One Meter
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 1: The Crash
The rain came down in sheets, thick enough to turn the road into a mirror. The world outside Emily’s windshield was all motion and blur — wipers beating, tires whispering on wet asphalt, her headlights tunneling through the dark.
She’d been driving for hours, the night pressing closer around her. Just one last stretch of country road before home.
Then she saw it — a small, dark shape on the slick road ahead.
A hedgehog.
It froze in the middle of her lane, tiny and helpless in her headlights.
Emily gasped. She didn’t think — she just reacted. She twisted the wheel hard, trying to miss it.
The car spun. Tires shrieked. A flash of headlights — blinding white —
Then the world exploded.
Metal crumpled. Glass burst. Her body slammed forward, the seatbelt cutting deep into her chest.
When everything stopped, there was silence — a thick, ringing silence broken only by the hiss of steam and the soft drumming of rain.
Emily’s breath came in ragged gasps. Pain pulsed through her chest, but worse — her leg. A white-hot agony shot through her thigh when she tried to move. The dashboard had crushed in around it, trapping her in place. She screamed once, the sound catching in her throat.
Through the spiderweb of shattered glass, a single headlight flickered — the other car.
He was right there.
Barely a meter away, their hoods crumpled into each other, metal fused like two bodies locked in a desperate embrace.
Inside the other car sat a man, face pressed against the deflated airbag. His eyes fluttered open, dazed, then focused on her. For a moment, neither of them moved — both breathing hard, trapped in the same broken silence.
Then his expression changed. Shock twisted into fury.
He pounded the steering wheel once, the sound dull through the rain.
“What the hell were you doing?” he shouted, voice muffled but sharp enough to cut through the glass.
His words were thick with anger, disbelief — cruel in their edge. “You’ve wrecked everything! Idiot!”
She flinched, tears stinging her eyes. Her leg throbbed; every heartbeat was fire. She wanted to tell him — It was just a hedgehog. I didn’t want to kill it. But the pain stole her voice.
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