The gentle swish, swish of something outside my consciousness brings me around, and the warm fluttering heat that seems to be growing over my back, heels, skull, and legs as my limbs tingle back to life, and I start to cough. Not warm enough to heat my lifeless corpse and the inner block of ice that is my organs.
My body wracks with the sudden crack of a violent choking fit that fully wakens me because it hurts like hell, as though there’s a fire in my lungs. My eyes flutter open, through the hazy fog of an awful headache, to the point I’m nauseous with it, and my body feels like it doesn’t belong to me.
My fingers flinch of their own accord, and the sudden sensation of smooth yet rough and damp textured balls pulls my eyes to where I can feel it. Blinking, fluttering my lashes until my hand comes into focus, I realize it’s laid on gravel and sand mixed. Wet, shiny, tiny stones and pebbles smothered in grittiness. My fingertips are dirty as it sticks with clinginess to my wrinkled skin, clogged under my nails. I groan out loud and make to move my head.
I shift my shoulders and roll, coughing once more, bringing up water and phlegm, and the metallic taste of blood that follows makes me gag. I have intense hunger pangs and all-over body aches. My belly is aching and cold with the damp surface I seem to be lying face down on, also bumpy and textured, and yet it helps bring back sensation to the heavy body I couldn’t feel a moment ago.
It takes a minute to come around and get my bearings fully. The dull light of the sun is coming up and warming my frozen bones back from death, yet I can’t move properly. My hair tugs as I incline my head. A yank and pull makes me groan feebly, and I sink back to my previous position with no energy to do more. My skull is unbearably sensitive.
I lie here and look around me. Seeing an expanse of more of the same terrain in my line of vision, and although I can’t see it from this position, I can hear the lapping of the water washing up on the shore. The swoosh of the sea behind me is low, like a hum, and not invasive because my hearing is messed up with waterlogged eardrums. It gently tickles my left foot as it comes closer, and I cringe. It’s all I can manage.
I’m not in the water anymore, and it seems to be pushing to dawn as a tide comes in with the threat of washing me away. I’m disoriented, yet my consciousness starts flooding back at speed, remembering everything, and I try again to get up.
Everything hurts. And my lungs are struggling, fighting the weight of my limbs. I manage to drag my knees under me in a bent-over position and feel my way with my fingers into my hair on the back of my head to rip myself free of the branches holding me captive. I lose handfuls of hair and hurt my hands in the process. The tree that saved my life is wedged up behind me and seems to have dragged me ashore at some point while I was passed out cold.
If the tide is coming in again after depositing me here, it means it’s been hours since I crashed Jyeon’s car. If memory serves me right from high school, I’ve spent at least twelve hours out here, if not more. I slept through an entire cycle of the sea.
That fact hits me right in the face, and I sit up weakly, pushing myself with great effort onto my knees, and gaze around in disbelief. I must have hit my head hard to have been able to lie here all that time and not have any awareness about what was happening to me. I don’t know how I’m not dead. I feel like I might be though.
It seems to be a beach of sorts, with a back wall of sparse forest in front of me and no real signs of civilization. It’s a cove in a little arched and shaded area where I can’t see around the curve. Out towards the sea, it’s foggy and conceals anything out there from sight with muggy weather and a threat of rain. All the eye can see is just open water with the possibility of mountains in the mist. I don’t know which direction I came from as the view offers no hints at where my city is; it’s too unclear a day. It feels cut off, like a deserted island, and I’m all alone—my lip trembles with the sudden sense of hopelessness.
I’m too messed up physically to begin to dissect emotions, and the fatigue and grogginess combined are like being drunk. I’m aware I’m not in my right frame of mind, and my senses are muffled even fully awake. I touch my forehead impulsively and find caked and gritty blood and sand covering most of it, tracing up to a massive lump in my hairline and getting too scared to feel any further. If I have a caved-open skull, I’d rather not know about it.
