Driver

-          You’re a hell of a good driver.

-          Thanks.

He was wearing a black suit and you could see through the way he wore it that he was all about driving. This thought was surprising at first - he must have been in his late 60s. Then it felt smooth and natural as you watched him drive his black Mercedes on and on through the dark silence. He was very focused on the driving but he wasn’t cautious. He was focused like a lion is focused on prey, with pleasure and superiority, knowing he’s the predator and nothing else was. He was the driver and no one else was. He overtook fast and slow cars from the left lane and from the right lane too and there were no jolts or engine roars but only stealthy gliding. Soon the skyscrapers came steel-black and darkened the night still.

We finally got into traffic he couldn’t surmount.

-          You really are one of the best drivers out there.

-          Thanks.

Silence.

-          Where are you from? - he asked.

I answered.

-          Do you drive fast there?

-          At times, but not in this way.

We were silent again for a while. I watched the great buildings rise like rugged totems in the dark. I felt very young being aware of us arriving in such a sleek way, immutable like a new generation of warriors coming to replace the old and the broken ones. It was a void city. The engine of the car was the only sound there was and it hummed monotonously with determination and secret purpose.

We were in traffic again.

-          I’ve driven in twenty-eight countries, - he said.

-          Exactly twenty-eight?

-          Twenty-eight, - he said. - I left my country when I was your age and first drove out in Germany. No speed limits. I once got to 380 km per hour with a Mercedes. It was the time of my life. Since then I’ve driven in 28 countries.

-          Why don’t you go back to drive in Germany again? -  I asked.

-          I drive fast here too. Once did 260 from here to M., the whole route.

-          And the police?

-          It’s bad if they catch me.

-          Do you think they’ll catch you?

-          Someday maybe.

We drove slower through traffic and now I started thinking and I thought of my reluctance with some unease.

-          Only went back home once, when my father died, - he said by himself. - Never going back again.

I didn’t say anything. We had reached the address. My English colleague was waiting for me by the doorway. I hated to see him. He was always very polite.

-          It’s heavy, - the driver said as he took off my suitcase.

-          Books, - I said.

The idea of a decision pleased me in the smooth barbaric night.

 

 

I think I start sentences with characters' names and pronouns too much. Any other criticisms are welcome.

Lily rested on her back underneath the shade of the tree, her light hair sprawled across the grass like roads on a map. She and Zoe were listening intently to Mikayla lie about having an affair with a French boy, who had conveniently left for France without leaving a trace. "Antonio" was described as being a cross between Montgomery Clift and Paul Newman, which Lily found difficult to picture in her head. Lily was also certain that Antonio wasn't a French name but she didn't say anything anyways. Lily and Zoe enjoyed Mikayla's lies. They brought colour to the sleepy town. The other day, Mikayla said she caught a peeping Tom peering through her window, who purportedly looked like Alain Delon. Mikayla was just so scandalous. She didn't live in his town, she lived in her head. However, Mikayla's stories were innocuous compared to the other tales that circulated conversation in town. People were accused of feats of drunkenness that humans just weren't physically possible of. Sometimes, there were even accusations of incest, which Lily chose to ignore. Despite their malice, Lily understood why these stories emerged. People wanted drama in their lives. People wanted something to talk about in this sleepy town.

Lily played with a tiny green bug on her white hands, her eyes taking in the rippling gold light that shimmered on the glossy leaves. She would happily trade this tree for graffiti on a Brutalist wall. In the city, trees were extras and it was the buildings that told the stories. Lily took the beauty of trees for granted. She took her own beauty for granted too.

Lily wanted to be somewhere were you could hear people speaking Chinese or Polish when you were walking down the street. If you found yourself in the company of immigrants it meant that you were in a place worth being. Museums, night clubs, boutiques and restaurants of various cuisines. Somewhere cosmopolitan. Somewhere new.

