I knew.

Before it happened, I could feel it.

It almost didn’t happen.

If I hadn’t been on just that road at just that time.

His car passing my overheated one as I sat in it, seemed so…miraculous.

I’d not seen another car for at least an hour.

After realizing I ‘d no cell service, I’d kind of lost it. Then I calmed myself down, surrendering to the dawning reality that I was not going to make it to my friend’s wedding on time.

The fact that he stopped seemed so…amazing.

And he seemed so…genuine. (And kind of cute.)

Hope leapt into my chest like a butterfly. I could still make it!

I grabbed my bag and climbed into the passenger seat of his rather nondescript, conservative car. I took a deep breath in and thanked him again, settling in for the ride.

That’s when I felt it, as I looked down and checked that my cell was in its side pocket in my purse. The visceral dread in my gut.

I don’t know what changed, why suddenly everything that seemed so right suddenly felt so wrong.

But as I heard the car door locks click to “locked,” I knew I’d made a mistake.

And just as I looked up and felt the blade of a knife plunge into my waist, into the place where I feel most vulnerable, where it is a scary mix of ticklish fear to be touched, I saw that he knew that I knew I’d made a terrible mistake.

And as I left my body and watched what he did to my body from above, it all seemed so very, very…clear, and so very, very…inevitable.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: visceral