I drove my foot into the breaks in horror when a figure jumped in front of me.

    Thump.

    “Oh my god.” I sat in my car, frozen, as I tried to register what had just happened in my brain. It was too early for this. Way too early. Did I just hit a person? At that realization, I sprang to life. With trembling hands, I ripped off my seatbelt and shoved my car door open - stepping out into the fresh forest air. The smell of nature was the only thing that gave me comfort at the moment. The sun was barely up, and I had already caused trouble - a big one at that. My heart was beating in a way that didn’t seem healthy at all as I carefully took step after step towards the front of my car. “Please let it be an animal. Please let it - oh god that is not an animal.”

    A person was sprawled across the blacktop in front of my car, and I rushed over and knelt down beside the unconscious figure. It was only then that I realized how wild the person looked. Observing the curvaceous figure, I realized that the person was a girl. Long, wavy, midnight black hair was tangled and littered with leaves; I couldn’t see her face, but she was wearing an odd looking shirt - or what was left of it - and an old-fashioned pair of pants (what was left of that, also). Her bare arms were smudged with dirt and held cuts, and the skin I could see through the girl’s ripped clothes seemed to be in the same condition. My hands were still trembling as I carefully reached out and turned the girl over. The first thing I checked was if she was breathing. The girl’s chest rose and fell, and I gave a sigh of relief. Then, I noticed something.

    She was pretty. Really pretty. Even through the cuts and the dirt on her face, her beauty was more than obvious. I smacked myself in the head for letting my hormones run free at a situation like this. I brought my thoughts back to the matter at hand. Other than the minor cuts on the girl, she didn’t look like she had suffered much injury from my car hitting her - which was odd (I was pretty sure I heard a rather loud thump) - but now wasn’t the time to think what was weird or not. SM Labs was only a ten minute drive from here, and I knew that that would be my best bet. The problem was, I was naturally petite, and the girl lying unconscious on the ground was bigger and taller than I was. I wasn’t sure that I could carry her - at least not without hurting her more.

    The girl shifted slightly and gave a small groan and I quickly made up my mind. Heaving in a deep breath, I gently grasped the girl by her arms and painstakingly pulled her up and began dragging her to the backseat of my car. Somehow, with the power of the stars above, I managed to get her inside safely, and I quickly jumped into the driver’s seat and revved the engine up. As I drove, I glanced into the rearview mirror and looked at the unconscious girl.

    This was going to take a lot of explaining.

~~

    “Rene! You’re here!” Chorong greeted cheerfully, skipping over towards my car.

    “Yeah, yeah. Uh . . . I have a problem,” I said, quickly undoing my seatbelt and pushing the car door open. I ignored Chorong as I made my way towards the backseat of my car.

    “What are you - Wait. Is that a person?! Is she dead?! Rene! You can’t kill someone and bring her to the lab! Oh my god, we’re all going to jail. We’re all going to the asyl - .”

    “Shut up! She’s not dead - just unconscious. I accidently hit her with my car. I swear she came out of nowhere, Rong.”

    Chorong stared at the girl with wide eyes before seeming to snap out of it. “I - I’m going to get Taeyeon. I was having such a good morning,” Chorong muttered as she rushed off.

    So was I, Chorong. So was I.

~~

    “She’s fine, Irene.” Taeyeon was looking at me with her arms crossed and her brow cocked. I knew that look. “So, mind telling me how the hell you hit this girl?”

    “Ok. I swear she appeared out of nowhere. I was watching the road the entire time, too! She just poof! and then I hit her.” I breathed out a sigh, my shoulders slumping as I did so. I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and I looked up to see Taeyeon’s coffee eyes looking down at me sympathetically.

    “Alright. I believe you. You’re usually the careful type. By the way. That girl sort of seemed like she was out there for weeks or something. You don’t know her at all, do you?”

    “No, I don’t. And I noticed that, too. Her clothes were all ripped and she was pretty dirty.”

    “Yeah. We’ll ask her when she wakes up - which should be soon, actually. Do you want to go over there and wait until she does?”

    I nodded quickly. I wanted to talk to her and apologize to her when she woke up, so waiting for her seemed like a smart thing to do. I followed Taeyeon as she led me to where the girl was being kept. As our lab was out in the wilderness, we always had a doctor and a few people trained in the medical field around just in case.

    “Alright. You can go on inside. Call me when she wakes up.”

    “Thanks, Taeyeon.”

    “No problem, Rene.”

    With a small smile towards the older girl, I opened the door and walked inside. What I saw made me freeze in my tracks and turn right around.

    “Kim Taeyeon!”

~~