I navigate my limbs with a little success and manage to get to my feet, using the tree as support while wobbling and collapsing twice before I get there. It takes a crazy amount of effort. My skin is so icy cold I have a tint of blue to my tone, and all the cuts, grazes, and bruises from my fight with Claire and this accident litter my entire naked skin like fake Hollywood makeup. I can see them, but nothing hurts noticeably because my whole body aches as one solid entity.
I know I can’t stay here. My throat is parched, and despite the chill and knowing by touch that my body is like ice, I feel suffocatingly hot and feverish. I have waves of dizziness. I drag my feet across the pebbles in the direction of the treeline, knowing that getting away from the water and the sea breeze is the wisest move for now.
I’m stabbed and scratched with every step of bare feet, but I walk mindlessly on, my arms hanging by my side and my head bobbing around as though my neck can’t support it. I have no plan but to go through the motions of instinct to try and find help.
The terrain changes under my soles as I leave the pebble shore to walk between well-spaced spruces, which is worse on my skin. Twigs and debris make me stop every few steps from rubbing them off and ‘ssss’ through my teeth at the blood from being stabbed. I wipe down my already filthy and sodden pale pink camisole dress and keep moving. I don’t feel right, barely holding it together, and I might have survived that ordeal, but I could still die of exposure or may be wounded in ways I’m not even aware of. I know I have to find help soon, or I won’t last much longer.
I walk in a zombified state for God knows how long, with no sense of time, and I think I zone out repetitively as I suddenly flinch, and my surroundings seem different from a moment ago. It happens at least ten times before I lose count. I wonder if it’s a concussion and have no concept of how long they are lasting; impressed that my legs keep going even if my brain doesn’t. Pushing onwards as the sun climbs higher in the sky and starts to bring some warmth back to parts of me I couldn’t feel before. The trees are not shaded together enough to block it out, and I welcome the slight comfort of its kiss.
It feels like hours, my legs weary, and I stumble so many times, falling, that I hurt my palms and elbows and end up even more cut up than before, but the will to keep going won’t let me stop. All the money and power in the world can’t do a damn thing for me now, and all I have is myself and the strength I know I possess to keep going. I was never a quitter who would lie down and die.
I don’t know how many miles I walk inland, probably not as many as it seems, although it’s pretty endless when I hear the noise of a truck up ahead, and my head snaps up as I try to focus through the lines of trees ahead of me—surrounded on all sides by them. My heart lurches in my throat when I spot a large dark blue arctic truck driving horizontally across my line of vision about fifty feet ahead. I squint at it to be sure what I’m seeing is real, pausing in my journey. My pulse races, and I get a renewed zap of life at realizing I’m near people. I’m not stuck on some uninhabited minor island, god knows where. I saw an actual truck, civilization and help may not be far away.
I break into a run, losing all weightiness, and throw caution to the wind. Hurting my feet, legs, and arms as I’m clawed by tiny twigs and branches that try to capture me and rip me back, crunch over stones and all sorts, but my head is on what I saw. I’m so ecstatic that I stifle a sob as tears blind me. I don’t feel the pain of the new wounds I’m inflicting on myself, as only the swelling joy in my heart fuels me.
I run until I reach the edge of the road, an actual tarmac and straight road that I fall and kiss with utter gratitude. Tears are welling up to blurriness. A gritty, cold, rough surface that hurts my parched lips, but I’ve never been so happy to see something manufactured in all my life. I can’t describe the elation and aching chest pain it gives me.
The truck is long gone, and I stare off in the direction it went, along a long road that curves off out of sight, and I gaze both ways, trying to figure out which would be the shortest route to a town. One might be close; one might not. Or maybe I’m being too hopeful, and it stretches for miles either way with nothing at all. If I have any chance of being rescued, I have to stick to the tarmac and not stray. Roads mean people, and people mean being saved. I am not going to give up. I get to my feet and follow the truck's route, hoping it’s the right choice.
