Chapter 1: Forgotten Sacrifice
The city buzzed with its usual chaos, honking cars, chattering pedestrians, and the distant hum of life, until a deafening screech tore through the air. Tires squealed against asphalt, followed by a sickening crunch as a truck veered wildly off the road.
The sound of a vehicle crashing through plowed through a sidewalk, scattering debris and screams in it’s wake and immidietly a crowd surged toward the wreckage, their voices overlapping in a frantic cacophony.
"What happened?!" A woman shrieked, clutching her purse as she stumbled closer.
"Oh my God, look at the truck, it’s totaled!" A man shouted, pointing at the mangled vehicle now embedded into a storefront.
"There might be people hurt! Someone call an ambulance!" Another voice cried, trembling with panic.
Amid the chaos, whispers began to piece together the tragedy.
"The driver, he was swerving all over the place." A man in a delivery uniform said, his hands gesturing wildly as he recounted the scene. "I saw him coming down the street, and then turning like he didn’t even know where he was. He then just lost control and just...barreled right through. Smashed into everything, sidewalk, signs, all of it."
A woman, her hair frazzled from running over, clutched her phone to her chest and interrupted, her voice sharp with worry. "Wait, wait, hold on a second. Was anyone in its path? I mean, this is downtown, there’s always people walking around here...Is everyone safe? Please tell me no one got hurt."
The delivery guy turned to her, his face paling as he shook his head slowly. "No, it’s not that simple. I was right there, unloading boxes, and I saw it all go down. There were three people on that sidewalk, right in the line of fire."
"A high school kid and a girl about his age, maybe his friend or something. She had her earbuds in, didn’t even see it coming. And then there was this little girl, couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, skipping along with a ribbon bouncing in her hair."
"They were just...There. Right where that truck was headed. No time to run, no warning, nothing."
The woman’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide. "Oh my God, no...don’t tell me—"