So, recently I am troubled over two types of writing styles. I think I can do both of them fairly easily, but one sounds totally distinct than the other. Thus, in the link below there are 2 small texts about 200 words each that I have written. What I am looking for is advice on which sounds better, so you can ignore the plot on both of them. I would appreciate if you gave it a try and let me know if text 1 or text 2 is better, or Not that I should combine them together to create a text 3.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/109MgRzYPQjtoEbXbtwy8_cjpek9cZPCl9lt706T6-7s/edit?usp=drivesdk

Just looking to get some specific thoughts on this writing exercise.

What if: Carrie from Sex and The City was in Mortal Kombat

As I ripped Sub Zero's spine out from the hole I had punched through his ribcage I couldn't help wondering how this would affect my relationship with Big?

Sub Zero screamed for mercy as his midsection collapsed into itself like an accordion. I started to wonder if Miranda had been right and by taking part in this death tournament between realms I was really just avoiding my issues with Big. I had asked him to be here and he wasn’t, just as the girls had predicted. I knew after I was finished tearing out Sub Zero’s spine I would have to face the fact that my boyfriend chose not to see me as I really am. My friends would say I told you so, Big would say I really wanted to be there, and I would have to say I was wrong about us. These were moments that would have to happen but I was not looking forward to them. I suppose that doesn’t excuse me for intentionally drawing out Sub Zero’s demise.

“Why are you drawing this out?! Please just kill me quickly” shouted Sub Zero.

“I’m sorry for not killing you faster, it’s just that I think I have to break up with my boyfriend after this and it’s just going to be really awkward” said Carrie

“Break ups are just the absolute worst but you have to do what’s best for you” said Sub Zero clearly struggling to remain conscious.

“Awww, thank you so much for saying that Sub Zero”

I decided that Sub Zero was right, I had drawn this out long enough to avoid pain but no longer. With one hard yank I ripped out his spine. Blood and viscera sprayed out everywhere, completely ruining my cute new outfit, and Sub Zero soon bled out and died. I looked to the audience, I still didn’t see my boyfriend. The crowd seemed to be waiting for me to do something. I awkwardly displayed my enemies spine over my head while striking a victory pose. I had survived mortal combat. Being a woman in the big city it can be hard to assert yourself especially when dealing with a murderous cryomancer from the Lin Kuei clan. But if I could stand up to a murderous cryomancer from the Lin Kuei clan maybe I could stand up for myself and survive another break up.

I guess I had expected applause or maybe some clapping. What I got was silence. But then as my smile started to wane I heard it. Cheering from the backrow. I knew it was coming from the three best friends a gal could ask for.

"Can't say I'm going to miss him, did you know last week he gave me the cold shoulder" remarked Samantha.

"It's about time she got a spine" quipped Miranda.

"Okay that's me, thanks everyone for showing up" said Carrie to the crowd.

"Very well Carrie of Earth Realm" shouted Shao Khan ruler of Outworld and conqueror of realms.

"But before you depart I demand you tell me.... where you got those 4 inch pumps? They are simply fabulous" said Shao Khan.

TRUCK STOP LOVE

 

He never understood it.

Love.

The holidays.

Family.

His feelings were still there. Rusted. No shine left. Warped just enough to let him live with all the goddamn evil things he kept doing.

A station wagon with a rear-facing seat cut him off, and his palms slapped the steering wheel. Sitting in the seat was a pale girl, about seven or eight, glaring at him. She wore a princess dress, and occasionally, the dying light from the sunset behind them bounced off the sequins that were scattered on her shoulder pads.

She smiled, her left front tooth missing, before giving him the finger and giggling.

Fucking brat.

He smiled back, turned his head sideways, stuck his tongue out, and dragged a stiff finger across his throat. Now Princess looked like she was going to be sick. She put her head down, letting her brown locks block her eyes, he knew, though, he knew she could feel his eyes on her.

A second later her hair flew wildly as the station wagon swerved. He saw the pieces of truck tire just in time to plow into them.

Fucking kids! Monsters. All of them!

He pulled over got out and surveyed the damage. While walking around the navy sedan, he saw that the right front tire was completely blown out. Another expense. He made his way around the trunk. His cleaning budget this month had really taken a bite out of the bank account. The fucking lightweight the other night couldn’t keep his stomach in the trunk until he got him out? People drove him crazy.

