Friday 7 a.m. November 4th

Michelle Kim woke to the smell of gasoline and the metallic taste of her own blood. She opened her eyes and blew long strands of black hair out of her face. Disoriented, Michelle struggled to compute what she was seeing. Through the cracks that spiderwebbed the entirety of her windshield, Michelle noticed the road had been turned upside down. The polyester of her seatbelt dug into the soft tissue of her throat imparting the truth of her situation.

I was in a car accident. Why am I here?

    The roof of the van pressed against her head, forcing her neck into an unnatural angle. She tried to straighten herself out, and jolt of pain rocketed from her neck into her head. It reminded Michelle of waking up in a crappy motel bed on crappy motel pillows times one thousand.

    A blast of chill air washed over Michelle sending shivers racking through her body. The driver and passenger side windows were no longer present to protect her from the elements. Instead, the windows had been obliterated into dust-like shards that were all over the interior of the car and in her hair.

    Michelle tried to get an idea of her surroundings through the windows. On one side, she saw a vast expanse of dead and dying yellow grass. On the other, she observed a monolithic square structure with metal beams supporting it. A sign with garish yellow letters read, "Nueva Vista Drive-In." Below that, a marquis with black, blockish letters said, "NOW PLAYING, A VAST OCEAN OF NOTHINGNESS." When they'd first arrived in Lancet Falls, Michelle remembered Ron telling her that people in their cars watched movies projected onto that square screen.

    Although this wasn't one of the roads she was familiar with, Michelle deduced that she was in one of the interstitial areas between the town and the country. That meant there wouldn't be a lot of traffic coming her way to help, at least not for another hour or two. Another gust of wind cut through her silk pajamas.

I might not have another couple hours. How did I even get here?

Michelle tried to recall the events of the night before.

◈

She eemembered leaving the mortuary while Ron took pictures. Officer Durant tried to exchange some chit chat, but Michelle was too shaken to listen to what he was saying. The drive back to their Motel Six was strained. Neither of them had known quite what to say after seeing something like that, and that suited Michelle just fine. Michelle learned from her parents at a young age, that when life gave her struggles, the only person that she could truly count on was herself. After years of emotional isolation, Michelle realized that philosophy had strengthened her against the difficulties of life.

    Throughout the evening, the chasm of silence between she and Ron only deepened. They ordered dinky Chinese takeout from one of the two restaurants in Lancet Falls. They dined on Chinese food in their separate beds without a word spoken between them. Michelle waited for Ron to make one of his trademark ethnics jokes to break the tension, but they never came. Michelle suspected that he needed her as much as she needed him, but years of emotional conditioning prevented her from sharing what she felt. If she externalized what had happened to Cade Jahns, in some weird way, that made it real. Michelle's internal workings needed to sort things out before she could begin to help someone else.

    The two of them retired early that night. Ron fell asleep to Seinfeld reruns, while Michelle tossed and turned. Every time she closed her eyes, Michelle saw the tormented soul of Cade Jahns. Even in the afterlife, wire enveloped him. His soul soundlessly begged and pleaded with her, but she couldn't understand what it was saying because of the wire spewing forth from the man's mouth.

    Michelle got up and did fifty sit-ups and push-ups hoping the endorphins would clear her head. When she closed her eyes again, Cade Jahns was there to greet her with his silent wailing, but he had gained a companion. A little boy stood next to him. The boy was naked with a large, sickly purple bruise covering the entirety of his chest. He didn't wail or scream. The blackened pits where eyes should have been were burning holes into her, but Michelle didn't feel any hint of accusation or pleading, all Michelle felt from the boy's eyes were waves of sadness and resignation.

    The next thing she knew, she was firing up the news van, still in her silk pajamas. Michelle knew what she had to do. She couldn't rest while the murderer of Cade Jahns was still out there. While she was tossing and turning in bed, the tingling in her spine had intensified. The killer was out there tonight, and she was going to find him. Michelle double checked Ron's camera was in the backseat, and drove off into the night.

    Aside from a flash of violet light that Michelle attributed to a blow to her head, that was all she remembered of the accident. Nothing in her recollection that would explain how she managed to flip a van on an empty semi-country road in the middle of the night.

   ◈

Michelle reached upward to unclip her seatbelt, but her limbs protested the movement. The cold had made her limbs sluggish to the point where Michelle's blood felt like sludge flowing through her veins. She attempted to depress the red button that would release her seatbelt, but it didn't budge. The act sent splinters of pain through her fingers. After a few more failed attempts, Michelle resigned herself to the fact that she was stuck. She needed a Plan B.

