Anora could have driven the streets of this side of town with her eyes closed. She knew the path to the supermarket by heart, having even walked the few miles there on many occasions when she wanted the exercise. 
	Going the speed of traffic, Anora sighed. Only half paying attention to the cars around her, she glanced in her rearview mirror. So far, the day had been the same as any other. Sure, it had only been a few minutes since she had had that morning’s rushed, subconscious session of “believing six impossible things before breakfast,” but still. Not the most promising of star—
	A sickening [i]thud[/i] and stomach-churning, jerking vibration went through her car, wrenching her from her thoughts. With a shocked, horrified gasp, she instinctively slammed on her breaks, bringing the vehicle to a screeching halt, but it was too late. The world seemed to slow around her, turning the half a second it took for the now broken body of a man to go flying across the street and into a lamppost into minutes. 
	It took her brain and body a couple moments to catch up with what had just happened. She stared, petrified, the seconds that ticked by feeling more like a hazy eternity. Her stomach lurched, and she felt sick; she had just [i]hit someone![/i]
	“No,” she breathed. Her hands begun to shake despite her tight grip on the steering wheel. “No, [i]no, NO![/i]”
	In a panicked haste, she unbuckled and jumped from her car. The angry honks from cars further behind whose drivers had not witnessed what had happened fell on def ears. A couple cars from the other lanes going opposite her had stopped. A crowd had already begun to gather, many with cellphones to their ears or snapping pictures and videos, but it was only the mangled body that held Anora’s gaze. She stared at it almost impassively, her mind refusing to fully take in the gory sight.
	There was no way he could be alive.
	“[i]Please[/i] don’t be dead!” she plead quietly. She skidded to a stop and fell to her knees beside him, accidentally kneeling in a portion of the pool of blood that had begun to soak the concrete.
	He looked even worse up close. She felt bile rise in her throat. She gasped and swallowed when she noticed he was still breathing, still impossibly [i]conscious.[/i]
	Realizing his gurgled rasps were an attempt at speech, she tried to shush him, but could barely get out enough air. Her body trembling, she gently placed a hand on his better shoulder, too afraid to put any real pressure on him else risk causing more pain.
	“D-don’t speak,” she choked out. She licked her lips, trying to ignore the crimson dripping over his face. Already, the sirens of an ambulance sounded not far in the distance. “I-I-It’ll be okay. Just… just don’t try to move.” She was only vaguely aware of the hoarse words that left her mouth.
	This did not feel real. Could [i]not[/i] be real. She had to still be dreaming, still asleep in bed. But a cruel voice at the back of her mind assured her she was not.
	Despite her order, the man still struggled out wheezing words. She leaned forward with bated breath, trying to make out what he was saying amidst the growing background noise.
	“I-I—” she stuttered at his request. She leaned back, scrunched her eyes shut, and clenched her teeth when he coughed up a mouthful of frothy blood. She tried to swallow again, trying to keep herself from vomiting, but her mouth had gone dry, and her throat constricted. “I-I’m not going anywhere,” she breathed, opening her eyes at the urgency in his voice. “I promise.”
	She again looked to him. This time, their eyes locked for a brief moment, her violate gaze filled with terror and confusion, and his distant, as if he looked not at her, but at her soul. She gasped, drew her hand away, and sat back on her feet in surprise at the sensations and emotions that spiked through her before his eyes closed.
	She stared, gaping, trying to figure out what had just happened, when a quiet voice echoed in her head.
	For the first time, she glanced up, trying to figure out who had spoken. At last, she noticed the murmuring crowd circling them. People from the stopped vehicles had gotten out. Some stared at them with horror, some with shock, and some with appalled hatred.
	The roaring sirens of an ambulance speeding down the street forced them scattering back to the sidewalk. Anora got shakily to her feet, some of the man’s blood dusting her palm and soaking the fabric of her jeans at her right knee.
	The EMTs wasted no time. The moment the ambulance had stopped, two men hopped out and started shouting orders at each other and the bystanders.
	One, a burly man with the beginning whiskers of a beard, rushed toward Anora and the injured—or perhaps dead—man. “Miss, return to the sidewalk,” he instructed Anora brusquely. “We’ve got it from here.”
	Anora shook her head, scarcely aware she had moved. “Please. Can… can I come with?” she asked, watching distantly as the man’s youthful companion pulled a stretcher from the back of the ambulance.
	The EMT glanced up at her as he carefully examined and moved the man’s lifeless, bloody body. “Are you family?”
	“No. I…” She clenched her fists, trying to stop their trembling. “I’m who…” She could not bring herself to say it. “Please,” she pleaded as his partner set up the stretcher. “He—he wanted me to… I-I promised I wouldn’t leave him,” she finished softly. “I need to… I [i]have[/I] to…”
	[i]I have to know if he’ll make it,[/i] she finished silently, incapable of forming a complete sentence.
	The man glanced toward her BMW, a streak of red staining its right-hand headlight. Hesitantly, he nodded. “Alright. As long as you’re not a minor.”
	She exhaled heavily. She gave a quick nod of thanks, then, adrenaline rushing through her, ran back to her car as they began to carefully transfer the man’s broken body onto the stretcher. As quickly as she could, she grabbed her backpack from the backseat, slung it over a shoulder, and returned to the ambulance as they loaded the man inside.
	[i]Don’t die,[/i] she thought as she hopped in after one of the EMTs. [i][u]Please[/u] don’t die![/i]
	This was [i]not[/i] the kind of adventure she had been hoping for.