The freeway was sparse with traffic, it was 9:39 PM and wouldn’t you know it? His cell phone was dead. Your incompetence is annoying, always charge the goddamn phone.

The rain started coming down as he sat in his little Corolla with Eighteen wheelers rattling his windows as they blew by. He plugged his phone and charger into the car lighter and waited. He closed his eyes.

A dull light pushed through his eyelids, and they flew open. Behind him the lights shone so brightly the reflection off the mirrors blinded him. From the height of them, it had to be a big truck. What the hell do you want?

He checked his phone. 9:52 PM.

His eyes darted to the side mirror. A large moving shadow blocked the lights.

A lumberjack of a man with a pouched belly and oak branch limbs moved towards the driver side. As he got to the window, he took in a few heavy breaths, then he rotated his fist to say- roll it down. The man smiled big, like the dimwitted Rottweiler his stepdad had. Hit the thing with his dad’s tractor when he was fourteen. It was an interesting noise. He put the window down.

As soon as it cracked the big man spoke, “I saw what happened. And on behalf of all truckers, I am sorry.” He gave a big, heavy laugh, making his bushy handlebar mustache do the wave.

Who is this guy?

The Paul-Bunyan looking trucker had to be at least 6’5. Easily 300 pounds. The man leaned in real close resting his arms on top of the car, the Corolla's suspension ached.

“Yeah,” he said back. “No hard feelings.”

The big man rolled his plaid sleeves up his forearms and rested them on the window frame, “Name’s Jimmy or James? You friend?”

He rubbed his face to stall while he thought up a name. He really didn’t want to be connected to this area, don’t eat where you shit or don’t throw your shit where you eat. Whatever it was, he didn’t want that. “Kevin Johnson.”

Jimmy grabbed his shoulder through the window, and Jimmy's other hand met his for a wildly uneven shake. “Pleasure to meet you son.”

For a second Kevin thought the guy was going to get stuck in the window but somehow his large shoulder slinked out. “You too.” He replied.

“Come!” Jimmy said his eyes were no longer visible as he stood. “I’ll drive you into town. Get you a tow.”

Jimmy didn’t wait for Kevin though. No, Jimmy slogged back to the truck just expected him to run behind him. He wanted to kill that guy just for that. Or should he say? He was hoping he wouldn’t have to kill the guy. But if he did, he would have to do it quick and hope he stayed down.

Kevin got out of the car after grabbing a lighter and a pack of smokes. Then he reached back into the console and grabbed a 45. and tucked it into his belt and pulled his coat over it. He ran up to the truck and jumped into the passenger seat.

Critique 1

 

Critique 2

The premise: a small town that looks exactly like ours, except goodness compounds and comes back to you, cruelty eventually runs out of room, and the world keeps its word to the people who keep theirs. Nobody in the book fully understands the rules. They just start to sense the shape of them.

It follows five people. A twenty-nine-year-old caregiver, loud and joyful, who gets a cancer diagnosis and faces it with the radio turned all the way up. Her quiet best friend, whose four-year-old was hurt by a boyfriend the legal system couldn’t touch. A seventy-three-year-old grandmother who has kept an unopened letter from her dying mother for thirty-nine years. And the four-year-old herself, whose chapters happen down at floor level, in yellow socks and orange crackers and a rolly bug that trusts her enough to unroll in her palm. It follows four people closely. A fifth appears and disappears.

It’s about generational silence breaking. About goodness being quietly rewarded in a world that never announces itself. The man who causes the harm is never dramatically punished. He just runs out of room.

No fantasy elements you can point at. God is present but never named. The rules are felt, not explained.

