Hacking Seoul

0.19 - Functional Pain

There was no time to reflect before you die. He was sure of that. The car charged into him and in that second nothing came into his head besides the desire to live. His feet lost touch with the ground and he felt his body sail and tumble in the air. He heard a loud crash. Pain shot through his body from his back, followed immediately by ecstasy. He had been thrown into the windshield, hard, but alive.

The car had stopped moving. The whole scene was still. He sat up on the hood of the car and pressed his hand to his lower back. It was hurting from the impact but nothing seemed to be broken.

"Are you... dead?" A small, empty voice said as the pain in his knees suddenly kicked in and he curled up, panting. He rolled over and tried to move his legs. Functional. He let out a breath when he found that he was able to move them alright. Painful, but functional. He pushed himself toward the edge of the hood and slid off of it slowly, holding the side view mirror as leverage.

"Oh my god." She sounded like she might be crying.

The need to see her face forced him to stand. Her window was all the way down and she sat as frozen as a statue on her seat, her face drained of blood. He leaned his lower body against her car for support. Then he nudged one forearm against the edge of the roof of her car and pushed one hand down on the frame of her window to keep steady so he could face her.

"You are alive." The way she recited that like a fact told him she was very much in shock. She stared at him like she was seeing a ghost. The fog in her eyes seemed to have crippled her ability to move or as a matter of fact, do anything.

He reached into her car and grabbed the arm with her injured hand. She let him without any protest. She was still glaring at him unresponsively with vacant eyes and he pulled her arm so that her body leaned toward the window and her hand dangled outside of it.

"Give me the water," he directed in a quiet voice.

She passed the water bottle to him in silence, like an obedient doll, evidently not recovered from the shock. He twisted open the cap with one hand and carefully poured the water onto her bloody hand.

"Arghhh!" She yelled and jerked her arm back but he held it in place, turning the bottle upright to stop the flow but not allowing her to pull her arm back with a firm grip. She grabbed the ridge of the windowsill with her good hand and dropped her forehead onto the back of her hand, her whole body shaking.

He couldn't feel his own pain anymore watching her trying to stomach hers. "Sorry that it hurts."

His voice was groggy and hoarse. "We need to clean this wound."

"I was... going to do it myself," she muttered almost inaudibly. Her face was still buried and her back rose and fell spasmodically.

His heart split in half seeing her like this. He tried to distract her from her pain. "Did I really deserve to be ran over by a car?"

"I wasn't trying to kill you! I didn't see you." She shuddered and panted, "Why... what were you doing in front of my car?"

He didn't know how to answer that question. He wasn't thinking but he knew jumping in front of her car to stop her from leaving was the only logical thing to do at that moment and if he could rewind time, he would do it again.

"I wanted to help you," he said in a low voice.

She straightened up slowly. The fog in her eyes was replaced by a discreet sparkle and she stared at him closely, her face still paler than chalk.

"You can't just hop in front of somebody's car like that," she mumbled in her fake acrid tone, "You almost gave me a heart attack. I thought you were d.... In fact, it is better if you just leave. I can do this myself. Give me my water back."

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