There’s a phrase that has lingered with me throughout my life, binding me with its invisible chains. They bound me tight, preventing me from feeling free, and able to live my life as I was.

“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”

It’s a cruel truth, really. If you stand out, even if it's only a little bit, you get labeled as different. Not in a good way either, I don’t know how many times I have been told I was weird, strange, or just too much. So many people whispered behind my back, some people took a more direct approach. I still remember the day I was punched in the face by the school bully, harassed in many ways behind closed doors, especially in the bathroom.

In a sense, it feels like the world punishes you just for existing outside its narrow confines. They try to hammer you down, smooth you out, make you fit their mold. I didn’t fit that mold. I never did, no, I never could.

Maybe that’s why I have always felt so drawn to the fantasy worlds of swords and sorcery, adored witches, and lived in my own world of imagination. Avoiding the real world, knowing that, at any moment, maybe they would lynch me like they did all those witches of the past.

I suppose I saw something of myself in those witches—misunderstood, feared for being different, hunted for standing apart. There was a kind of defiance in them, a strength to be who they were despite the world's cruelty. They were the outcasts who didn’t bend, the ones who refused to be hammered down. Maybe that’s why I was so fascinated by their stories, their magic, and their power. In my mind, they weren’t villains. To me, they were the heroes and worthy of all my respect and admiration.

But, unlike them, I was no hero. I was just a girl, struggling to get by in a world that only accepted those who flowed with the stream, not against it. Then, even that was taken from me.

It happened when I was 16 on November 12th 2013.

I’ll take you back to that day, as painful as it is to remember it.

My mom and I were on our way back home from a girl’s night out. It was cold, the kind of biting chill that seeped into your bones and made you shiver no matter how bundled up you were. I remember her laughing at something, probably a dumb joke I made at the time, I don’t remember clearly. Her voice was as warm as ever despite the frosty air.

Then, the headlights.

The headlights came out of nowhere, cutting through the darkness. My mom’s laughter died instantly, replaced by a sharp intake of breath as the car in front of us veered wildly into our lane. There wasn’t even time to think, let alone react. My heart stopped; my pulse frozen in the split second before impact.

The crash was immediate and brutal. The crunch of metal, the gravity pulling me forward, the sharp pain as I felt my legs get crushed. The car shook violently, shocking my body to its very core, it was as if the very world around me was being torn to shreds and span at the speed of light. Everything blurred together. The shattering glass, the sting of pain as shards cut into my flesh, the seatbelt yanking me back as the airbags exploded out.

The next thing I knew, we were spinning. Our car tumbled through the air, blurring the world I could still see into a jumbled mess of darkness and a reddish white. I remember someone screaming, maybe it was me, I don’t know. Then we hit the ground with a savage crunch.

I think I lost consciousness for a moment after that, because when I woke next, all was still. I felt the icy chill of freshly fallen snow as the flakes landed on my face, I couldn’t call out to my mom, nor could I see her, not as I was. I must have flown from the car at some point, and all I felt was a dull numbness.

The world had stopped, the only motion was the soft snow flitting through the night air and landing on my skin. The smell of gasoline, and some other unknown scent were all that entered my nose.

My mind felt sluggish and groggy, as if it was shifting in and out of a state of sleep, caught between the shock of the accident and the deafening silence that followed. Everything hurt, yet, at the same time, it all felt numb. My hands, my legs, my arms, my chest, even my head, all felt as though there was a nonstop prickling tingle throughout.

I tried to move, but my body refused to listen. My limbs were heavy, as if weighed down by several tons, and had a dull ache that wouldn’t go away. Everything around me felt distant, like I was watching the scene unfold from far away, almost as if I was truly not a part of it.

My mind began to wander, seeking the fantasies of witches, swords and sorcery as my awareness began to fade. A gentle escape that I used to hide away from the harshness of reality. A soft smile graced my lips despite my situation as I imagined myself as one of them. A powerful witch adventuring across the lands, living the life of one of my favorite characters as I traveled the mystical lands of wonder. But, even in fantasy, I couldn’t escape reality for long.

Reality always had a way of breaking through, no matter how desperately I clung to my dreams and stories that kept me sane. The cold snow against my skin, the pain in my body, and the eerie stillness around me pulled me back into the present. The fantasy world I had crafted in my mind crumbled away, replaced by the harsh, unforgiving truth of the accident.

I opened my eyes again, blinking against the snowflakes that continued to fall. The world was so quiet, unnaturally so, except for the faint sound of my own breathing. My chest felt tight, each breath a shallow, painful effort. I turned my head, searching once more for my mom, hoping, no, praying, that she was okay.