Something followed us home on the highway and I still can't explain it

Okay I wasn't going to post this but it's been eating at me.

So I live out in the provinces and I travel to Seoul for work pretty often. That particular trip I went with two coworkers, one night two days. First day we had a big dinner with a client, got properly hammered, crashed at a motel around 2am, slept maybe two hours, then worked all day. By the time evening rolled around I was DESTROYED.

We grabbed a quick dinner and headed back. By the time we passed the East Seoul toll gate it was almost 8pm. I'd done all the drinking the night before so my coworkers were taking turns driving while I curled up in the backseat trying to sleep. We were taking the Junbu Inland Expressway, going through Yeoju, Chungju, Goesan, Mungyeong. Just past the Yongin rest stop, heading onto the highway. Early September so it was still hot out.

I was deep in that uncomfortable backseat half-sleep when I woke up freezing. Like genuinely shivering. (Yeah it was late summer but when you're that exhausted and crammed in a corner the cold just gets you.) Outside it was fully dark. We were cruising in the slow lane, nobody in a rush. I sat up and rolled down the window to light a cigarette.

That's when a car blew past us fast. Also in the slow lane.

And right after it passed... there was a woman. Just standing there. In the slow lane of the highway.

She was wearing a light blue dress. Holding a handbag tight in both hands. She was maybe 2 meters from my window as we passed and the headlights caught her face clearly. Mid-twenties. Neat, clean looking. Not dressed for a highway at night.

I just... stared at her for a second. Then I figured my brain was still half-drunk and I went back to my cigarette.

I was about to lie back down when something felt off. I don't know why but I looked at the back of the car through the rear window.

She was on the trunk.

Squatting on top of the trunk. Both arms spread wide, hands gripping the sides of the car. Clear as anything.

I whipped my head to the driver to see if he saw it. Then I looked back.

Gone.

I just sat there. Blinking. I'm trying to describe it now like it was fine but in that moment I genuinely stopped breathing for a second. She had BEEN THERE. Crouching on our trunk going highway speed and then just... not there.

I didn't say anything. Who was I going to tell. They'd think I was losing it from the hangover.

About 30 minutes later we got onto the Junbu Inland section and I asked if we could stop at Yeoju rest stop. Someone needed gas anyway so we pulled in.

I walked straight to the back of the car.

Nothing. No one. I almost laughed. Like okay, I imagined it, whatever.

I flicked on my lighter to grab a cigarette.

The flame lit up the trunk.

Handprints.

Two handprints in the dust from driving around Seoul all day. Exact position where her arms would've been. Both sides. Symmetrical.

I took photos on my phone. (They came out too dark to see anything when I got home so I deleted them but. I saw them. I know what I saw.)

---

Some time passed. Another work trip, same route. I stopped at Yongin rest stop for food and to use the bathroom.

There was a photo exhibition outside the bathroom. Traffic accident awareness thing. I had a burger in my hand and I was just kind of walking past it, reading the captions.

Then one stopped me.

*September [date]. Fatal accident, slow lane. An Opirus striking a temporarily stopped Avante, and the driver of the Avante who had been outside the car signaling for help was struck and killed instantly.*

Light blue dress.

In the accident photo. The body was covered with a white cloth but the hem of the dress was visible. Light blue. And there was a close-up of a handbag on the road. And one photo of the Avante's broken driver-side mirror with a photo tucked into it.

I knew immediately. Same woman. Same dress. Same bag.

The car that killed her was a black Opirus 2.7.

The car I was riding in that night was a black Opirus 2.7.

I looked at the date on the placard.

The accident happened about a week before we drove through there.