I watch the sun all day as I walk in the direction that symbol of hope went, growing high and warming me a tiny amount, but when it starts to drag down, my footsteps slow, and I lose the will once more. Endlessly walking south, step after agonizing step, until I don’t think my legs can go any further, and I haven’t seen a single road sign or car in hours. Nothing! I’ve depleted everything my body has. It’s like this is a deserted nomad’s land, and I know I might not get through another cold night at this rate.
I’m shaking so much it’s adding to my physical weariness, just the effort of shivering. I’m hungry, so it causes severe cramping and dehydration to my mind’s candyfloss. I’ve vomited twice along the way. I am losing hope, losing purpose, and losing what strength I have.
I keep thinking of my family. Of Jyeon, and Yoonah, of mother…. even the ones I see only at OLO. Like the Park uncles and aunts and Grandfather, Jonah Park. None of my Kim family are alive anymore, so I have seen them as the closest thing for a decade. The distant people of my life who still add to the broader circle. The board of directors. My job.
I wonder what they are all doing now. Do they know what happened to me? Do they know I’m missing and hurt? Did the nature reserve park wardens find the destroyed railings and realize a car had gone over? Did they start looking for its remains in the water below? Did Jyeon get pissed at my lack of presence with his stolen car that he checked his GPS tracker to see where I might have left his baby?
Does anyone notice I’m gone or care? I don’t even know what day it is or how long I’ve been out here. The accident feels like weeks ago, and a flickering traumatic memory keeps hitting me in flashing three D. I only know that it’s getting dark now, and I can’t see signs of life ahead, street lights, or even the glow of a city. All I can do is walk. Like a dead woman, held up on strings, dragging herself onwards.
In a slip of a dress and high-end lingerie, I must look like hell, a torn, blood-covered, ragged mess who was dragged through a bush backward. Filthy and damp, and I can’t even imagine how my face looks if my makeup is smeared everywhere or entirely washed off. My hair is probably like a bird’s nest, my expensive cut and color ruined. Most of my acrylic nails are snapped or scuffed up on my shredded hands. I’m probably facially blood-covered, crusted and gritty like my arms and legs.
My chin drops to my chest, and I collapse. I’ve done it several times, and with each setback, I give myself a moment and pull up again, but not this time. I sit here in a rumpled mess, kneeling but bent forward, without the ability to even raise my head or take one more step. I’m done. I’m spent. There’s nothing left to give. My energy levels are wavering in the negative. My limbs no longer listen.
Panting loudly and hurting to the point I no longer feel it. My eyes are heavy and sleepy, and I start to cry. Hopeless despair from somewhere deep inside because I feel like I’m giving up and shouldn’t, but I really can’t fight it. If surviving the water was hard, this is somehow worse. A flicker of hope was given with the miracle of surviving the sea, only to have it slowly dwindle over hours and hours of this. I feel so alone and insignificant.
I close my eyes and sink within my limbs, knowing it will be pitch dark soon and I should find somewhere to rest that’s close to the road. It’s all I can do—the only thing to extend my ability to survive this. Find dry leaves to keep me warm, even if my flimsy covering is still damp and inefficient as outerwear. If I can remember the old camping lessons of years ago, I could try making a fire, but I don’t know if my fingers will even respond. I blow out my hair heavily, and even the tears rolling down my face are delivered with no effort from me. My posture is of a curled up and deflated child, sitting W-legged on the road with sunken shoulders.
A slow rumble from behind me pulls me out of my misery, coming from absolutely nowhere and so suddenly, and I hold still while listening. Sure I imagined it for a second, and I’m starting to hallucinate full-on with desperation.
It’s distant at first, like a growl, a vibration. I hold my breath and cock my head, about the only thing I can, and strain to really hear. Holding still, inwardly praying to a God I don’t believe in, this is real. After a long minute, it starts to sound like an engine, an old struggling engine of something much smaller than a truck. My eyes flash open, gulping in, and I turn, finding renewed ability, and struggle to my feet.
