Chapter 1

It all started out simply enough. I was a 16-year-old teenager named Frederick (Fred) Williams living with my parents and 15 year old sister. The year was 2005 and we lived in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath cinder block home in Holly Hill Florida. We were fairly poor, just one step above trailer trash.

My life was totally average. Nothing remarkable ever happened. Life was very boring, but wasn't it for most teens?

Then came my car crash. I was driving home one night and had stopped at a light when BAM I got hit from behind. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the county hospital out near my high school. My eyesight was a little foggy and the colors didn't quite seem right. I moaned because the pain in my head was excruciating. I felt my head and could tell it was bandaged. A nurse appeared in front of me and asked how I was feeling.

"Like crap," I said to her in my customary teen candor. Nothing pisses me more than a stupid ass question, which is what this was. I know, how rude, but then my head hurt and useless banter often set me off.

I noticed that I was in a small room that had large windows that was near a nurses station. I could see through other windows that there were several small rooms similar to mine. I was in some type of intensive care ward.

"You have been here several hours so you have been out a little longer than that," she said. You are going to be staying with us here at least for a couple days for observation. That's the rule when someone has had a head injury like yours."

"My name is Brenda, I am here with you until eight, let me go get the doctor so he can examine you now that you are awake."

I saw the doctor, they had already taken x-rays, and now that I was awake I was poked, prodded and generally mistreated for quite a while before things settled down. During all this my parents had come in and everyone was assured that I would get better and likely never have any lasting effects from the accident.

Later they x-rayed me a second time. Brenda told me that there was a little swelling on my temporal lobe and they wanted to check on it again. She told me that was an area of the brain just above the ears.

I had been rear ended by a drunk. He walked away without any injury. In Florida the drunks usually got off Scott free from accidents. This case was no different but his insurance had to pay for my 1992 Ford Escort. Hey - it wasn't the coolest car in town, but it got you there. I was never one to worry about what was cool. Alright, that's a lie. The Escort was an embarrassment, but it was affordable.

The next morning they did an MRI of my head, by this time I was starting to worry. This is in the days when they didn't tell the patient anything. They were telling my parents, but not me.

My parents told me most of the swelling had gone down but one spot seemed harder or something. My brain was not scarred, but was just a little denser in one spot. I would have to be watched for a while to see if things changed or if I was effected in any way.

There wasn't much they could do, just keep an eye on it. I was released a few days later and we went home.

I found out later that the doctor was telling only part of the truth. I had the bump on the side of the head, but that wasn't all. I had a lesion on my globus pallidus interna which is part of the cerebellum - a part of the brain located underneath. It's supposed to deal only with motor skills like walking and moving the arms and head but was close to the spine.

For the next few weeks everything returned to normal. School was about to begin when I decided I wanted to go to a pre season football game at my high school, Mainlaind Senior.

I was trying to get Ed, my buddy to take the night off from the local burger joint "Burger and Shake" where he worked, but he couldn't get off to go with me. Seems his boss was an ogre and if he took time off, he might as well look for another job. I was thinking I could go by myself and see if I could hook up with someone I know — that's when my sister came into the tail end of the conversation. She had come into the kitchen and overheard me talking to Ed.

"I'll go with you," Sandy said. Sandy was short for Xandera, she was

She got the cool name and I had been stuck with "Fred." I was named after a Korean War buddy of my fathers. Our Mom had come up with Xandera somehow.

"Why should I take you along - you twerp?" I said. "Kid sisters are death to any chances of getting lucky." Sandy was a great sister and we got along very well. Our talk was just our usual brother-sister banter.

"Shoot Freddy, are you talking about a real live girl, or your imagination? At least with me you'll have someone to hang out with," she said.

"Tell you what, you have to get Mom to let you go and you have to buy your own ticket to the game and your own snacks and sodas," I said.

"OK," she said, as she zipped off to find our mother. I headed up to my room to listen to some CD's.

Sandy and I got to the game and paid our $2.00 to get in. Pre-season games were cheap since the games didn't really count. There were not too many people there either. After about a half hour I headed for the restroom to drain off some of the Pepsi. When I got there I noticed it was empty so I took my leak. I turned around to head out the door and someone was standing there... or something. My eyes seemed to slide off him/it.