She had barely rubbed off the cobwebs of drowsiness upon reaching the kitchen and opened the fridge door to see what she can make for breakfast.  It was still early, but for some reason, she woke up half an hour before her alarm sounded.  It felt like someone had been watching her sleep.  As she was going through some of the items inside, a faint sound of what seemed like screeching tires reached her ears.  Though that wasn’t new to her, it coming this early in the day roused her curiosity and decided to go and see what it was.  She first peered through the window by the living room, hoping to get a glimpse from that angle.  Not being able to see a thing, she then went to the front door.

A slight early morning chill greeted her as she slowly swayed the door open.  She tried to look around while still inside the house before stepping out for a much fuller view.  Clutching her arms as she stepped out, the chill became a small breeze while making her way to their picketed fence just before the sidewalk.  Her place was situated on a semi-public area, and cars passing by are not uncommon.  As she reached the front gate, she peered over it, checking her parked car out front.  She thought that maybe another car had grazed hers–or even bumped it–thus leading to the screeching sound, probably stopping to check what happened.  There was nothing out of the ordinary with her car, except that she noticed something tucked on the windshield wiper that flapped even with the slight breeze blowing.

As she stepped out of the gate to retrieve what seemed to be a small envelope placed on her car, she heard random chatter coming from down the street.  Upon clutching the envelope, she turned to where the sound of people gathering around was coming from.  She saw a small group of people about 10 to 12 meters away in the middle of the street where a car had stopped sideways.  “Another accident,” she thought to herself.  These weren’t uncommon as well as she learned of a couple of her neighbors figuring in such, mostly in the dead of night as cars tend to speed up while there are still people in the streets for some reason.  She managed to look at the envelope, and saw that her name was on it.

She became a bit curious as to why someone would leave something like that for her.  As she turned to head back inside, one of her neighbors who came from the commotion walked by.  She then asked, “what happened?  Who was it?”  The neighbor stopped, looked back at where he came from for a few seconds, shook his head, then faced her saying, “someone got hit by that car.  He’s not from around here though,” before continuing on his way.  Hearing that raised her curiosity even more, as there were not much other people coming and going within their area.  She almost forgot all about the envelope in her hand as the urge to see the aftermath up close slowly grew inside her while she tried to make sense of what’s going on.  Somehow, there was this voice inside her head telling her to go down the street and see for herself.

She decided to just get it over with and stepped out to head towards the now increasing number of people at the scene.  She could now hear sirens from a distance which are getting louder with each step she took.  As she walked closer to where people are circling around what seemed to be a male person slumped on the ground, she was able to get a glimpse of his feet and legs first.  From her perspective, the man was quite tall; but what made her suddenly feel anxious was that the clothing this man had was quite familiar.  From the shoes, pants, and jacket, she definitely knew that she had seen those before.

She started to tremble as she steadily grew even closer, not wanting who she was slowly starting to have in mind match the seemingly lifeless body laying on the street.  As more onlookers filled the area, her full view of the body was now being blocked.  Anxiety then turned to desperation as she decided to make her way past the ever-growing crowd, her heart beating faster and faster as she tried to push other people to the side; with tears now beginning to fall from her eyes.  When she finally reached to where she can clearly see the body right in front of her, she suddenly fell to her knees upon seeing the man’s face.

It was him.