"This isn't real..."

"This isn't real..."

"This isn..."

While staring at his phone, a young man in his early twenties with light skin and curly black hair could be heard repeating these words.

Yesterday night, he had read some news online which caused him to lose sleep.

This morning, he opened his phone to re-examine the contents.

========================================

Bradley Dawson, 33, from Coventry and Sarah Davies, 20, from Manchester were driving on the A612, Evelyn St on Sunday, August 27, when they were involved in a collision.

Dawson's Volkswagen Transporter collided with Davies' red Ford Fiesta at noon.

Following the crash, Nottinghamshire Police confirmed that the second-year Sociology student was taken to Queen's Medical Centre with potentially serious injuries.

Dawson sustained minor injuries, thus did not need to be hospitalised.

The cause of the crash being Dawson unable to apply the brakes due to a water bottle becoming lodged beneath the pedal.

CCTV footage captured Davies texting near the time of impact, which may have contributed to her failure to notice the van earlier.

The A612 Southwell Road was closed while emergency services dealt with the incident.

Davies' family have requested their privacy during this difficult time.

========================================

"F*ck, f*ck, f*ck."

Max couldn't help but gulp as he looked in the direction of the USB drive.

"It's a coincidence.. it has to be..."

'Would anyone think I was involved in this?'

'Sh*t would they be able to trace this back to me?'

'But I didn't cause her car to crash...'

'It wasn't a tennis ball that caused her car to crash... it was because she was texting while driving...'

'Yeah... it's just a coincidence... I'm not a murderer...'

After several minutes of pacing back and forth in his room, he read the online article once again.

He came to one conclusion after collecting his thoughts.

"Damage control."

'Even though none of this is my fault, I can't be seen having any animosity towards her.'

'Who knows who the hell is reading my browser history?'

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

'I need to clear any suspicion that has been cast on me just in case...'

Max plugged in the USB drive and opened the mysterious browser, pressing CTRL + H to access the browser history.

However, nothing happened and in front of him remained the same old search engine.

'F*ck forgot that keyboard shortcuts don't work.'

'No... calm down, maybe it's just a different shortcut key.'

After several minutes of experimenting with different keyboard shortcuts, attempting to open and clear the browsing history, he still couldn't find any working combination.

"F*ck it."

'At least no one will be able to see what I searched for.'

Max thought as he remembered his spontaneous searches.

'How to kill her? How to cripple her? Seriously, what the f*ck was I thinking.'

He shuddered at the thought of his newly revealed edgelord tendencies.

Max put on his best clothes getting ready to head out.

His destination, Queen's Medical Centre.

It wasn't very far, only 15 minutes by public transportation from his university.

But he wanted to make a good impression because he expected Sarah's parents to be there.

Even though they weren't on speaking terms, he was still close with her parents.

He wore a black v-neck cardigan over a white shirt that was rolled up to his elbow and grey jeans with fake Air Jordan I's that were difficult to notice unless looked at closely.

But there was one thing that was bothering him as he was about to leave.

Staring in the direction of his desk, he picked up a small transparent stick.

Making his way to the dumpster posted outside of his dorm, Max threw the USB Flash drive in.

"Out of sight, out of mind."

'No one should be able to trace this back to me now right?'

'F*ck should I have cleaned my fingerprints?'

'Forget it, visiting time should be over soon, can't waste more time.'

Before boarding the bus to the hospital, he stopped at a local florist to purchase an orchid bouquet.

***

"Hi, uhm, I'm here to visit a patient."

Max said to the receptionist lady while fidgeting with the bouquet of orchids in his hands.

"Patient's name?"

"Sarah Davies, uhm, she's 20, has short brown hair and was in a car accident."

'You idiot, her name was enough.'

He thought upon realising he was oversharing.

"And are you a friend or relative?"

She asked, not looking up from the stack of documents in front of her.

"...I'm ... a friend."

Max mumbled upon remembering he and Sarah were now practically strangers to each other.

"Please sign here."

Max was initially hesitant but eventually agreed to sign.

"She was admitted to ICU, Ward E12. The floor is located on the west block. To use this service, you must use a lift or scale stairs."

"Ah, thank you very much."

Max eventually found the building after some searching.

As he reached the twelfth floor, he held his steps after seeing two familiar faces.

They were none other than Sarah's parents.

He was about to approach them, clutching the bouquet of orchids even tighter, when he noticed a fairly handsome man appear next to them.

'Motherf*cker!'

Max clenched his jaw when he realised who the man next to them was; Sarah's current boyfriend.

He stood around 6 feet tall, with combed slick back black hair and no blemishes on his pale skin.

Max could tell he was getting along with Sarah's parents because he could hear him reassuring them that everything would be fine and even hugging Sarah's mother.

'You f*ckers are already chummy with each other?!'

Max became visibly upset when he realised Sarah's parents had probably already met him after she had broken up with him.

'I thought our families were close... they didn't even call to check on how I was doing... f*ck man.'

Soon after, a doctor approached them and led them into a room.

Max quickly followed them and came to a halt before opening the door.

What would they think if they saw him?

How would they react if they saw him?

Were they even interested in seeing him?

These thoughts whirled around in his head.

He felt a myriad of emotions including shock, grief, and humiliation.

But, above all, he felt betrayed.

It's one thing to lose someone you care about. It's another thing entirely to lose a family.

That's what they were to him; a second family.

But, it appears that this family no longer cared about him now that they were no longer together.

Max clenched the bouquet of orchids in his hands.

They had already moved on, so why shouldn't he?

The audible voices from inside the room seemed to become clearer just as he decided to leave.

However, what he had just heard almost caused his eyes to pop out of their sockets.

"...I'm sorry to inform you that your daughter will never be able to walk again."