Lyra felt sick to her stomach. She was in the back seat again, her legs too short to touch the floor of the car, her body lacking a seatbelt.

"No..no, not this again, I don't want to..I don't.."

She could hear the pouring rain outside, her heart thumping against her ribcage. Her parents in the front seats. She couldn't tear her eyes off the back of her mother's head. That agitated, sharp tone her mother spat at her father rang out in the car, cussing Lyra's father out about his drinking habits. Her dad got louder and louder as he regurgitated the same response he always did about 'minding her own damn business'.

"Please..please wake up, please wake up.."

She felt like she couldn't breathe when her mother's head whipped around, taking her eyes off the wet road for just a moment. In the blink of an eye, the car felt weightless, a tree seemed to appear out of the heavy rain, and the impact deafened her. She felt her body as it flung forward, the chipped dashboard in front of her eyes—

"No!"

She shot up in bed, a cold sweat beading on her back as her arms flew up to her face, bracing for an impact that..wouldn't come. Her chest pumped up and down before she slowly came to, realizing she wasn't eight years old on the rainy back roads. She was in her room, waking up from that same..damn nightmare. Warm tears trickled down, over the jagged scar left across her face, and collecting at her chin.