Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Leo

Riga, Latvia - modern days

Leo saw how his life led up to this moment, how all those little decisions taken, lessons learned, and the road walked led him to a wet ditch. How he will fly through the front window of his old sedan. All those years of struggle - doing pointless things. He was even too busy to bury his grandparents properly. And for what? For a job? 

Leo made one last wish to God and prayed hard, even if it was against his principles. He prayed to be forgiven for how he treated people who cared about him. To be forgiven for all the bad things said to his grandfather before his death. He never got to apologize for those. Lastly, Leo prayed to not be in the car but safely back on the road, for this situation to be just a dream. 

Leo hated the church and what it stood for, as he had to attend a catholic school when he was young. He had to go through the little rituals they practiced every morning. To sit and listen to a priest mumble about god, humility, and sacrifice. Not that he did not sacrifice time and will to struggle every single day. 

God did not do anything for him, so why should he pray? His grandparents did not let him transfer to another school as that one was the only and the last that accepted him due to his bad reputation and public record. 

Now Leo pushed aside his hate and prayed. His prayers were answered, some higher entity granting Leo his one miracle, even if Leo did not believe in them, thinking them a fraud.

In a split second, Leo winked out from behind the wheel and appeared on the side of the road. He watched his car slowly fly into the ditch and hit the bottom of it with the front at full speed. A huge splash of water followed. Meanwhile, Leo just stood and stared ahead, not comprehending what had happened. ‘What happened?’ he thought.

Then the sound of screeching tires hit him and pushed him out of his stupor. Next, a headache and nausea came over him, causing him to drop to his knees and clench his stomach. 

Leo kneeled on the ground, catching his breath, and thought, ‘What the hell is wrong with me? What is going on?’

After a short moment, he caught his breath and noticed the small BMW. It landed in a wheat field on the opposite side of the road, a few meters ahead of him. 

Leo slowly got up, holding his stomach, checking if nausea would come back. Without looking if other cars were around, he slowly stumbled to the red convertible, parting the wheat that had grown to maturity and was ready to be harvested. 

Leo grabbed the door handle of the car and tried to open it. It did not want to give, so he fumbled around a bit. Inside he found a young woman in her twenties, with platinum blond hair, wearing a branded sweatsuit. She had passed out behind the steering wheel. 

‘Thank god she wore a seatbelt,’ he thought and noticed a slight smell of alcohol in the car and a half-empty bottle of local vodka at the feet of a passenger seat. 

Leo disregarded the little details and moved to grab the girl and get her out of the car, but the training imparted by his ruthless driving instructor kicked in. Even three years later, since Leo got his driving license, he remembered the little bits and pieces his instructor taught him. Especially the ones related to first aid. 

Leo checked if the woman was breathing with his ear, finding, to his relief, that she was. Next, he checked if the car was in immediate danger of blowing up. He noticed it was turned off and not leaking fuel noticeably and decided not to move the unconscious woman, afraid to damage her spine. Then Leo took a step back from the car and got his phone from his pocket to call an ambulance. 

He waited for the phone to connect for a few moments, and a woman’s voice said over the phone said, “Emergency services, how can we help?”

“Yes… hello… I just had a car accident, and there is this unconscious woman behind the wheel in her car…,” Leo managed to say before he was interrupted by the operator.

“Please calm down, sir. Can you answer, first, are you hurt?” she asked. 

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“No, I am fine. I managed to get out of the car without a problem,” Leo responded.

“Alright, can you please tell me where you are? Are there any signs around you? Something that would help us identify where you are?”

“Y-y-yes, sure,” he staggered to answer, his head still not thinking straight. “I see a blue sign which says A5 road and that I am 50km from Riga on another sign. Does that help?”

“Thank you, yes. Can you please elaborate on the condition of the woman? Is she bleeding? Can you see if some part of her body is bent or trapped somehow in the car?”

“Sure, I see she has her seatbelt on and is not trapped. She is not bleeding. I do not see anything bent. The car isn’t wrecked. I checked her breath, and she seemed to be breathing just fine. I did not move her, as I was afraid to damage her spine,” Leo quickly explained.

“You did great,” the operator assured him. “Can you please tell me your name? For the first responders to know when they get there?” she asked. 

“Yes, of course, it's Leo. Sorry, my full name is Leon Monti,” he answered, sighing in relief, as he managed to pass the situation over to the ambulance. 

“Thank you, Leo. You did great. Please leave your phone turned on. I will dispatch a unit to your location. They should arrive within ten minutes or so. Please, continue to monitor the situation and wait for them to arrive,” the operator said in a kind voice. 

“Yes, of course, I will wait here,” Leo answered, ending the call and dropping the phone back in his pocket. He sat next to the car and felt relieved that it would be okay. That he was alive and well, god somehow had answered his prayers. Then the events caught up to him. 

‘What the hell?’ he thought, looking straight ahead. ‘How the hell did I get out of the car? I was going to crash into a ditch! Then I appeared…? Now I am here? Am I dead?’

The whole situation reminded Leo of the time when he was sixteen and hit his head against the pavement while playing ball. When he woke up, he could not remember the following five minutes and did not understand what had happened. 

Then nausea hit him again. It caused him to curl up in a ball next to the convertible, clutching his stomach. This time it was worse. He felt like his whole body was on fire. Every single nerve ending was burning and aching, causing him to spasm. 

The only thing he managed to notice was a foreign pressure in his head, torso, arms, and legs. Like he was being squeezed from inside out, ready to burst. As if his blood was boiling, raising the internal pressure all around him. Leo felt sick but was unable to throw up. He could do nothing but suffer and hope it would go away.

After a time, which seemed like an eternity, he heard sirens of the ambulance approaching. He tried to sit up slowly and carefully. After his second try, he managed to get his back against the car and take a full breath.

A first responder, who he could not see, ran up to him and started asking questions. All the sounds around Leo made no sense to him. He could not form a coherent thought and simply sat there with his eyes closed.

Seeing that Leo was not responding, the first responder got to work. He laid Leo down on the stretched his partner brought from the car, and made him comfortable. After a moment, they moved him toward the flashing blue lights. Leo closed his eyes further, feeling that he was losing consciousness. 

“Alright, that is everyone,” said one of the emergency workers. “Let's get them to the Riga First hospital and let the police deal with everything else here. Let's go!” They finished getting in the car, closed the doors, and turned on the sirens. That was when Leo fully succumbed to the darkness and drifted off, wondering if he would manage to see the girl with the platinum blonde hair again.

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