“You…I…What?” she stuttered, with a look of absurdness written on her face.

The cat stared back at her, his eyes twinkling with mischievousness. “Well now, this wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, but nevertheless, I think I like it.”

Myunghee looked around wondering where the voice was coming from before landing on the cat himself. “Are you…the one talking?”

The cat looked as if he was raising an eyebrow. “Look around you. Do you see anyone else in this room besides you and me?”

The cat spoke the truth. Myunghee was the only human in the small room. She looked back at the cat as the thought left her befuddled. “Oh my god, a talking cat,” she murmured as she tentatively brought her hand closer to the cat as if she was going to touch it but hesitated right before its eyes.

The cat stared at her hand as he seemed to laugh hysterically. He then stretched out his body and settled down comfortably on the white hospital sheets. He laid there and watched her curiously. “Is that the most important thing right now? That I can talk? Which, I might add, is not completely true.”

She stared back with accusing eyes. “You are talking. How else can I hear you?” She paused and mused to herself. “Is this a dream? Or perhaps I’m going crazy. That would explain a lot.”

The cat blinked at her lazily. “Technically, I’m not talking. I’m communicating with you through a telepathic connection. So, in reality, you’re the only one who can hear me. And trust me, that place was not a dream.”

“Huh,” she hummed, chewing on the bottom of her lip. “And to think that I thought that was all a dream.”

The cat opened its mouth slightly and made an inaudible laugh. But Myunghee could hear it crystal clear in her head. “Oh, this is real. Real as this place can be. You need to come to terms with it or else your life will only become more difficult for you to cope.” He yawned widely, staring listlessly at her. “So, have you come to terms yet?”

Myunghee gazed at him with interest and a bit of shock. “How can you do this mind-talk? Is this something you can do with anyone? Can I do this with anyone? Which would be pretty cool as well.”

The cat rolled his eyes and closed his eyes right after, lying peacefully on the bed, opened one eye to watch her. “No, you can’t. It’s something that I granted between you and me. Get some rest. It’s impossible to talk to you right now with your current mindset. You’ll understand better once you do.” With that he closed his eye and seemed to fall asleep.

Myunghee gawked at the cat who was taking everything extremely easily. Possibly too easily. But then again, so was she.

She rubbed her eyes. Maybe she was still dreaming. Maybe it would be a good idea to get some rest. She carefully lied down, closed her eyes, and fell deep asleep.

When she awoke, she felt better. Her body wasn’t stiff nor did she feel stinging sensations when she moved her body. Overall, a good recovery. And a rather fast one.

She noticed that the white cat wasn’t there anymore, and she sighed with a sense of relief.

It was all just a dream. A crazy, bizarre, and impossible dream. She laughed to herself. Because really, cats can’t talk in real life. Even though it would be interesting.

The door opened and the nurse from yesterday popped in. “Oh! You’re awake. That’s great. You’re free to go now. The doctor checked on you, and he said you’re fine. Just make sure you sign out on the way out.”

She passed some clothes to Myunghee. “Here, these are your clothes. Just change and you can be on your way.” She smiled and quickly left the room to attend to other patients.

Myunghee quickly changed and grabbed her bag that was sitting on the vacant chair next to the bed. She looked through it to see that nothing was missing. However, the thought of lost groceries came to mind. “Well, that’s a lost cause,” she thought hopelessly.

She knew she should call her parents and tell them what happened. The hospital most likely called her parents to tell them what happened. And she was not looking forward to that. It took some very persuasive words before her parents allowed her to live on her own. Now that this happened, well, let’s just say she wasn’t extremely excited to talk to them about this incident.

After she arrived to the receptionist desk and the nurse checked her out, she pulled out her wallet. “How much?” she asked.

The secretary momentarily looked confused. “Excuse me?”

“The bill. How much is it?” Myunghee replied.

 “Oh,” she noted with understanding, “you don’t have to pay.”

“I don’t?” Myunghee answered back with confusion. “Did some random stranger pay for me?”  

“Or did I pay when I was unconscious?” she quietly mused to herself, her mind still on the dream from before.

