My car spun into the abyss of Blackwood Creek, and I was a ghost before I was even dead—until my dog decided he wasn’t done with me yet.
The silence of a rural road at 2:00 AM is a heavy, suffocating thing. It’s the kind of silence that swallows screams and hides secrets in the tall grass.
I remember the black ice. I remember the steering wheel becoming a useless circle in my hands. And then, the world went upside down.
When the car finally stopped rolling at the bottom of the ravine, I was pinned against the door, the smell of gasoline and copper filling the cramped space. My vision was a blurring smear of grey and red. I tried to reach for my phone, but it had been launched through the shattered windshield when we hit the first oak tree.
I closed my eyes, convinced that the next time I opened them, I’d be looking at my mother in the afterlife.
But Cooper didn’t believe in giving up.
Cooper is an Australian Shepherd I rescued from a shelter after he was labeled “uncontrollable.” They said he had too much drive. They said he was too smart for his own good.
Last night, that “uncontrollable” drive was the only thing that kept me on this side of the dirt. He didn’t just survive the crash; he became a soldier. He found a needle in a haystack—my phone—and he stared down the only person who could save me.
