Kat was on her way home from a night out, when she was momentarily blinded by a bright flash of light that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Feeling dazed, she found herself running off of the road, unable to react in time to stop herself from crashing into a tree. Luckily, she was able to quickly jump out of her car in time to avoid a painful injury.



Not as luckily, Kat had no idea where she was. As far as she remembered, right before the accident—which was only a minute ago if that—she had been on the main stretch of road, with which she was quite familiar, right before she turned into her neighborhood. And besides, she could see her totaled car right there, right next to the tree she had crashed it into. But she didn't recognize this area at all. Had she fallen asleep without realizing it, and somehow gone a long way before crashing? And what in the world was that flash of light? At least if she had fallen asleep, she was thankful the light had woken her just in time to save her from a much more rude awakening.



Deciding she'd try to figure out what happened later on, Kat pulled out her phone to see where she was. She opened the Maps app, only to realize the map wouldn't load because her phone's Internet connection wasn't working. "Great," she thought, as she looked for a street sign. "Walnut Street?" She'd never seen any street with that name in her neighborhood. Oh well, she figured. She'd have to call a cab to get home anyway, and presumably they would know how to get to wherever she was. She was glad she had stored the local cab company's number in her phone just in case something like this would happen, considering she couldn't look it up without an Internet connection.



Kat dialed the cab company. It rang a couple times, and a recording answered the phone. "We're sorry. Your mobile phone is not currently active, and only emergency calls can be made. Please call customer service from another phone to activate your device." She tried again, even dialing another number to see if it was just a glitch in the system, but she just got the same recording every time. And this may have been an emergency, but it wasn't the type of emergency you call 911 over—it would have been if she had been injured, but she wasn't.



Now Kat was very annoyed. Clearly something was going on that was beyond her understanding. Where had that flash of light come from, why was she suddenly in an area she didn't recognize, and why did she inexplicably not have her cell phone service activated? And of all places she was in an office park, where nothing was open this late, so she couldn't go into a building and ask for help. Out of options, too tired to walk anywhere, she sat down on a bench and waited, hoping someone who worked there would show up after hours for whatever reason.



Kat had drifted off to sleep when she was awoken by the headlights of an approaching car. At least something was finally going her way, she thought. She started walking towards the lot where the car was parked. When she got there, a passenger got out of the car, a blond-haired woman about her age. "Excuse me, my car crashed and I'm lost. Do you have a phone I can use real quick?" Kat asked the woman.



"I'm sorry, I left it at home because it needed to charge," she said. Kat looked dejected, but only for a second. "But I can give you a ride home if you want. You live nearby?" Feeling relieved, Kat gave the woman her address. "I'm not familiar with that street," she replied, punching it into her GPS. "...What? It says it's not valid??"



Once more Kat was disappointed, but it again didn't last long.



"Tell you what, I'll just pick up what I left at my office real quick and then you can come home with me if you want, and use my phone," offered Alyssa.



"Really? That sounds great, thank you very much!" Kat said, grateful for her act of kindness. "Should I wait in the car?" she asked.



"Sure, I'll just be a second," said the woman.



Kat got into the woman's car, in the front right seat, right next to where the woman got out. Looking around, she noticed something odd about the seat next to her where the woman had gotten out. There was a strange wheel-like thing in front of the seat, with levers and gauges surrounding it. Looking on the floor, she saw two pedals. As she was wondering what all that could possibly be for, the woman got back into her car, turned a key in a slot, pulled a couple of the levers, grabbed the wheel, and pushed one of the pedals. As she did this, the car started to move.



"What are you doing?" Kat asked her.



"What? You mean driving?" she responded with a laugh. "I'm not doing anything else right now; wouldn't be the best idea while driving."



"I've never seen anyone drive like that before. What kind of car is this?" Kat replied. "What are all those controls for?"



"What do you mean? How am I driving differently?" she asked. "And the only controls I see are the ones that every car has."



"I mean, like what's this thing for?" Kat patted the steering wheel.



The woman laughed, realizing that Kat was clearly just joking with her—or so she thought, anyway. Playing along, she answered her question in a joking tone. "Oh this? That's called the steering wheel," she explained. "I turn it to tell the car which way I want it to turn."



"Sounds difficult," said Kat. "Why not just drive the normal way? The way you're doing it, it looks like you're trying to make it more difficult," she continued. "Plus you're driving really awkwardly."



At this point, the driver wasn't quite as convinced that her passenger was joking. She sounded completely serious. Did this girl's car have some fancy control mechanism she'd never seen before? Was it one of those new self-driving cars she had heard about? She didn't think those were being sold yet.



"Wait, are you serious?" she asked. "What's this 'normal way' you're talking about? Can you show me, or can you not do it in this car?"



"Sure, I guess," said Kat. "Should work with any car, don't see why it wouldn't."



The driver pulled over to the side of the road and got out. She then started to realize she might have been making a mistake. After all, it didn't seem likely that this girl had never seen a normal car until now. Unless she was joking, which no longer seemed to be the case, she probably had some kind of mental illness or disability, and if she was truly unaware of how a car worked, she certainly shouldn't be driving one. Then she remembered that Kat said she had crashed her car, making her fear seem all the more likely. She was just about to tell Kat she had changed her mind, when she saw something unlike anything she had ever seen before.



Kat placed her hand on the dashboard of the car, and the dashboard almost seemed to ripple slightly. Was she seeing things? The woman rubbed her eyes, and when she opened them back up, she saw what could only be described as Kat's whole body being sucked into the solid dashboard.



The owner of the car just looked in shock at what just happened with her mouth agape, as the car's paint job changed as well, becoming black with a hot pink racing stripe, matching Kat's hair. The car's headlights, as well as the interior lights, turned the same shade of pink. The car's interior and leather seats turned a dark black as well. "What are you so shocked about?" Kat's voice came over the car's stereo. "Oh well, get back in, I'll take you to your home. I can tell how to get there from here."



The woman got in her car, at a total loss for what she had just seen. One thing she knew, however, was that she was quite eager to learn more about whatever it was, and fortunately for her, this girl she had invited home with her could probably answer every question she had.