The rain pounded against the windshield like thrown gravel, but the deafening roar of the storm was nothing compared to the sudden, rushing silence inside Bam’s head. Her car hadn't even fully come to a stop before she threw the door open, stepping straight into the knee-deep cascade of water on the asphalt. She didn't feel the freezing rain soaking through her crisp black suit, nor did she care about the sharp, shooting pains flaring through her freshly bandaged palms as she slammed the driver's door shut. "Oom!" Bam called out, her usually calm, authoritative voice cracking against the thunder overhead. She pushed past onlookers holding umbrellas and hurried toward the perimeter of blue police tape fluttering wildly in the wind. A police officer immediately stepped into her path, hand raised to hold her back. "Ma'am, stay back! It's a active rescue scene" "That's my." Bam froze for a fraction of a second, the word choking in her throat before she forced it out with desperate authority. "I know the driver of that car! Please, where is she? Where is the person from that white sedan?" The officer looked at Bam's drenched, trembling figure, noting the intense, terrifying panic in her dark eyes. "The driver was freed from the driver's side just minutes ago, ma'am. They're loading her into..." Bam didn't wait for permission. She ducked under the tape, her long stride eating up the distance toward the flashing red lights of the lead ambulance. The smell of crushed metal, spilled oil, and rain filled the heavy air. As Bam reached the open rear doors of the emergency vehicle, she pulled them wider and called out in breathless desperation. "Oom!" Inside, two paramedics were securing a stretcher. Laying on it, pale and unconscious under a rain shroud, was another young woman, a stranger with blood on her clothes, her features entirely different from Oom's. Bam's heart leaped into her throat, a sharp mix of confusion and mounting dread seizing her chest. She grabbed the edge of the ambulance door, her bandaged hands trembling violently. "Where is the driver of the white sedan? Where is she?" The paramedic looked up, startled by the sheer desperation in Bam's drenched, pale face. "Ma'am, this victim was in the other vehicle involved! The driver of the white sedan was rushed to the hospital..." Bam didn't wait for the paramedic to finish. Hearing those words, it was as if Bam's world became black entirely. The roaring storm, the blaring sirens, and the flashing lights all faded into a suffocating, terrifying void. A sickening wave of nausea hit her as the image of Oom, broken, bleeding, and alone, flashed through her mind. She turned on her heel and ran back to her car, not feeling the rain blinding her vision or the freezing wind cutting through her clothes. She threw herself into the driver's seat, slammed the door, and pressed her foot to the gas. As she drove, everything blurred. The tail lights ahead melted into streaks of red through the heavy sheet of rain on her windshield. Her hands shook so violently against the steering wheel that she could barely hold the car steady. Hot, uncontrollable tears spilled from her eyes, washing over her cheeks and mixing with the rain dripping from her hair. "Please, no, please. Oom, stay with me," Bam sobbed aloud into the silent cabin, her chest heaving with deep, painful gasps. The pride, the distance, the walls she had built up over the past weeks vanished completely, leaving behind only raw, unbearable agony. The thought of losing Oom, of never hearing her voice again, tore through Bam's heart like a jagged blade. She pulled up to the emergency bay of the nearest hospital, leaving her car parked haphazardly across the entrance curb. She burst through the automatic sliding doors, completely drenched, water pooling at her feet on the sterile floor. "Oom!!" #oomeisaya #bamsaralee #oombam #austory - @bae9779s