043 - Red string: The hospital!? I will be there soon

The mother of the little girl covered her mouth at the state of the sports car. Its red body had crumpled, its previously shiny appearance now looking miserable.

The witnesses of the accident who had decided to help ran over, and arrived beside the little girl's mother. With better composure, they hurried around the frozen mother and approached the car.

Inside, Alex shook the dizziness from the shock, and first looked at the small form in his arms. His heart skipped a beat, when he did not feel her moving. He brought his right hand to her little nose, and felt relief when he felt her breathing, and when he felt her pulse.

"Hey, are you alright?"

He snapped his head to the right to look at the owner of the voice who was by the broken window of the car and exclaimed:

"Get a doctor for the girl!"

The man looked at the girl in his arms, and nodded fiercely.

With the passenger side door crumpled and unusable, Alex pushed the girl out through the window of the door on his side that had closed during the spin of the car, and let the helpers outside take care of her.

As her feet left his hands, he felt her stir, then saw her open her dazed eyes, and a smile of relief appeared on his lips. Only then did he feel the pain on the left side of his chest.

A slight frown made its way to his face before fading away. He slowly lowered his arms, and watched as the previously petrified mother ran over to her daughter to hug her, and soak her in the tears now flowing freely even as the little girl remained in a daze from the shock.

The same man who had checked the interior of the car before turned away from the scene and looked at Alex again:

"Hey, what about you? Are you alright?"

Alex moved slightly to feel the rest of his body, then casually nodded:

"Yeah. Just help me out."

The door on his side was not unusable, even though it was dented in the middle after hitting the attenuators and transmitting the impact energy away. But the gathering close to the car, centered around the mother and daughter, made it not much different from the broken door on his right.

When he was finally able to leave the car, he ignored the crowd, and sighed, as he looked at his car. It was his first time driving it, and that was how it ended up.

He doubted anything like that could be a good omen.

He glanced at the mother and daughter duo, then flashed a casual smile at the cameras pointed his way, and made to leave.

The car would be left to the police which was arriving to take care of. He was thinking about who to call to pick him up when his phone that had been silenced while he had been thinking about life before vibrated.

He raised his eyebrows when he saw the name on the screen, and smiled before he picked it up:

"Sis, how did you know I miss you?"

However, the imagined eye roll, followed by a short banter didn't happen as he expected. Instead, Leyna's voice was low and serious as she spoke:

"Alex, the chairman is at the hospital."

Just that one sentence made Alex feel the world pause. A split second later, he forgot the pain in his body, and forced his way through the crowd surrounding the scene.

"I will be there soon."

_ _ _

_ _ _

A blue-eyed blonde with her hair like soft and gentle beige silk stood by the road at an intersection in another part of the city. Even when dressed casually, she looked beautiful. But at that moment, she could not care about much.

Her pupils were dilated, and her chest was just calming down from all the heaving, and all of that because of the accident that happened not far, involving the taxi she had barely left.

The taxi had only returned to the middle of the traffic. It had been in the midst of crossing the intersection when it was hit by an out of control truck, then pushed against a streetlight and almost folded in two.

Worse yet, the chaos caused more cars to lose control, and add to the number of victims.

The loud sound of the impact, the cringing sound of the metal crumpling and folding, they were still ringing in her ear and dominating her heartbeat.

It was a brush with death, one that, like anything that was an accident, she had not expected. Even as she tried to regain her composure, she was still showing much more of it than faint of heart.

At that moment, her phone rang, shaking her out of the haze of the shock after the second ringing. She picked up the call with subtle tremors running through her hand.

"Yes?"

"... hospital… miss…"

The woman didn't register much of what was said. But the mention of the hospital finally had her focus snap back into place:

"What? What happened?"

"Miss, we are calling you because of the state of the patient. You should make a trip to the hospital as soon as possible."

The blonde's heart didn't even have the time to calm down before falling into another chaotic dance. Another kind of fear flooded her body, and her hand trembled, almost losing grip of the phone.

At that moment, the smoke from the cars involved in the accident looked darker, and the red flowing from below the door of some cars, dripping onto the ground, looked more vivid, as if glaring at her.

Her heart dropped into her churning stomach, already imagining all sorts of situations with the patient because of whom the hospital called her.

Fear made her fail to find saliva to swallow, and she found it difficult to produce an answer.

The nurse's voice pierced through the haze of panic:

"Miss?"

"I– I understand! I will be there soon."