That’s when I spot them. Lights in the distance, coming this way, two of them. Headlights.
I start to pant in excited despair and move towards it, raising my arms over my head and waving wildly, desperate for them to close the gap and keep coming this way. I'm fighting my body that’s trying to tell me I’m powered on sheer will, and I can’t maintain this.
“Help…. help me,” I call out, tears stinging my eyes, seeing only hope, discarding my physical inability, but my voice is raspy and practically non-existent, and it hurts like hell to make a sound. More like a whooshing of failed words.
It trundles closer, and although I’m shivering uncontrollably, I shake violently with the sheer adrenalin of seeing my chance at being found. The loneliness and despair of the last hours melting away.
“Please.” I gasp out loud, eyes blurring with my tears as it gets so close I can make out the hood and shape behind the blinding lights of a small pickup truck. My elation is soaring, my emotions crashing into one another painfully as mild hysteria rises inside me with the urgency to be seen. I convince myself they'll drive right over me unless I wave and make it obvious I’m here.
Closer, closer, swerving slightly because they seem to see me, then …. they’re within ten feet in a millisecond.
Because of my enthusiasm, I trip over my uncoordinated feet, falling into a crumbling mess onto the harsh, hard tarmac, and let out a yelp. Sobbing with the effort of fighting to be seen and try crawling towards them because the inner fight won’t die, and I can’t rest until I know I’m safe. Knowing if I can just get to them, I can live.
“Please.”
I beg and collapse again as the crunch of tires comes to a sudden emergency stop and rings my way. The skid, the cloud of dust kicked up, and the dulling of the engine as it goes from running to idle.
They stopped for me.
They see me. They really stopped. It’s people…. it’s a person.
“Oh my god, baby girl…. where the hell did you come from?” A woman’s voice filters my way, a pure, soft, and angelic voice that I think I may etch into my soul for the rest of my life. I lift my head, tears streaming down my face and bubbling like a baby, just enough to see two rugged boots running at me from the front of the stopped, steaming vehicle. It’s eery in the dim light, and she’s cast in shadow with how she moves in front of the headlights. Her body heat is coming off her like steam because it’s so cold out here.
“What happened to you? What the hell?” She sounds shocked that she can’t comprehend finding some half-naked woman in the middle of this endless road. I can barely hold myself together for the relief I feel, for this angel falling out of the sky to come to get me. To me, her voice is like velvet, a harmonious songlike lullaby.
“Help me…” I whisper in urgency, sounding like a wounded child with barely any sound over my breathlessness. Begging and pleading, so sure I need to and manage to pull enough of my body up that I can catch hold of her with one hand. My hand is on her arm, and I grip on with weak fingers.
“You’re freezing and half dead, baby girl.” She shifts beside me and pulls me upright, helping me with warm hands and a soft but firm touch, sliding me back to my knees while stopping to haul off her thick flannel shirt and pulling it around me. Her entire focus is on rubbing my arms and legs and tending to what she deems the first port of call, my complete lack of warmth. All I can do is sob as this stranger wraps me up in strong arms and tries to cover my naked blue skin with any clothing she can pull off her body at speed. Her scarf, leg warmers, and even her under jumper she uses over my legs.
“Don’t leave me….” I beg of her, unable to feel any effect of what she’s doing and only desperately clinging to her leg as she pulls a hat on over my damp hair and tugs it down so it comes to my eyelashes. Frowning at me, eye to eye, she scans me all over and seems to be having difficulty keeping her shock in check. She’s about my age, a little more of a rough and ready tomboy, but pretty.
“Sweetie, not only am I not going to leave you, but I’m not leaving you out here another second longer. Come on… It’s almost in the negative right now. My truck is warm. How are you still alive?”
She single handily hauls me up with her, taking the entirety of my body weight even though she isn’t that much bigger than me, and I sink against this woman as she takes control of my entire body.