The secretary shook her head before chuckling slightly. “The man who was driving the car that almost hit you took care of everything. The hospital bill, the damage done on the streets, everything. He was quite apologetic. And frazzled.” Her eyes opened wider when she remembered what he had said to her. “And he wanted me to give you this.”

She handed Myunghee a small business card. “He told me to tell you that if there was any problems or questions to contact him.”

Myunghee quickly glanced at it without reading it and stuck in her pocket. “So, I’m free to go?”

The woman nodded and smiled. “That’s right.” Before Myunghee left the counter, the woman spoke up. “You know, you became a legend overnight.”

Myunghee looked up. “What do you mean?”

She smiled, “You literally could have died, but you survived with barely any injuries. The staff members in here are calling you a miracle. Some are saying that God himself was watching over you.”

Myunghee pondered thoughtfully over her words. “God, huh?”

The secretary smiled kindly. “You have a nice day.”

Myunghee looked at her and smiled back. “You too.”

When she reached the automatic sliding doors and came outside, the sun shone just as brightly as yesterday before she was almost hit.

She shook her head and considered herself lucky that nothing bad happened. She didn’t know if she wanted to believe that odd scenario where she was stuck in the white empty place, but she knew that it had something to do with the fact that she was standing here alive. Maybe it was a dream, but at least it was a dream that somehow affected her life.

“At least you’re smart enough to think that.”

Myunghee whipped her head up to see the white cat lying on the brick wall next to her, swishing his tail.

He watched her lazily, resting on top of the brick layer. “So, did you finally accept that this is your reality?” he asked.

Myunghee stared at the cat and then sighed, turning her attention back to the busy street in front of her. “For a moment, I thought everything was just a weird dream.” She looked up at the cat. “But now that I see you again, I guess it means I wasn’t dreaming. That I really did almost die.” She paused as she continued her thought process out loud. “And that you were the one who let me live?”

The cat smiled, that is, if cats could. “Ah, that’s the attitude that made me interested. Good, excellent,”

He suddenly jumped down to her and Myunghee automatically brought out her hands to catch him, her eyes bulging from surprise.

“What the hell? Are you trying to hurt yourself?” she hissed quietly at the cat.

He shuffled around in her arms, getting comfortable. He looked up at her and said simply, “Have you never heard that cats have nine lives? Plus, I trusted you enough to catch me, and you did.”

She looked at him with disbelief and sighed. “Now what?” she asked. “Are you here just to check up on me and leave?”

“As much as you would probably like that, I’ve come for a different reason. We need to talk.”

“Why do you sound like my parents?” she grumbled. She began to walk down the street.

“Where are we going? You look like you have a specific place in mind.”

She shrugged. “There’s a quiet place in the park where nobody goes. It’s nearby, so we can talk there. I hate to consider that people would think I’m crazy because I’m talking to a cat,” she mumbled sullenly.

The cat swished his tail idly and she could hear the grin in his voice. “You’re not crazy, just special.”

“So? Spill,” she announced, as she set the cat down and then collapsed on the black bench seated underneath a huge willow tree.

The cat lithely jumped up onto the bench and then onto the tree. He sniffed around, gazing at the quiet surrounding area before jumping down and settling down next Myunghee. The screams and laughter of children could be heard from the distance, but the trees muffled any sound from the busier side of the park.

There wasn’t anyone at this area of the park. Nobody liked to trek to this area because of the unnecessary amount of work it took to get here. What seemed to be thousands of stairs and a large hill blocked the busier side of the park from the quieter. And it wasn’t if people liked to venture there. They all thought it was spooky from the large willow and maple trees that grew there. It was also dark there, only small streams of sunlight penetrated through the leaves of the trees. The adults had told rumors of scary things happening there so their children wouldn’t get curious and hurt themselves where they couldn’t see them. There might be an occasional jogger or cyclist, but overall, hardly anybody went to this side for fun.

