The Drag Path of Heavenly Creatures

Chapter 1

Notes:

English is not my first language, and I used Chat GPT to help with the translation. Please be understanding of any grammatical errors or awkward phrasing. Thank you for reading!

Chevrolet Malibu glides through the darkness.

He cracks the window open. His fingertips are trembling. Night air lashes against the glass and rushes into the car, sweeping away the sticky metallic smell. Blood still seeps from the stab wound in his side, and the ivory jacket he's wearing has long since been stained red.

He doesn't know where he's driving.

The road is empty. Everything around him is pitch black.

Inside his head, fragments whirl together in violent circles — the last phone call, the way Irene's lips had felt when he kissed her, the look in her eyes when she looked at him.

At the center of the storm is her expression. The look on Irene's face before the elevator doors closed. Those frightened eyes staring at him.

He knows he'll remember them until the day he dies. Other memories may blur together, may fade beneath the weight of time, but this one will remain motionless at the eye of the vortex, silent and unmoving forever.

He presses harder on the accelerator. Wind pours through the open window and dries out his eyes as it strikes his face.

Eastward.

Further east.

She sits on a barstool, resting her chin in one hand as she flips through a page of her book. Then she flips back to the previous page.She's already repeated the process three times.

With her free hand, she idly twists at the ends of her faded green hair, dry and rough from too much bleach and dye.

The diner sitting off the roadside leading into downtown is always quiet. Most days, the owner dropping by to complain about meaningless things and ramble about his life counts as the busiest customer traffic they get.

Sometimes she worries the diner might shut down soon if things keep going like this. If she loses this job, next month's rent becomes a problem immediately.

Her work mostly consists of taking orders and running the register. But usually — like today — there's barely anything to do.

Tom, who works in the kitchen, stands near the doorway with his phone in hand, tapping his foot to whatever song is playing through the speakers. Sometimes she wants to yell at him to turn it off. The only reason she doesn't is because Tom's the owner's younger brother.

To her, this town feels colorless. Not in the sense that it's a bad place to live. It's quiet, safe, the kind of small town where people are reasonably kind and there's even a fairly large park nearby. Other people probably see it painted in bright colors.

Maybe the problem is just her. It's been a long time since anywhere felt like anything other than dull static pressing against her skin.

This place is far from home. Very far. That's exactly why she chose it. She needed to leave. That's why she went away for college too. It had been the major she wanted all throughout high school, but once she got there, studying it suddenly felt meaningless.

After graduating with decent enough grades, she moved here. 'You could just stay in the city where your university is', the career counselor had suggested. She said nothing. She didn't want to stay there anymore.

So this was the problem.No matter where she went, she always felt like she was being ricocheted from place to place, and she felt like she could barely breathe.

Her feet were supposed to stay planted on the ground, but instead it felt as though her whole body kept floating loose and untethered.

When she first arrived in this town, she'd felt hopeful. She thought maybe she could settle here. Maybe she could finally be surrounded by the feeling that this was where she belonged. Maybe someday she'd even get a dog or a cat.

A year has passed, and nothing has changed.

She is still an outsider, and the idea of home remains so distant she can't even reach for it. Home used to be the place where she lived with her mother, father, and older brother.

Back then, everything seemed easy. There are many ways for a life to slip off its tracks.

In her case, the tracks shattered the moment her brother sat down on the bed in his room at the end of the second-floor hallway, pressed a Sig Sauer against his temple, and pulled the trigger.

It was the first day of her summer vacation of her senior year of high school.