I can’t take this. I turn away from the accident but I still hear her.

“Why, Daniel? Why did you let this happen to us?”

The door to my bedroom is sitting there, just off the road. The fog parts, clearing a path for me.

“It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault.”

Her voice follows like she’s walking right behind me.

The doorknob feels like ice in my hand as I twist it open. I step into my bedroom and close the door behind me.

The black fog blankets the floor.

I can still hear Nicole’s voice, as if she’s standing just on the other side of the door.

“It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault.”

I crawl back into bed.

Her voice trails away to nothing.

I lie there in the silence of the room.

Suddenly, the fog comes crashing into me. It races from every part of the room and every corner of the house. It enters my body through the pores of my skin, turning my blood into an icy, black sludge. I feel nauseous, like I’m rotting from the inside and I’ll never be clean again.

Nicole’s face appears right in front of me; not the mangled image I’ve just seen in the car, but the concerned, fearful Nicole I saw through the window of the kitchen earlier today.

“Daniel, wake up!”

*

My eyes fly open.

I sit up in my bed.

There’s no fog or the voice of Nicole, accusing me through the door. It’s just a room but the tears on my cheeks and the thudding of my heart are very real.

I swing my feet off the side of the bed.

I’ve never experienced anything like that. Yes, somewhere deep inside, I’ve always felt like it was my fault. I should have seen the truck. I should have made sure. I’ve gone over all the things I could have done differently, but to see that, to hear Nicole …

I’m not going back to sleep. No way. Not after that. I need out of this room. I need some television; something to erase what I’ve just seen.

I get up and go to the door.

I grab the knob but stop, fearful of what might be on the other side.

I twist the knob and pull the door open.

There’s no intersection. No wreckage. No fog. No Nicole. Just an empty hallway.

I quickly go back to the bed and grab my pillow.

For the second time tonight, I go back down the stairs to the living room.