It was getting pretty late on a Saturday night. Maybe I should have been out partying or something, but that was the furthest thing from my mind right then and there. I had just ended yet another short-lived relationship after only a couple dates. There was something that just wasn't clicking, but I had no idea what. All I wanted to do in that moment was sleep, but I had a long drive ahead of me to get back home. So there I was, cruising down an unfamiliar country road, dark and silent, with not another pair of headlights in sight. The shadows of the trees crowded either side of the roadway. Trying not to take my eyes off the road, I punched the power button on the radio with a finger, hoping I had left it on a decent station the last time I was driving.
"-that one was by King Harvest. We'll have some more classic rock coming up for you in a minute. It's just about midnight-"
I blinked. Was it really that late? I took my eyes off the road for just a second to glance at the clock on the dashboard. 11:59. No kidding. I stopped paying attention to the voice on the radio as he rattled off some legally-mandated station identification, but the words coming after that caught my ear again for some reason.
"You know, folks, we've got a full moon out tonight, and it's as big and beautiful as I've ever seen it. And here's a fun fact for ya, this is the first full moon of spring, which is actually how they determine when Easter is gonna be. It's already Sunday now, so Easter's gonna be the next Sunday after this. I don't know exactly how it works, folks, I'm just reading this off of Wikipedia. We're not turning this into a religious station anytime soon! Lemme see... oh, here's an appropriate one. Next up is Bad Moon Risin'."
As those famous guitar strains came through the speakers, I tapped my left foot on the floor in time with the beat. I risked briefly taking my eyes off the road again, as dark and dangerous as the road seemed. The guy on the radio was right - that moon was huge, and incredibly bright, too. If I were more of a daredevil, I might have tried turning my headlights off and navigating only by the moonlight glinting off the trees. Yeah, right. What a great idea that would be.
My eyes came back down from the sky just in time for me to spot something darting out into the road in front of me. I didn't have time to tell exactly what it was - all I could see was a flash of white in a weird shape, like it was walking on four legs but was trying its best to get up onto two. Whatever it was, it had to be a living creature, and I didn't want to just run it over. So I swerved, hard, to the right.
As my car careened past the shoulder and directly toward the nearby forest, I remembered what they told me in driver's ed - never swerve out of the way for anything smaller than a deer. No matter how bad you might feel about hitting something, the instructor had said, your own life comes first. It was too late to follow that advice now, or even to slam on the brake to stop myself. The next thing I remember was the airbag suddenly filling my whole vision. Watching it slowly deflate and reveal a cracked windshield, the trunk of a tree standing only a few inches ahead of me.
I tasted the stinging copper of blood in my mouth. My vision blurred and then tried to focus again. At some point, I must have thought I should get out of the car, because the next thing I remember, I was stumbling back up toward the roadway, my legs feeling like they were about to snap underneath me, my whole body pounding with every weakened heartbeat. I turned back toward the spot where I had veered off the road, and I couldn't understand what I was seeing.
The animal I had been trying to save was still standing right there, although with my hazy eyes I still couldn't make out just what it was. But the beam of moonlight that crashed against that fuzzy white shape was starting to do more than just glimmer. The light swirled around it in all directions, shimmering and shifting into a whole kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors that was now expanding outwards on every side. I couldn't look away - I don't think I could even blink. That display of light filled my vision, dazzling purples and greens and some colors I couldn't even name washing over me from every angle.
And then, more quickly than it had started, it was all over. The lights and colors disappeared, and I was standing on the side of a darkened road. I watched the critter scamper away into the forest on the other side of the road, looking more like it was walking upright than crawling on all fours. In a second, it had disappeared into the black of the night, and I was staring at nothing in particular.
Okay, I thought to myself, that must have been some sort of crazy hallucination. I must be losing it after that accident, I've gotta call 9-1-1. But before I could even think to reach for the phone in my back pocket, I patted myself down and realized that I felt fine all of a sudden. My aching head and body, the blurry vision, the blood in my mouth - it was all gone. Huh. I could have sworn that...
I turned back around to the wrecked car I had just stumbled out of, only to find it parked neatly on the shoulder of the road, without a scratch on it. Slowly, as if I was being pranked, I approached the driver's side door and opened it, half-expecting someone to jump out at me from inside. No, it was just as empty as I had left it. I sat down and turned the key in the ignition. The car roared to life, the engine purring as smoothly as it ever had. The radio came back on full blast - the song that had been playing before wasn't even over yet. I looked over to check the time again - 12:01.
Shrugging, I pulled off the side of the road and kept on driving - more carefully at first, as the shock still coursed through my otherwise unharmed body. But by the time I made it home, the bizarre incident had almost completely slipped my mind. I fell into a deep sleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, the adrenaline now long forgotten. Everything seemed completely normal to me. How was I supposed to know what would happen next?