Turn Back Time

1st Chapter Part 1

============================================================================================================

It happened so fast...

I couldn't hear anything and couldn't grasp everything that is happening.

I can't even feel anything. It seems like the world became so slow.

As I became aware of what was happening around me, I felt a sudden pain on my head and lower body. There are people screaming, surrounding us. My brain accepted the smell of something burning.

It was my car...

and we got into an accident...

and it was my fault...

Panic crawled fast onto my whole body and felt cold as I tried to tilt my head on where So Hyun was sitting. My heart pounded so hard like never before and I almost wanted to throw up my insides. So Hyun--- she wasn't moving... She was bathing in her own blood and her face is full of glass fragments from the broken windshield of my car. Suddenly, there were people pulling us out from the vehicle... As I was being taken inside an ambulance, those people asked a few questions. But I couldn't answer. I don't want to absorb everything that was happening. I don't want to survive because my mind already accepted the fact that I already lost So Hyun.

She died...

and I am to blame.

I lost the one I love...

and I should pay for it.

After almost two weeks inside the hospital, I finally got out.
I had a lot of wound and injuries, and was required to undergo trauma therapy, but everything that happened to me was nothing compared to what happened to So Hyun... I didn't get the chance to see her before her family held the funeral. I couldn't cry and I couldn't even attend because I was too depressed and angry at myself. So Hyun's parents and siblings weren't mad at me for what happened and even took care of me while I was recovering.

I wanted everyone to hate me.

Three months has already passed and I still feel miserable. I still haven't paid So Hyun a visit at the cemetery and I couldn't focus on my review for the upcoming licensure examination for Civil Engineering graduates. It was like I stopped caring about myself. My parents wanted me to take a vacation abroad to recover but they were too afraid that I'd take my own life.

No... I don't  have the heart to do it because I want God to take back what he has given me. I want to get the punishment I deserve.

I stopped seeing my friends and classmates after what happened, ignored their calls and emails. I gave up my part time jobs and volunteer work at the local Home for the Aged. I shut everyone out of my life... including myself.

As weeks passed, I began to question God. I asked, why So Hyun? Why not me instead? What is his purpose? What am i supposed to live for? These never ending questions haunted my mind while So Hyun's dead face kept appearing in my dreams.

I became so numb.

I became heartless.

==============

It was the beginning of winter season when something unbelievable happened. I could not describe how I felt at that time when an old man handed me a very old pocket watch and muttered words I barely heard before walking away. All I felt was confusion because that man is a very familiar person. I know I've seen him somewhere before but couldn't point out the exact place. Everytime I remember something, it slips away.

It has made me even more frustrated... and annoyed.

After almost 3 weeks, I found myself walking aimlessly inside a crowded park holding this useless, old pocket watch. Out of curiosity, I fiddled with it and scrutinized every single detail until I accidentaly pushed a tiny button.

All of a sudden, the hands of the pocket watch went counter clockwise. The skies were filled with black clouds and then came in lightning and thunder along with strong gust of winds. And just as I began to head back, my head almost went numb when I saw everything around me was on rewind.

Everything.

Except for me.