Here’s the opening:

The McClendon house smelled like liniment and burnt coffee and something floral that Torah had never been able to name but had long since stopped trying to. She had been coming here every Tuesday and Thursday morning for two years and the smell met her at the door before Mr. McClendon did, which was saying something because James McClendon had not missed greeting her at that door a single time in two years.
He was already there when she knocked.
“You’re late,” he said.
“I’m four minutes early Mr. James.”
“Clock in the kitchen says different.”
“Clock in the kitchen has been wrong since 2014 and you know it.”
He stepped back to let her in and she caught the small smile he didn’t want her to see. That was the thing about James McClendon. He had been alone in this house for six years since Mrs. McClendon passed and in that time he had arranged his entire personality around not needing a single soul. She had spent two years quietly dismantling that arrangement four minutes at a time.

No better Choice

Do whatever makes you feel better. Yeah, sure. What if there is no such thing as making me feel better? Then what am I to do? Yeah, well, maybe, well, maybe you didn't find it yet. Sure, I could choose to rest, sit back, wait; maybe that object of fulfillment, happiness, whatever, will find me eventually, right? I can't say whether it's right or wrong, though sitting with this lack can be comforting for some and destructive for others. I believe that this comfort can also work for some, propelling them into a state of well-being, helping them live in the present so they can be aware of small things and thus find joy in them, leading to a somewhat easy, almost monotonous life, but happy. I'm thinking that this fulfillment only appears later, as time passes. It is slowly constructed, as the appetite comes with eating or something. Coming back, for some, this comfort seems like a conscious state of decay, the will to rot, drying one's potential willingly, it may seem, choosing to do nothing over something, seemingly frustrating and thus not suitable, right? Truly understandable. Moreover, an active life, a constant search, and effort may create some relative safety, as there is no certainty about anything. And of course, it can be rewarding. Maybe someone sees that effort; maybe that merit might be validated; maybe, after creating, after everything invested, there should be credit. Maybe. Maybe it turns out you invested everything in the wrong domain, turns out you've been looking in the wrong direction for the whole time. If everything is possible, why shouldn't this be? And what if it's too late to go back to do it all again? Is it worth it? Maybe. Maybe you'll fail a second time. Would you do it again? Do you still have what it takes to start over? Maybe, maybe not. Can you bear the burden, the pain of folding? So, will you risk everything to potentially achieve greatness, or will you make a choice that's more forgiving but means you have to forget about your potential? There is no shame in choosing any of these lifestyles, or whatever you want to call them. Life ends in the ground, no matter what you choose. The only difference is that one choice raises you to the clouds and beyond, and when it's all over, it just throws you back to where you came from. No questions asked, no matter what you achieved. You are thrown to the ground as hard as possible, and the other choice builds up a more gradual descent. It is more gentle, but it still gets you to the ground. There is no better choice. It is just how you cope with the consequences of your own actions, even if they are enforced.

PROLOGUE

Argentina, 1952

Sister Mary kept the orange in the pocket of her habit, where no one would think to look, though the weight of it pulled the cloth strangely against her thigh and made her walk with one hand half-covering the bulge. No one expected a woman of twenty-two who had given her life to God to hide fruit from starving children. No one expected her to be so bad at it either.

It was not selfishness. She told herself this every day, the way she told herself most things that needed repeating to be believed. The orange was for Eva, who was seven and had a cough that would not leave her chest through two winters running, and who needed something — anything — that was not beans, was not the thin broth they stretched across forty mouths twice a day. Eva had learned to cough into her blanket so the younger ones would not wake, which somehow made it worse. A child trying to be considerate while her lungs failed felt like an accusation Mary could not answer.

Mary had traded a rosary for it. Not her own. One of the spares, kept in a drawer for visiting clergy who never came. She did not think God would mind. Then again, she had said the same thing the week before when she watered the milk, and before that when she told Luis his mother was coming back because she could not bear the look on his face. She had stopped being entirely sure, these last four years, what God minded and what He simply allowed.

She was crossing the courtyard with the orange warm against her hip when she heard the gate.

It did not creak the way it usually did. The gate should have screamed. It always did. That afternoon it opened softly, almost politely, and Mary stopped with one hand already near the orange in her pocket.

Someone had oiled the hinge. She noticed that before she noticed the car — a dark, good car, the kind that had no business on this road, which was mud in winter and dust in summer and led to nowhere a man like this would choose to go unless he had a reason.

