In retrospect, Olive wasn’t going to die.  The car spun off onto the shoulder where it wouldn’t be struck by other vehicles - and especially not by the semi-truck she saw out of the corner of her eye moments before the car flipped.  While the collision between the two vehicles was enough to roll the car, it still wasn’t quite high-speed enough to cause bodily harm through sheer force alone.  The bridge was a half-mile ahead and there were no other obstacles to run into that could crush her car.  It was a survivable accident, a terrifying rear-end collision caused by someone texting while driving on the highway, but survivable nonetheless.

But when the car was upside down and she hung weightless, when the steering wheel wrenched itself out of her numb fingers, and her vision shut itself off as if that could save her from whatever came next, she had only one thought.

I’m going to die.

It was far too soon.  She was only nineteen.  She’d be twenty in just a few months.  It was her second year of college and she’d finally declared her major to be business administration, because honestly, she wasn’t sure what else she wanted to do and it seemed like that could get her a job anywhere.  Her parents said her problem was a lack of focus - not that it was a bad thing to have a lot of interests, but it certainly made college harder.

She supposed none of that mattered now.

Her poor parents.  They’d be heartbroken.

And then there was an impact and Olive’s unnatural calm vanished in a flash of terror and she braced herself for the pain she knew had to be coming.

Instead, there was a flash of light, an odd blue-purple luminescence and she thought that this was odd, didn’t people say there was a white light upon dying?  Then an impact, something hard and unyielding beneath her, a roaring in her ears like the wind of a storm, and finally the expected nothingness claimed her.

She woke abruptly.  Like a lightswitch being flipped.  For a moment there was only panic, for she didn’t know where she was or how she’d come to be here.  A dream, she thought.  She’d been dreaming and now she was waking - by why was she not in her bed?  Was that… sunlight?  Was she surrounded by people?

Then, sluggishly, her mind recalled fragments.  There was a car accident.  She didn’t feel dead.  She focused on the person leaning over her, frantically searching for his eyes, as if he could help her make sense of this.  A paramedic - no.  No.

He shone.  Was that… armor?  The light caught on the shoulders of the shirt he wore, metal links peeking out from underneath a wool mantle.

A giggle bubbled up in her chest.  She couldn’t help it.  There was nothing that could explain what was happening right now.  The man staring down at her frowned, his cold blue eyes narrowing.  He reached for her and she recoiled, shaking, but he only touched the side of her head.  Gently.  The tightness in her chest relaxed and her body felt heavy and then, with the man still carefully holding her head so it did not strike the ground, she collapsed into a deep sleep.

When she next woke, it felt like waking in her own bed.  There was a pillow beneath her head.  The room was dark and quiet and for a brief moment, she drowsily thought that this was all just a dream.  Then she realized the texture of the sheets were different and the mattress wasn’t as firm as she was used to.  Slowly, she sat up.  The room was lit only by a single candle, a flickering stub on a narrow wooden table against the opposite wall.  There was a chair, the bed she lay in, and nothing else.  Not even a window.  

Slowly, she swung her feet over the edge of the bed.  She still wore the clothing she’d had on at the time of the accident, but someone had taken her shoes.  A thoughtful gesture, she thought, but it would be nice if they’d left them in the room.  Her glasses sat folded on the middle of the table next to the candle.  Nothing else was missing and other than aching muscles across her back and neck, she was unhurt.  

She wasn’t dead.  But nor was she where she expected to be.  She was… elsewhere.  Her breathing quickened and resolutely, she pushed the encroaching panic away.  Later.  She could collapse later.  For now, she needed to understand her situation better.

The door to her room was locked.  She fumbled with the handle a few moments before reluctantly admitting defeat.  Nothing to do but wait, she supposed.  

And with nothing better to do, she finally succumbed to the emotions that could no longer be held back.  Fear, grief, disbelief.  It was a heady concoction, overwhelming in intensity, and she threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillow to stifle her cries.  She wanted to scream.  She sobbed until she could barely breathe.  This was all - bewildering.  Overwhelming.  What was happening to her?

A rattle from outside.  Someone unlocked the door.  Olive sprung to her feet and hastily wiped her face with the edge of her shirt.  It wouldn’t be enough to hide the fact she’d been crying, but at least it was an attempt at looking presentable.  

The door swung open and light poured in.  Framed in the doorway stood a man, slender, with startling blue eyes that caught the light of her solitary candle like they were made of ice.  No - they were the color of ice - so pale they only contained a hint of blue beneath the frost.  She’d seen them before.

He entered the room uninvited and kicked the door shut behind him.  Startled, Olive took a nervous step backwards.  Her knees caught against the bedframe and she stumbled, sitting ungracefully in a rush to avoid falling backwards onto the bed.  Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as the man paused to regard her for a moment.

“Easy there,” he said coolly, as if he were calming a spooked horse.  “I’m only here to talk.”

He pulled out the chair and sat down.  He was, she realized, quite handsome.  Slender, but also muscular.  Wiry.  His hair was the color of young wheat and he wore it in a ponytail, tight at the base of the skull.  A light scattering of freckles dotted his wind-burned cheeks.

“So,” he said, slouching in the chair, his gaze intent on her.  “You’re from another world.”

There it was.  Confirmation of what she’d been afraid to admit to herself.  Olive squeezed her eyes shut and clutched at the fabric of the sheets beneath her.

“Yes,” she replied in a small, scared voice.  “I suppose I am.”