The Girl Who Lived Outside of Time

His eyelids slid. Heavy as they were, he struggled to keep them open. A starless night had fallen, leaving the world dark. He drove on. The road was bumpy. Not much else was expected this far out from civilization. Out here there were trees and dirt. It was quiet. Peaceful. Out here, with no one around for miles upon miles, all one's worries flew away with the wind. Sometimes, he would pretend the rustling of the leaves were his problems dispersing through the trees, disappearing forevermore.

The radio turned to static. He was truly in the middle of nowhere now. It was all familiar. The seemingly endless, open field to his left. Pitch black in the night. The forest growing shortly off the road to his right. The dirt path he drove on, only existing for wanderers like him. Wanderers, looking for a place where the noise of the world cannot reach them anymore. A place where their mind would no longer be cluttered by the thoughts of others, or influenced by the masses. A place to call home.

His hand flopped for the radio, attempting to turn it off. With his mind only thinking of home, barely able to focus, he could not remove the noise. He looked over, carefully finding the knob on the radio, pressing it. The world became silent. As his eyes turned back to the road, he wondered how so much could change in an instant. The sound of the old truck he drove vanished. The field to his left gone. The forest to his right ceased to exist. His eyes, heavy as they were, widened.

She jumped from the side of the road, in front of his truck. A familiar face. In the split second he saw her before violently swerving his truck, he had no doubts. No hesitation. No indecision. He recognized the face of the young woman standing on the road before him. As he swerved his vehicle around, he looked at her. Locking eyes with hers.

Eyes indescribable. Unlike any other. Unlike anything else in the world. As he looked into them, those soft-blue, nearly gray eyes, pierced into his. He was overcome with an immense feeling of opia. Those eyes, those indescribably piercing, penetrating, cleverly-astute eyes, looked back at his, following him as his truck spun out of control, and they said, everything, every last word and emotion they needed to say. In that split second, starting from the mere moment he lifted his eyes from his radio and returned them back to the road, when his lowly eyes met hers, a thousand lifetimes could have been lived as time itself ceased to be, and as he looked into her eyes, he saw the window they became. A window inside her. Deep down. Into her soul.

She tried so desperately in that eternal instance not to show it. To hide how she felt. To remain strong. He could see it all. The slight tremble on the edge of her lips, and she fought to keep herself neutral. She was trying, through every last ounce of might within her body, not to show him anything. She was failing, but stood firm. She followed him, in his out of control truck, with her eyes, letting him slip in. For whatever walls had been built before that moment, were broken and crumbled.

His car flipped to the right of the road, having swerved around the young woman of recognizable nature. Though the sound of the metal crunching around him as each flip crushed the car a little bit more was surely and certainly deafening, he heard not a single sound. He felt nothing. No pain. Nothing at all. All he did was close his eyes and wait for an old friend to return. A friend still needing to wait.

The truck finally stopped. He kept his eyes closed. His mind unable to focus. The world was dark still. The world was quiet. He felt not as she approached the mangled mess that was his truck. Nor when she freed him from his seatbelt, or when she brought him out to the soft, cool grass below. She kept her hand in his, holding firmly. Slowly, the sounds of the world began returning to him. There was no wind. No rustling of leaves. No people. No cars. No bugs flying in the dying air. All he heard was a single word, spoken softly above him. Repeating again and again. All he could heard was her saying his name. He opened his eyes, and all he saw were hers.

She smiled, her eyes still trying to hide the pain. Without a word, or warning, she bent down and hugged him. To his surprise, there was no pain within him. There was nothing. As his mind refocused, he realized, he was okay. She grabbed his hand pulling him up, motioning for them to move. He followed suit, without question. Though a thousand filled his mind. Why her? Of all the people he had met in the journey of his life, why her? Why was she here? Why was she the one here? The only person to never be able to leave his mind, like a weed entangling itself amongst the crops. But she was no weed. He wanted her there. He wanted the thoughts of her. As the years passed without seeing her, they were all he had.

Now there she was. Holding his hand, leading him further through the grass towards the forest. Away from the accident she had caused. When they reached the trees, she hid behind one, and he did the same. With a single, small movement of her wrist, she motioned for him to look back to the road. He was unsure if he wanted to. He was unsure of anything in that moment. Except, for some inexplicable reason, the young woman who had been out of his life for the last six years, suddenly had his full, undoubtful trust. He looked back to the road.

There she was. All alone hiding in the grass, she watched the dark road, waiting. He turned back to his side, only to find his companion still there, watching herself with the same awe he did. His gaze turned back to the road just in time to see this new version of her, of his friend, his long-time memory, jump into the road. Just as he had experienced mere moments before, he watched as his truck came down the road, swerving at the last second to miss the young woman, and go tumbling into the grass.

A tug of his hand meant it was time to move again. She took him further away from the crash, staying amongst the tree line still. He needed no direction this time. The carnage of his old truck had his attention. From the corner of his eye, he watched the newer version of his recognizable friend as she slowly made her way from the road down to the truck. Her movements were precise. Without question. Every step was where it needed to be. She pulled him flawlessly from the vehicle. He watched as she called his name and waited for him to rejoin the world.

He could not understand. Standing amongst the trees he drove past every single night, watching another him experience the same events he had just gone through. Surely, he had died. That was everything. Perhaps he had hallucinated the young woman he could not remove from his thoughts, and in doing so, flipped his car and died. Now, he watches to understand what happened. There was no pain. No suffering. He could not understand.

But she grabbed his arm again, this time pulling him close. She hugged him tight. His arms slipped around her. Tears formed in her eyes, silently falling to the world below. He could not speak to ask why, for somehow he understood this cycle he had experienced was not her doing, but instead a torment she suffered through. He held her tight. It was all he could do. She whispered in to his ear, her soft voice sending a tingle down his entire body, "Find me when you wake."

The world went black. She was gone. Each tree in the forest too. The grass beneath his feet. Everything was gone. In an instant, a flash of a second, he was on a beach. The weather warm. The sky bright. The wind blew softly and the trees rustled. He knew what he was to do. He had to find her. The girl with the indescribable eyes. The girl who never left his mind. The girl who lived outside of time.