My phone.

    She scanned the interior of the car looking for her phone. Michelle never went anywhere without it, in fact, when she was on the job, she had one of those belt holsters for her phone. All she needed to do was call 911 and they would get her out of this mess. Michelle's neck tweaked in protest as she craned her head  to see if her phone was somewhere in the back seat. No such luck.

    Michelle took two deep, calming breaths. I'm not going to panic. Shimmying her hips back and forth and pushing with her legs, Michelle tried to maneuver out of the lap belt to no avail. In the act of saving her, the polyester belt had acquired a death grip on her waist.

    Plumes of air turned to mist in front her face at a quickened pace.

Keep it together Michelle. Panicking is unacceptable.

She gave the interior of the car another once over before resigning herself to the fact there was nothing in there to help her. One last option remained available.

    "Help me! Someone! I'm trapped."

    The yell felt weak coming out of her throat and inhaling so much cold air forced her into a coughing fit. Michelle steadied herself and starting yelling again, praying someone heard her and called the authorities.

    In response to her seventh yell, the Earth rumbled. Michelle stopped and listened, but the sound had ceased. She waited to see if it would come back, but heard nothing.

"If there's someone over there, please help me!"

    The ground reverberated back once more, but this time the sound didn't stop. In fact, the amplitude increased in volume. Michelle and the car started to feel the vibrations too, and little bits of glass dust began to hop up and down, as if in anticipation. She looked to the horizon trying to catch a glimpse of the cause. Whatever it was, Michelle knew it wasn't coming to rescue her.

    It felt like it was almost upon her, but she still couldn't see anything. Abandoning all sense of decorum, Michelle started frantically jabbing at the seatbelt release and screaming as loud as she could muster. She couldn't even hear herself over the rumbling.

    The world around her started to slow down as if everything was moving through Petroleum jelly. Sounds felt like they were reaching Michelle from miles away. All she could feel was the pounding of her heart in her chest, a pump of valves and striated muscle working overtime to transport oxygen and adrenaline throughout her body, but that's not all it was doing.

    Michelle imagined the strangest thing, her heart pumping something new. A violet liquid that mingled with her blood to deliver vital nutrients to her cells. They drank it up hungrily like a necessity they didn't even know they were missing.

    The world snapped back into real time. Michelle's surroundings were illuminated in a way that felt like her eyes were opening for the first time. She could see individual imperfections in the shards of glass on the floor. Every single blade of yellowing grass was visible down to the tiniest insect nibble.

    Warmth coursed through Michelle's body. Her limbs shrugged off the lethargy like a winter coat that was no longer needed. She was aware of her body in a way that she would have never dreamed possible.

    The belt release gave way underneath the force of Michelle's index finger. The plunger kept moving downward separating the different sections of plastic and continuing into the gear mechanism. Michelle pushed so hard her hand kept going and the metal gear release cut the skin between her thumb and index finger as it passed. The belt scraped across her neck as it snapped back into place. Michelle fell, her body tumbling onto the roof.

    Michelle examined her hand. The cut had felt deep, but her skin was already knitting itself back together. Michelle's brain was in full fight or flight, and she didn't have time to process how illogical the previous chain of events were.

The rumbling felt like it was right outside the passenger side window, and the opening to the driver's side window was crushed against the paved road. A golden retriever would have a hard time squeezing through, let alone a full grown person. She considered scrambling through the back seat, but instinct told her there wasn't enough time.

    Michelle remembered what had happened to the belt buckle and was given a flash of inspiration. She put both her hands on the top side of the driver's side opening and pulled. The metal ripped free from its housing, tearing upwards and outwards easily as would an aluminum can. Michelle leapt out of the opening looking to the field for the source of the rumbling.

Even with her enhanced vision, Michelle couldn't see a damn thing except the source of her accident.

    A deer lay in the middle of the road, a skid of blood behind it indicating where it had been dragged against the pavement. Aside from the blood, the deer's body looked intact, but its torso looked sickeningly flat, like it had been crushed underneath a screaming metal death trap. Michelle shuddered and it had nothing to do with the cold. She'd never killed anything before, not even a fly. Her parents had instilled in her a respect for all life.

    Movement.

