3TS: The Chances of Starting Again

That Mysterious Woman

Feb. 18 When the puzzle pieces connect to form the big picture, you're star struck in awe.

I was tired from last night's assignments. I had woken up late. And it was RAINING. So I was wet. It was probably from all the drama that I had experienced that I couldn't sleep for the last few nights, dreaming about Trent, Juan, and Arlene. Which is probably why I had a rough start this morning. I had rushed out of the house, without breakfast and without an umbrella.

The rain was pouring enough to make my nose red from cold. How could I forget an umbrella? I wiped my face for the fifth time, but rain started to scatter down my face as soon as I swiped away the first wave of rainwater.

There weren't any tricycles down our street, so that meant I had to walk. I was too wet already before I took out that business card again.

That silver card I had found on the street.

Why not try it out? It's not gonna hurt to grab a tricycle now. No people were around to see me do the rain dance backwards. At the last circle, my head spun and as I turned my head back to the road, there it was.

A sleek, silver tricycle sliced down the road toward me. If it had been faster, it could have seemed like a spark of light within the darkened sky. The tricycle's appearance seemed futuristic. The sidecar, where I was supposed to sit in, seemed more rounded than most tricycles. The driver's window and the sidecar's window were both extremely clean for a rainy day. The driver ducked down to make eye contact with me. Surprisingly, it was a young woman. She had sunglasses that hid her eyes, and a gum in her mouth. With a simple modest black shirt, a rough biker's jacket, and tight long jeans.

And then, realization struck. It was this same woman who watched me from afar. I silently tried to hide my surprise. She was a tricycle driver? But what was she doing in my life again?

As I climbed in, I could see that everything looked metallic within. Even the soft seat cover glittered silver. The frame around the window in front of me had silver electric bolt pictures around it.

Her voice snapped me out of my trance: "So, ano?" Or that's at least what I heard from her in the pouring rain.

I told her the name of my school. She scoffs, and said something aloud, but I couldn't hear her. I glanced at her. She pointed at her watch. Was she asking me what time I wanted to be at school?

Weird.

I put out eight fingers to signal eight o'clock. Which was in three minutes. How could she go that fast? I didn't want any trouble with the police, I was already late. Maybe I should change tricycles. This woman had watched me before. Could she do anything dangerous to me?

She ignited the tricycle with a kick of her black boot, and with a roar, the tricy turned around and started the other way. I looked down the street. No other tricycles were in sight, should I change tricycles now? I scratched my head and whispered to myself, "Sige lang."

She seemed to twist a knob on the controls before moving down the street. Do normal tricycle drivers do that? Well, journal, this wasn't a normal tricycle driver. She was a model in biker clothing who was supposedly a certified tricycle driver.

Yeah, that's so not normal.

I looked down at my phone, scrolling through my read messages when the wind started to blow harder, whipping my hair into my face. Was a typhoon coming?

I glanced through the window in front of me to see that the rain was hitting the window hard, but it wasn't a hard wind that was blowing my hair. It was how fast this driver was driving.

"Why are you driving so fast?" I shouted, but she could barely hear me through the rain and roar of the wind.

I looked sideways, only seeing the scene whip past me like a whirlwind. My heart beat faster, and I clung to the hand rail in front of me. I looked in front of me just in time to see the figure of a house before us.

I grabbed at the girl's arm instantly, "Slow down! You might hit that hous-"

I didn't finish my sentence as I covered my head with my arms and screamed as I closed my eyes a second before we hit the house.

THUNK.