Tales of the Scarecrow

12:27

It was an accident. I didn't do it by reason or by cause. The car I drove ran over the young lady and the next thing I saw was blood resurfacing around her frail, unmoving body lying on the city road. 12:27, on midnight.

I quickly ran away from the scene after the collision. My hands kept shaking and that made the wheels run unsteady. I did not bother to help the person I killed. It was midnight and tomorrow was the grand wedding day with my to-be-husband. But, I murdered a young girl, on my way home. I didn't help her. My hands were stuck, cold on the steering wheel.

I could not understand my vision; it was somewhat clouded. The surroundings were lucid– as if from a dream. My car sped up like a storm chased by the hauntings of the death I caused minutes ago. The streets were empty and the sound I could only hear was my erratic breathing, hasty heartbeat and whizzing of my car.

12:47AM, and it's been twenty minutes on the run. Guilt and remorse started to eat me up on the inside and I could hear a solemn cry of despair as if it's chasing after me. Even if I was running at the speed of a hundred miles – or so I thought.

"Help me..."

I screamed from the cold, shallow voice that rammed my ears. I thought of it as an hallucination and that I am jogged by the fear that has infested in me. I tried to keep my sanity as I sped up on the silenced driveway.
I escalated at high speeds as if chased by a masive wave ready to kill the shore. My fear rose higher and higher and my heart sunk deeper and deeper. Her whisper was getting louder.

"Please... help... me..."

I drove faster and faster. My fear became immeasurable as I started to hear cries of a lost soul at the back of my car— from the lady I killed. Short as a beat, I glimpsed at the front mirror and saw her. Blood that spilled like a stream on a small creak was dripping from her torn apart head. I screamed.

I couldn't take it anymore. I was looking at the seemingly unending stretch of the mile ahead and the last thing I realized was my consciousness pushing me out of the car. I jumped outside the seat.

I fumbled on the road and rolled violently, earning countless deep grazes and wounds. As I got up and braced my arms from the pain, I looked at the car as it sped up on its own rushing up ahead, the ghost of the lady still in the backseat leaving one last shrill cry as it crashed to the side causing the car's explosion. I cried as I looked around, I was in the middle of the dark, isolated road.

Everything felt like despair. I was lost and fear had taken its cold grasp on my heart. The deep night had no other voice but my cry in the disquiet highway. As I took a few weak steps forward, I noticed the road had gotten at its quietest state. The landscape seemed displaced and the dead trees looked as if the branches were stretching out to my direction.

Then a light filled the shadowed freeway from behind. I spun my head to look and saw nothing but a speeding car. I couldn't move my legs. I was frozen on the spot. In a flash, it ran over me, dislocating my bones and tearing apart my skin with my blood slowly exposing the road.

The car stopped up ahead and went out a woman with horror filled on her face as she looked at me. She ran back to her car from fear and sped up away from the scene. As my faint eyes stared at the car, I noticed the familiar repeat of the same accident I had caused an hour ago. I took one last glimpse at my phone, shivering from the last thing I saw before I slowly drowned in the darkness.

"12:27AM"

The one who killed me, was me.