It's chest seemed inflate ever so slightly, before deflating once more. Michelle couldn't tell if it was the vibrations from the ground, but she could have sworn that it was still breathing. The deer had suffered a death blow and yet it still clung to life with tenacity, and Michelle couldn't decide if that was worse than dying outright.

    Promising herself she would come back and give the deer a proper burial, Michelle turned tail and ran. The sound of soft footsteps stopped her mid stride. They were coming from the abandoned drive-in about two hundred yards away. Michelle saw a girl in the center of a circle of blackened dirt and gravel that looked like it had been burnt. The girl kneeled on her hands and knees raking her hands through the dirt, a look of desperation on her face. Despite the distance, Michelle had a clear view of what the girl was looking was, a pair of glasses with cracks marring the right lens.

    Michelle sighed and started closing the distance between her and the child.

All I ever wanted was a story.

Michelle had always prided herself on her running. Cross country was perfect fuel for her competitive nature. The sport embodied her drive to push herself farther and farther, past the point where the body gives up and the mind takes over, but she had never run like this before. Michelle guessed that she'd closed the entire distance in under 10 seconds.

    Over the shaking of the Earth, the girl called out, "Who's there?"

    "Someone who has a nose for trouble apparently," Michelle replied plucking the girl's glasses from the ground and wiping off dirt with the hem of her night shirt, "You looking for these?"

    The girl put on the glasses without reply.

    Michelle reached out her arms for the girl to hop in them.

    She peered at Michelle with bright eyes the color of onyx and skin the color of caramel seared to perfection. Although she was half Michelle's size and looking through glasses that looked like they'd been put through a blender, the girl's gaze seemed to be appraising Michelle and measuring her worth.

It's like she is staring into my soul.

    "You got rocks in your pocket? Let's get moving."

    The girl looked at Michelle again and then nodded. She wrapped her arms around Michelle's neck and locked her legs around Michelle's waist. The girl's hair, peeking through the back of a New York Yankees ball cap, pressed against Michelle's cheek. It smelled like burnt chlorine. Michelle broke into a dead sprint towards town.

She heard a pathetic mewl escape the deer's mouth and the sound of its body being dragged against gravel, but didn't dare look behind her.

For the first time since she'd seen the body of Cade Jahns, Michelle felt powerful. Michelle cut through the cool morning air. Until that moment, she'd never understood the purpose of a motorcycle, but the feeling of being one with the road and the elements was liberating.

    "Excuse me, you just passed my house," the girl whispered in Michelle's ear.

Michelle skidded to a halt. The house the girl was referring to was a lone duplex in a swathe of land that had been marked for construction. A sign that read "Falls Village: Coming Soon" had partially peeled from its frame. Due to the knee high yellow grass, Michelle gathered that they'd been waiting on "Soon" for quite some time.

    After depositing the girl on the lawn, Michelle wasn't sure what she was supposed to do next.

    Do I tell this girl's parents what just happened? Won't they find it weird a random woman picked up their daughter and ran? What kind of parents even let their kid wander around this early in the morning? Don't kids have school?

Michelle was at a loss. When her friends asked her to hold their babies, she'd always joked that whatever God was out there forgot to attach the motherly instinct. Kids gave Michelle the creeps. Michelle knew she had been a kid at one point, but even when she was, she didn't bother making friends with other kids. Even in sports, Michelle preferred golf and cross country; sports that didn't require her to be a part of a team.

    Standing awkwardly next to a kid on their front lawn, Michelle contemplated leaving and letting the kid's parents sort it out. They wouldn't be able to track anything back to her.

    The news van. Shit.

"Alright kiddo, better let your parents know what happened. Last thing I need is rumors going around about the crazy Asian woman from out town," Michelle said walking towards the front door.

    The girl ran in front of Michelle to stop her, "No that's okay. My mom is at work and my dad is still asleep," she said without making eye contact. Every time her eyes met Michelle's they darted away, and she would start biting at her lip.

    Michelle didn't need a job ferreting out the truth to know the kid was lying. The realization made Michelle take a step back. The girl was wearing, a pink T-shirt that fit too tight and didn't extend past her belly button, jeans that reached to a point six inches above her ankles, and a pair of pink Air Jordans.

This kid is up to no good.

    "I think I'll wake up him up. I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear his daughter is safe and sound." Michelle said trying to angle past the girl.

    The kid jumped in front of her again, "Please don't. I was sleepwalking and it would just worry my parents. I've caused them enough trouble," she pleaded, still biting at her lip.

