Chapter 3: Trauma

It has happened again.

Standing over the girl's brutally mangled body which he had hit, he couldn't help but think those words over and over again. The man who was hanging over her and was knelt beside her had just called out for everyone to clear out but he couldn't just leave, not like he did last time. He had to make sure, he has to be sure that he didn't do it again, that he didn't hit another child.

The van driver stared down, his eyes darting between both the detective and the girl. he could feel as life began to drain from both his face and the long lifeless face of the young girl before him. Hank had hit a child before on his travels in his van, but he didn't want to look. It was six months ago, yet it felt like yesterday as his started to well and slide down his the stubble on his chin.

It was about 11:00 in the night. Hank was transporting building materials to the new construction site he was working at and this was his last transport before he can go home to his wife who he hasn't been able to properly see for the last week. They both worked night jobs, but Hank had managed to finish his work early, delivering the materials to the site and hurriedly going home.

It was out in the countryside, so Hank was driving faster than he should be, especially around corners. That was when, driving around the sharp turn on a hillside, he crashed into someone. A boy, no older than nine, as he learned later in the newspaper, was laying dead a few feet from the hood of his van. The boy's bike was trashed, the handlebars snapped off, the rim itself bent and the wheels scattered opposite of each other in the road. The boy, was lying there, motionless, empty and bloody as the headlights made clear as it reflected off of the boy's arm. Hank wasn't sure whether or not the boy was alive or just unconscious, he didn't want to know. The world felt darker at the moment around Hank as he felt himself pause for a moment, his brain struggling to figure out what to do next.

And it did.

Hank pushed his foot calmly on the accelerator and drove around the fallen child's body and continued on his journey home.

Hank had no clue why he did this, why he just ignored what he caused, why he was so calm when leaving, why he didn't call the police, why he refused to accept responsibility as an adult. The child could've been alive for all he knew, but now, the days after, reading the headline in the newspaper.

"Boy, nine, killed in a Hit and Run, Suspect Still Unknown"

He was dead the second he hit him. He and he alone killed a child and drove off like it was roadkill. Now it has happened again, he has hit another child, but this time there is cover of night, no driving away both because he wants to and because he has too. But why? This wasn't like that night. it was her fault, she was the one who walked out, she was the reason he hit her, she was the one who has made him feel guilty.

"Are you okay, sir?"

The voice, calm and cold snapped Hank back like a dip in the midnight sea and brought him back from his confusion and accusations to the detective now looking at him, stood up, taller than Hank who was 6'5 while the detective before him was appeared to be at least 7 feet tall. The way the detective looked at Hank from above, made him feel panicked. Does he know? Did I let slip that this has happened before?

"Can you please tell me what happened?"

As the detective said those words, Hank has just realised the arrival of an ambulance and a police car. The sirens began to come back as reality began to come back to him and clear the fog in his mind about the death.

"Um, yes sir detective"

Hank spoke calmly yet there was that subtle hint of clumsiness int he way he spoke, which made sense for he had just seen a body for the first time, or so the detective thinks.

"Good, then would you follow me this way"

The detective guided him towards the police vehicles and sat him down and asked Hank to begin his explanation as he wrote it down.

"I was just delivering the last set of materials before my shift ended and then all of the sudden the girl just wandered onto the street. No warning! I couldn't stop, I swear it-"

The detective interrupted him.

"Yes I know. Do you know the girl by chance?"

"No not at all."

"What about the uniform she is wearing?"

"Its from the local school nearby, prestigious I think. Peri something high school"

Hank couldn't recollect what the exact name of the school was, only that it had some confusing name which sounded like it was Latin like most of the high end schools around here.

"Right then"

The detective put the information into his notes and set it in his pocket before carrying on and giving his side of the story to the officers who just arrived.

Hank looked back, the body now gone as it was taken away by the paramedics in hopes that they can maybe revive her but it was obviously too late. The mark the girl's body left can be seen. A snow angel of blood and small bits of grounded off flesh where the face had landed and scraped across down the road from his van. The vehicle itself was white with the company logo on the hood but now it was stained with a small drop of blood from the initial impact.

"What am I going to do?"

Hank said sombrely to himself, contemplating whether or not this could tie him back to the boy.

"You can go now, but please don't leave town we may need your account later"

The detective said to Hank from behind. Hank then left, finishing his work and arriving home, the questions of what will happen next still ringing through his mind.