The rain in the city always smelled like wet cigarettes and old exhaust.
I shifted the grip on my grocery bags, the thin plastic handles digging into my palms. It was the usual haul: two packs of instant ramen, a carton of eggs, and a bottle of cheap soda. At eighteen, this was my world. No parents, no siblings, just a small apartment and a life that felt like it was on mute.
Being an orphan meant I was a ghost even while I was alive. Nobody really looked at me, and I didn't have much to say to anyone else.
I was crossing the street outside the 24-hour supermarket when the world suddenly got very loud.
Right in the middle of the road, there was a little girl. She couldn't have been more than five years old. She was wearing a simple white little dress and clutching a small book in her hand, crying while kneeling down. In the opposite, reflection of the headlights of a massive truck that was barreling toward her.
The truck wasn't slowing down. I could hear the engine roaring, and the way it swerved told me the driver was probably hammered. There was no screech of brakes—just the sound of heavy metal accelerating.
For the first time in my life, I didn't hesitate. I didn't think about my future or the fact that I had no one to say goodbye to. I just moved.
I dropped my bags.
The eggs smashed on the pavement, and the soda bottle rolled away, but I was already sprinting. I lunged forward, my hands hitting the fabric of her white dress. I shoved her with everything I had, throwing her toward the sidewalk.
Then, the world exploded....
It wasn't a sound. It was a feeling of being dismantled. The truck hit me like a wall of solid iron. I felt my bones snap like dry sticks. My body was twisted into shapes it wasn't meant to take, and then I was flying.
When I hit the ground, it felt cold.
I was lying on the asphalt, and I couldn't move my legs. Actually, I couldn't feel much of anything except a dull, throbbing heat. My blood was pooling under me, mixing with the rain in a dark circle. It hurt to breathe—every gasp felt like swallowing broken glass.
I did it, I thought. My vision was starting to go blurry, but I felt a strange sense of relief. I actually did something good. My life was worth something today.
I was an orphan. Nobody was going to cry at my funeral, and I didn't have any big dreams to regret. If I had to go out, saving a kid was the best way to do it. It felt like a fair trade.
With the last bit of strength I had, I forced my head to turn. I wanted to see her. I wanted to see her standing on the sidewalk so I could close my eyes and be at peace.
I looked....
My heart—or what was left of it—stopped for a different reason. The sidewalk was empty. The rain was hitting the bare, flat concrete where I had just thrown her. There was no girl. No white dress. No little book. I scanned the dark street, my mind racing through the fog of pain.
Where did she go? How could she move that fast? There wasn't even a ripple in the puddles or a shadow in the alleyway. It was as if she had evaporated the moment my hands left her shoulders.
A terrifying confusion chilled me deeper than the rain. I hadn't just lost a girl; it felt like I had lost reality itself. Had I really just smashed my body and thrown away my life for a ghost?
Was she ever even there?...
The red of the neon signs faded into a dull, sickly grey. The world lost its color, and as the silence of the street swallowed my final breath, everything went black.
.........
Author : "im going to cook with this one"