Is This What It's Like To Die?

I remember lying there, motionless, in a crumbled ball on the ceiling of the car. It was dark all around me. I could hear someone screaming my name and crying. I wanted to yell out to them, but there was no sound coming from my mouth. I was trying to breathe. Trying to get air in my lungs to yell but–nothing. I felt like I was suffocating. Every breath seemed like my last. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I breathe? I laid there for what seemed like eternity hoping that this was just a dream. I laid there thinking to myself that if I close my eyes and open them back up again, everything would be fine. Dear God, please let this be just a bad dream.

I opened my eyes, and nothing was different. I tried to keep myself calm so that I could keep breathing, but my mind was racing. Racing to put together what happen. I remember seeing headlights and my friend cutting the wheel as hard as she could to avoid hitting the lights that were coming at us. It all happened so quickly. The flipping. The impact into the ditch. And then everything stopped. Why couldn’t I move anything? 

Is this what it's like to die? I’m only eighteen years old. I’m not supposed to die yet. Life was not supposed to happen like this. This was not supposed to happen to me. I was simply going on a car ride with my friend, and then I would go home like all the other car rides before. But this one was different. I was not going home. Not for a very long time.