right now.

There are still other types of service employees that are clearing the area, but anyone needing urgent medical attention has been transported to an appropriate facility.

My boots are soaked and set in a puddle of water, considering that literally every inch of the intersection is a puddle or a tiny pond. The leftover smoke from the crash and the fog are clustered in whatever air remains between the incessant rain particles.

Through the wet smog, a taller shadow appears, heading in my direction at a determined pace.

"Tanza! You look like you're about to freeze to death..!" My boyfriend's tone is worried to an extent that sparks guilt in my chest.

"Sorry, I should've dressed warmer..."

Colin enters the cover of my wide umbrella, pushing the hood of his raincoat back. He emits a disbelieving, concerned laugh.

"What are you apologizing for..?" he softly asks me, grinning.

The paramedic embraces me without warning, and I promptly hug him back, appreciating the heat of his body. His body warmth transcends the cold humid material of his jacket. I let the right side of my face rest against his neck, feeling his pulse in my skull and not minding the moisture of his skin on my equally wet cheek. I am grateful that he is here, that he is with me. And alive, too.

~

Cheryl gracefully hops onto the far edge of my bed.

"Ready, Peanut?"

She is wearing dark high-rise jeans and a red silk blouse, unbuttoned to exhibit a black lace-up crop top.

I readjust my seated position against the pillow, already letting the stimuli from my bedroom dissipate into the confines of my consciousness.

"Ready if you are..."

/Get us started, then. Your mind, this time./

My friend and I have been frequently rehearsing mind invasions by immersing ourselves fully into psychic realities, but we have not visited each other's minds in complete sensorial presence yet.

I rapidly tie our perceptions together, yet for the first time, I pull them inside my psyche's borders. With the familiar popping sound, I know I am inside my mind. I am wary to open my eyes, though, no matter how idiotic I might seem.

In common psychic planes, whoever was responsible for the inception of the world had an impact on its appearance and elements. In here, whatever is present is straight out of my raw inner dialogue and memories. I am about to witness how the fabric of my mind instinctively created itself into a tangible reality...

I do not know what to expect. So, technically speaking, I could just assume that my brain has not produced something traumatic, embarrassing or atrocious.

/Need me to count to three, Tanza?/

"Please," I half-groan, noticing that my voice echoes ever so slightly.

/One./

I drag my left foot back and forth, it slides easily, as though I am standing on a tile floor.

/Two./

I inhale, picking up the scent of... Antiseptics?

/Three./

I let my eyes open, chuckling.

"A hospital, of course," I mutter.