SHE opened her eyes and gasped as though suddenly awakening from a deep slumber.
It was dark and quiet, a chilling quietness that seemed not of this world. She sat up slowly, and whispered through icy breath,
“Where am I?”

The sounds of a crash and screams flashed in her mind and stepping down from where she had been lying, not feeling her feet on the floor, she looked around the cold, quiet chamber.
“What am I doing here?”
Icy fingers of fear gripped her when she realised she was in a place not of the living and she screamed.
“No, this can’t be, my mother is waiting for her medication, I’ve got to get to the drug store!”
She ran out of the cold chamber and stopped, for she was in a strange place, not on the road in her village. It was the hospital grounds and people passing could not hear nor see her. The reality hit her like a blast of colder air and she cried in her mind,
“I died?”

She stood there feeling lost in that new world she was now in, not wanting to be there.
“I want to see my mother, please…let me go home.”
She closed her eyes, not sure who she was pleading to, but it seemed her plea was heard. She felt lifted by a sudden gust of wind, and when she opened her eyes, she was at her small village on the West Coast.
It was late in the night so no one was in the streets, except a couple of drunks singing melodies of yesteryear as they stumbled home.
She stood deep in the shadows, her head bent, her long black hair partially covering her face. Her shoulders shuddered as though she was crying, then slowly she raised her head and pushed back the hair from her face. Her coal-black eyes held a deep sadness as she looked at the small wooden house farther down the street.

A single light shone through the window and slowly she walked to her home, not a lively young girl, but an unseen being.
Princess, her pet terrier sensing her presence jumped up barking and wagging her take excitedly.
Sandhya kneeled down and hugged her, grief in her heart.
“So sorry girl, I can’t be here with you like before, something bad happened.”
The dog looked at her with her soft brown eyes, wagging her tail as though she understood.
Sandhya walked up the short stairs into the house with Princess at her heels. Her mother was lying on the worn sofa crying quietly, grief etched on her face.

“Why my little girl?” she cried weakly.
“I am here, Ma,” Sandhya said, sitting beside her and touching her face, “I’m sorry I didn’t get your tablets.”
“If only I hadn’t sent her to the store with her bicycle,” she lamented.
“How can I tell you to stop crying, ma? What comforting words are there to ease your pain?”
The young girl felt helpless, for the burden of grief was so heavy.

She went to her young sister and brother’s room and watched them as they tossed and turned, restless in their sleep. As their big sister, though young herself, her hands they had held for support since their father died five years ago.
Whose hands would they now hold, for the mother would be facing a sterner battle for survival.
Sandhya had vowed to herself whilst working with her mother in their garden and selling greens and fruits in the market, to elevate her family’s lives. She would study hard at school to gain the high success that would guarantee her a good-paying job.
But fate took it all away.

She rode her bike that fateful day to the drugstore, staying safely in the corner, when a reckless driver took the turn at breakneck speed, hitting her and dragging her with her bike a good way further.
A young life gone, her future plans torn and scattered on the road.
“What now?” she wondered.

The next morning as neighbours and families came to give her mother their sympathy, Sandhya listened to what they had to say about the accident that killed her. The driver she heard, was put on a small bail and not charged for death by dangerous driving.
“That kind of thing happens when money talks,” one man said.
“And no justice for the poor,” said another.
‘Too young to die’ was most of the sentiments expressed on her tragic death.

And putting it all together, she concluded that the reckless driver should be made to pay.
Life was priceless but the plans she had for her family he should fund because he had taken her away from them.
The thing is, how does she get him to pay and where to find him?