Between Death & You

I was supposed to die.
I know that now.
The first time it happened, I didn't even have time to understand what I saw.
A truck or maybe a wild boar.
Or something else entirely.
And then the world stopped.
Frozen. Silent. Impossible.
That's when he appeared.
He was standing between me and death like he had always been there, like this moment had already been written long before I ever lived it.
He didn't speak. He didn't ask if I was okay.
He just raised his hand and rewrote reality.
When I opened my eyes again, I was alive.
The road was empty. The world had moved on like nothing happened.
And no one remembers a thing.
Except me.
And the mark burned into my wrist.
And the fact that this doesn't feel like the first time I should have died.
Just the first time I remembered.