Lying.

    "Medical issue? Sounds like something a parent should know about," Michelle replied, sidestepping the girl once more.

    "No! Don't!" Michelle heard her call out.

    "What's in it for me?" Michelle called back while still walking forward.

    "We have money! Cash! I'll go inside and get it. Just wait right here," the girl said trying to dart past her.

    Michelle laughed and  grabbed the girl's arm as she hustled past, "Hasn't anyone ever told you information is worth more than money?"

    The girl seemed to think about the question before she responded, "Once," she paused, "I'm not sure I know anything valuable."

    "Value is in the eye of the beholder and reporters value more than most, and the reporter in me is itching to know. Why was a little kid out in the middle of an abandoned drive-in this early in the morning in below freezing weather without so much as long sleeves on for warmth? It sure as hell wasn't sleepwalking."

    The girl's brow furrowed as if she were giving Michelle's question a great deal of thought.

    "I'm sorry. I lied before, but I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm no good at it, but I still can't tell you," she said looking into Michelle's eyes, and Michelle saw pain swimming behind those eyes, more pain than any kid should have to deal with, "I'm really sorry Miss."

    Michelle's eyebrows perked up with interest. The girl's words had stoked the flames of her unquenchable curiosity. She did battle with two opposing sides of herself, The side that wanted to probe further and dig at the girl's wounds to get to the juicy secret within, or the side that knew she needed to let the subject rest and live without an answer. The former won in a landslide.

"Don't you know you can't say things like that to a reporter? Spill it kid, your secret is safe with me; I just gotta know," Michelle said hating her lack of self-control, her compulsive need to keep going no matter what the cost.

    Michelle Trick #4 - Knowledge is power.

The girl wrapped her arms across her chest trying to conceal her shivers. The girl's shivering reminded Michelle of her own choice of clothing. Whatever state had come over her in that crushed car was starting to wear off.

I guess those stories about little old ladies lifting cars have some truth to them.

    The girl thought about Michelle's question longer this time, "It's not safe."
Michelle started to tell her that she was a big girl and could handle herself, but the girl interrupted, "For anyone."

    By this point, the girl's teeth were chattering making a series of rapid, little clicks. She looked up at Michelle pleadingly. They begged for her to just leave it alone.

    Michelle pretended she didn't notice the look, "How about I worry about my own safety?"

    The chattering and shivering stopped. The girl gritted her teeth with resolve, and resolve steeled over her eyes.

"No offense Miss Reporter, but you don't understand. I'm the only one who can do anything about all of this. If I tell you, I'll be putting you in danger, and I've done enough harm. My parents really aren't home. That wasn't a lie. Do what you have to do, I've got to get ready for school."

     The girl delivered the speech politely, but made it clear there was no room for discussion, and that she had closed the book on the matter. Michelle wanted to be angry, but she admired the kid for sticking her ground.

    Michelle smiled and put her hands up in surrender, "I just have two more questions. They're easy ones. Pinky promise," she said with a wink.

    The girl nodded assent. Michelle couldn't help but notice the irony of the situation. The girl asserted herself and took control of the situation. It was a rare occasion anyone got the best of Michelle Kim.

Maybe kids aren't all that bad if I can even call this one a kid. She's like a mini adult.   

"What's your name?" Michelle asked.   

The question put her off kilter for a half second, "Jordan, Jordan Bryant."    "Michelle, Michelle Kim, reporter for The Chronicle. If you ever change your mind, here's my card. I have a feeling I'll be around awhile."    Jordan took the card and smiled.

The pain in Jordan's eyes was still there, but it was a beautiful smile regardless. It was the first time Michelle had seen the girl drop her serious demeanor, and Michelle was glad she did. Kids were supposed to smile, and a tiny piece of Michelle's heart broke at whatever had forced this kid to grow up too fast.

"What's the second question?" Jordan asked looking at the card in awe.   

"Can I use your phone?"

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, SaintCole here,

Thanks for reading this far! This chapter was exciting to write, because I got to introduce Michelle's power AND have the first interaction between main characters AND another myserious happening!

If you liked it, be sure to leave me a vote. Get into the holiday spirit and all that :)

I want more of your theories my friends! What did you think of Michelle's power? How about seeing Jordan from someone else's POV? Finally, what the heck do you think the rumbling in the ground is?

Thanks again :) This chapter marked the most I've written for one single project. I owe it all to you guys.