But Myunghee had found a shortcut to this part of the park.  A large and tall brick wall separated it from the busy street behind it. Myunghee found she could climb a part of the wall that dipped down considerably with the help with some loose bricks for footholds and the trees branches hanging over the wall for support. It took a little bit of effort, but she didn’t mind. She reasonably liked this cut off area. And of course, the cat took no effort to scale the wall and over.

 “Seems quiet enough.”

She sighed. She didn’t know why, but she felt as if she could read the cat’s facial expressions. Even though she knew it wasn’t possible for a cat to have those human-like expressions. Whether it smiled, grinned, smirked, frowned, and all those in between, she could understand it as easily as if it was a human.

But then again, it wasn’t exactly a cat or human was it?

The cat sat up and excitedly waved his tail back and forth. “Alright, I’ll let you go first. Ask me any questions.”

She bit her cheek in concentration. “So, Mr. Cat. I…”

“Stop,” he grumbled disdainfully. “Don’t call me Mr. Cat. I feel like you’re patronizing me. Which I don’t appreciate. At all.” His golden-brown eyes flickered to black then golden-brown again. He tilted his head, his collar’s nametag glimmering in the light as he did. “I believe I told you to call me something else?”

“Dongwoo,” she murmured.

“Yes. So I would be grateful if you obliged with my request.”

“So, Dongwoo, did I really almost die?” she whispered hesitantly.

He swished his tail in a loop and stretched, moving to a warmer spot on the bench. “Yes, yes you did,” he said in an almost bored voice.

“But nothing happened? The car was going to hit me; I was sure of it. But I don’t remember anything. Not the crash or getting hit. And I didn’t have any injuries? What exactly happened?” she blubbered out, questions coming out by the second and more forming at the same time.

Dongwoo looked up with a bit more interest. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Basically, I created a time loop. You were going to get hit, but I made it so another reality happened where you wouldn’t get hit. Think it as sort of alternative path. I just helped you move to the path where you wouldn’t get ran over.”

“I see,” she mused. “They did say it was a miracle that I didn’t get hit.”

He blinked at her with lazy eyes. “Exactly. In one reality, the car should have killed you on impact. But in the other, the car didn’t even hit you. It practically just brushed you.”

“Oh,” she mumbled. “And here I was thinking you stopped time and did something in between.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why does everyone think stopping time is so easy? Even turning back time is difficult. What happened happens. But before it happens, you can take a different route. Understand?”

She nodded. “Then that place really was limbo? Why didn’t you lead me to one of the places I was destined to go? Heaven or hell.”

He closed his eyes and was enjoying the warm sunlight heating up his body. His ears twitched when he heard something but nevertheless stood put. “Like I said before, your life was hanging by a thread. Right before you got hit and I changed your path, I brought you to limbo. Time doesn’t exist in there, so it wouldn’t have mattered to the outside world.”

He looked and smirked, “It’s surprising that you’re taking the fact that you almost died noticeably well. And the reason why I didn’t lead to one of those staircases was because I found you likeable.”

“Likeable?” she asked, befuddled that was the reason she was saved.

“And useful. But we shall get on that topic later.”

She thought for a minute, thinking of other questions she should ask. She looked at Dongwoo who seemed to be expecting something out of her. As if he was waiting for her to ask the right question.

A thought flew in her head, and she couldn’t believe she never asked him in the first place.

He sat on his haunches and whished his tail impatiently. He blinked his eyes in anticipation, and his ears twitched with excitement. “Well? Go on. Ask the question.”

“What exactly are you? Who exactly are you?” she asked breathlessly.

He grinned, “Finally. It took you long enough. I thought you would never ask, and we would have to go on this little question spree for a while.”

“Are you going to answer me or not?” she muttered, a little bit annoyed.

He laughed, “Of course, of course.”

He looked her straight in the eyes, his golden-brown eyes twinkling, and a small almost unnoticeable smirk on his face. “Hello, Kang Myunghee. I’m God.”

A/N: Definitely going to be a shocker for Myunghee. But obviously not for you guys cause, you know, the title kind of gives it away.

How do you guys like the story? I’m actually enjoying myself writing this. I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am.

Thank you for reading! And please stick around for more.