Comatose

One

"What do you mean you aren't tired? Its almost one in the morning!" Marshall nudged Ivy, his own eyelids heavy with sleep calling.

Ivy leaned her head on his shoulder, smiling softly, "You know I'm a night owl!" She whispered, looking up at him and giggling quietly at the odd angle.

"Well I'm not, so don't mind if I just..." He paused,  resting his head atop of hers, pretending to sleep.

"Oh you faker," She reached up and ruffled his curly black hair, "I love you, Marshall"

He peeked open a brown eye, "I love you too, Ivy"

After that, Marshall fell asleep, still resting his head on Ivy's.

She stayed still, not wanting to wake him back up, and looked out the window at the passing scenery, it was too dark out to see anything, but she didn't mind.

An hour or so passed, and sleep was finally calling out to Ivy, with a deep breath she let herself fall back into the darkness.

She awoke to the chattering of people around her, it appeared that the bus had made it to the rest stop, which meant they only had a few hours left until they reached their destination.

She stretched, turning to her freckled boyfriend, "What time is it?"

"Its eleven right now, and everyone is loading back onto the bus,"

She nodded, leaning over and planting a quick kiss on his cheek, "Ah thats good, only two and a half more hours until we reach the city!"

"Hey! Lovebirds, stop with the pda, some of us are single you know!" From across the aisle came the familiar voice of their somewhat good friend Chase, who always teased them about their relationship.

Ivy waved his comment off, leaning back into her seat, watching as the bus pulled back onto the road and started again.

For some twenty minutes the bus was pretty quiet, there was a quiet hum as the other students talked and the gentle rumbling of the bus's tires on the road sounded, a calming noise to the brunette.

She had grown up as a child who loved adventures, and her six or seven year old self always thought that every car ride was one.

"Hey Ivy, look at this," Another nudge from Marshall pulled her from her thoughts, so she turned and looked to what he was trying to show her.

He had his phone held up, he had opened it to his Instagram page, and on it was a meme.

She chuckled lightly, more because she liked that he was the type of guy to show her funny pictures rather than just pictures of cars, or shoes, which he did that too.

"I bet you could make a funnier version,"

"Is that a bet?"

"Yep. Make one funnier and you'll earn a prize," she wiggled her eye brows for a moment

He grinned, eyes bright, "And would this prize be a kiss?"

"What? No. If anything it'd be a high five!"

Before Marshall could reply, Ivy's phone began to vibrate.

She fished it out of her pocket and looked to the caller id, it was her mom.

"Hold on," she mumbled as she picked up the phone, "Hey mom!"

"Hey hun, are you guys there yet?"

"No, we have about two hours until we get there,"

"Oh, okay, I just wanted to check in and make sure things are okay,"

"Everything is fine, Mom," she paused, making a facepalm motion to where Marshall could see, "You know I love you mom, but you don't have to be so worried all the time, "

"I know...but after all the people in our lives that get into accidents....I get nervous,"

Ivy didn't need her mom to remind her, when she was 12, her father got into a bad car accident on his way to work, he died a week later, both Ivy and her mom stayed away from cars for a few months.

Ivy, however, knew that her dad loved to drive, and he loved cars. So for her she felt that even if her dad had died in a car accident, they weren't to be feared like the plague.

Her mother was the opposite, she still has anxiety when in a car.

But her father wasn't the only person that they had known to get hurt.

Just a year and a half ago, Marshall's twin sister had gotten into a rock climbing incident.

She was halfway up the rock face, her aunt and uncle to each side, when it started to rain, Eilena's hand slipped, she dropped seven feet and got tangled in her ropes, she was hit in the head, rendering her unconscious, violent winds picked up, causing more damage to her, she hit her shoulder blade, scraped her leg badly, and it ended up putting her into a coma.

Marshall had taken it hard, he insisted that had he been there, he could have helped her stay stable.

He visits her as often as he can, Ivy does too since Eilena was her best friend.

But things weren't the same since then for Marshall, sure he was healing and getting better, but he still lost some of that happiness he once had.

Ivy gave a light sigh, "I know, I know, hey, I need to save my battery, I'll call you when we get there, okay?"

"Okay, love you Ivy,"

"Love you too mom," she hung up and looked back to Marshall, "Always worrying,"

"Yeah, but she means well,"

"I know..."

Another interruption stopped their conversation, it was their student teacher, who everyone called by her first name, Sadie.

"Ivy?" She called out, standing up from her seat.

Ivy poked her head up, "Yes?"

"You have the stack of itinerary lists, right?"

Ivy gave a quick nod, "Yeah, do you want me to hand some to the front?"

"Yes please," Sadie gave a smile, she was really nice, though some of their classmates gave her trouble, Logan Greene, who was notorious as the class troublemaker, happened to be the majority of it.

Ivy went into her bag, pulling out a stack of papers, but as she sat up, the sound of screeching tires filled her ears.

The papers flew from her hand, but in her eyes, everything was going as if it was slow motion.

The papers slowly scattered around the area, people's things floated around.

Then, people did too. They lifted out of their seats, hair flying in every which way.

And a suddenly as it had happened, time seemed to speed up, and before Ivy could even think, the bus crashed to the bottom of the small ravine, and everything went black and soundless.