Hours later, the last cousin had hugged me farewell, Rishi and Chloe had been shooed out with promises of weekly video calls, and the house was finally quiet. I stood in my room, now mostly packed into boxes, staring out the window at the distant city lights -- the city where my ambitious new life was about to begin.
I was riding high on my own certainty. I had my plan: four years of intense medical school, a rigorous residency, followed by a fellowship in a top research institute. I would be methodical, brilliant, and successful. I had worked tirelessly, and now my reward was a clear, wide-open road.
My internal monologue: All those hours, all the caffeine, all the sacrifices -- it was worth it. I've earned this. I'm going to be the next great researcher. I'm in control of my life, my future is mathematically predictable and I like it that way. No drama, no chaos, just pure, beautiful, complex science.
I zipped up my last duffel bag, a faint smile on my face, feeling the satisfying weight of my achievement.
Humans can plan many things, laying out their lives like a perfectly charted map.
But I, Atlas, the brilliant planner, the methodical scientist, was completely, utterly blind. Destiny's plan overtook everything and mine was currently in the hands of a furious, confused fourteen-year-old girl, reminiscing about a faded photograph that connected my future to her grandmother's forgotten past. I had chosen a path, a very old one, that had just chosen me.
A SUDDEN HALT:
The highway was a ribbon of blacktop unfurling toward my bright future, the new city skyline a shimmering promise on the horizon. I was in my beat-up sedan, windows down, blasting some ridiculous 80s rock, feeling that pure, intoxicating freedom that only comes with leaving home for the first time. I was mentally reviewing the syllabus for my first anatomy class-- a perfectly organized man driving toward a perfectly organized life.
Then the world shattered.
It wasn't an accident. It was an impact -- a colossal, sickening crunch that slammed me forward against my seatbelt, stealing the air from my lungs. A massive dark SUV had swerved from the adjacent lane with chilling precision, hitting my driver-side door and sending my car spinning violently into the guardrail. The sound was a deafening, metallic shriek and shattering glass. Everything went blank for a terrifying moment.
When my vision swam back, the air was thick with smoke and the smell of gasoline. My head was throbbing, a deep, resonant pain. I was slumped against the deployed airbag, every breath a desperate, ragged struggle. I tried to move, to assess the damage, but a sudden, blinding spike of pain paralyzed me. I know with a horrifying certainty, that my leg was badly broken.
I fought to keep my eyes open, the sheer shock keeping me bothered to a fading reality. Through the fractured windshield, the world was blurry, tilted and wrong. And there, standing a good fifty yards away, just off the shoulder of the road and partially obscured by a stand of trees was a figure.
An elderly woman.
She wasn't running to help. She wasn't holding a phone. She was simply standing there, dressed in a strangely old-fashioned, dark coat, and her face was turned toward the wreckage. As my consciousness began its steep, terrifying dive into darkness, her image crystallized in my mind: thin, pale face and a subtle, unsettling smile. It wasn't a sympathetic look; it was one of grim satisfaction, like a grim reaper checking off a name on a list.
That image -- the quiet, triumphant smile amidst the carnage -- was the last thing my brain registered before the crushing darkness took over.