Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 7: Till death do we reunite

Joshua

      Always look both ways before crossing the street. Apparently the rule wasn't drilled into my head enough when I was a kid; it's so simple after all. How could I forget?

     "Joshua!" Someone cries out from behind me, and my head snaps up to finally take in my surroundings.

     I finally see the car coming right for me, and just like that my knees lock up like rusty bolts. My eyes widen as terror pulses through me, and my phone slips from my hand to clatter to the ground in a sound I couldn't hear. I can't hear the sound of my dad shouting on the other end of the line, nor the sounds of someone's frantic footfalls coming towards me. All my brain is able to process is the snarling of the car's engine and the sight of the panicked driver slamming the breaks. Her reaction isn't quick enough though, I know, the car is just too close.

    It's in the split second before I can even grasp the concept that this could be the end, that it all just— stops.

      In a blur of movement, the cry of crunching metal and screeching tires abruptly echoes in the area, and before I can comprehend anything, the car is immobilized. My heart pounding loudly in my ears drowns out the growing murmur of shocked pedestrians around us, and with the adrenaline rushing to my head I couldn't bother to notice them anyway. My attention is locked on the man in front of me, or rather, the man now in front of the car.

     Just barely a few feet from me the man stands hunched over the hood of the car, breathing in heaving gasps. The metal of the hood is literally crushed beneath his arms, and his hands are pressing heavily against it to hold himself up. He's tall and lean, not anything you'd expect from someone who just stopped an entire damn car, and if he'd been any closer to the car he would've been easily run over. Hell, he should have been run over. Nothing about this is possible, there is no way he should be alive.

    He shouldn't have been able to stop the car, both of us should be dead. But here we are, both very much alive. I can still hear the car running beneath his hands, and the hot air around us is filled with the smell of burning rubber, not only from the tires but from the man's shoes as well. I can see the thin black streaks on the concrete where he'd been vaulted back, his shoes digging into the ground. They probably have holes burned into them now.

      I'm still frozen in place when he finally moves. He takes a trembling step backwards, lifting his hands from the car's hood uneasily. It's then that he finally glances back with concern for me, and then that I finally see his face. As he hesitantly looks back over his shoulder, I'm met with a pair of startling green eyes that practically send a bullet through my brain. They're so familiar, I've seen them before, I know it.

    A lump of dread and unease starts to grow in my throat as I desperately look over the man again, searching for any signs that he's different from whom my brain wants to believe he is. But there's nothing to deny it. His messy hair is the same raven color, and despite only a glance of his eyes, I know if I were to stand closer they wouldn't look human. The horror that fills me as I finally start to accept the realization is only finalized as I pinpoint the one, unmistakable aspect of this man that sets off every alarm bell in my head. Curling over the sides of his face and the back of his neck are familiar, indubitable swirling black markings.

    It's him. Sundo.

    After all these years, the realization practically floors me.

    The man seems to notice my reaction instantly. His eyes widen, and I can see terror flash in them before, just like that, he's gone as quickly as he'd shown up. It's like he wasn't just practically hit by a car as he bolts down the street, turning down a side road before I can even break into a run after him. If it really is him, I can't let him get away, not after all this time. Where has he been? What's happened to him?! He looks so much older, there's no way he can be the same scared little boy I met as a kid!