He got out slowly. Unhurried. A man used to being waited for.

He was perhaps forty, fair-haired going to grey at the temples, dressed for a city that was not this one. There was dust on his shoes, but not enough. That annoyed her before it frightened her. Men from the road arrived with dust up to their knees, in their cuffs, in the lines around their mouths. This man looked as though the road had been permitted to touch him only briefly.

He carried a hat he did not put on. He looked at the orphanage — at its sagging roofline, its whitewash gone the colour of old teeth — like a man deciding whether to buy it.

“Sister,” he said, and his Spanish was careful, learned rather than lived in, with something underneath it she recognised, because she had spent six years of her own girlhood learning to bury an accent of her own. “I am told you are the one who decides things here.”

“I’m told a great many things,” Mary said. “Most of them are wrong.”

He smiled. It stayed at his mouth and went no further.

“My name is Klaus.”

He did not give a surname. She noticed that, too, and filed it away with the oiled hinge and the careful Spanish and the good dark car, in the place where she kept things she was not yet ready to look at directly.

“And what is it you’ve come to decide, Mr Klaus?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve come to help. I understand you have forty children and no roof that will survive another rain.”

“Forty-three,” Mary said. “And the roof has survived eleven rains since you’d have known to count them.”

His face moved at that. Amusement, she decided — at being corrected by a woman in a habit, in a courtyard, with an orange going soft in her pocket.

“I would like to fix that,” he said. “The roof. And other things, in time. I ask nothing for it.”

“Everyone asks something.”

“Then you will find out what I ask,” Klaus said, “when I ask it. Not before.”

Behind her, somewhere in the building, a child was crying — the particular, exhausted crying of a child who has been crying for some time and has stopped expecting anyone to come. Mary did not turn towards the sound. She had trained herself, long ago, to let her judgement answer before her face did.

She looked at the dark car. She looked at the man’s good coat, his soft hands, the watch on his wrist that was worth more than the orphanage’s roof and its forty-three children combined.

She thought of Eva coughing into the grey rag Mary had given her, eyes wet, lips pressed together as if politeness might cure her.

Her palm had gone damp around the orange through the cloth. She imagined squeezing it too hard, imagined the skin splitting, juice running down the inside of her habit like evidence.

She thought, not for the first time and not for the last, that God left a great many decisions to people who had no business making them, and then judged them for the ones they made.

“Come in out of the sun, Mr Klaus,” she said. “We’ll talk.”

She did not give him the orange. That, at least, she kept.

The past, whatever it was wearing, whatever name it had decided to use, had found the road. It always did, eventually. It was only ever a question of how long the gate could be made to look as though no one had been expecting it.

CHAPTER ONE

Buenos Aires, present day

Thomas Vale did not believe in saints. He believed in money — money had weight, had temperature, could be folded into a pocket or buried under a name that no longer belonged to anyone living. Saints were useful only because people believed in them, and belief, in his experience, was the most reliably exploitable currency there was.

He sat at a metal table outside a café that had one short leg and rocked whenever he shifted his weight. Across the street, a dog slept under the awning of a closed pharmacy, its ribs moving under dirty yellow fur. The coffee in front of him had gone cold an hour ago. He’d ordered it only because the waiter kept glancing his way, the particular look of a man deciding whether to ask a customer to leave.

He checked his watch. Twenty minutes late.

He hated lateness. It was theft, as far as he was concerned — time taken without asking. He lit a cigarette he didn’t want, off the bitter taste of the last one, and his fingers shook faintly around the lighter. A fleck of tobacco stuck to his lower lip. He felt it there and did not remove it, because removing it would mean admitting his hands were less steady than they should have been.

He blamed the heat. He blamed the flight. He blamed the city, the damp collar of his shirt, the taxi driver who had pretended not to understand him, the small blister forming where his new shoes rubbed his heel. He blamed, as a rule, anything that was not himself.

It had been six weeks since his father’s solicitor had called — a clipped, apologetic voice explaining that Edward Vale had died in his sleep, alone, in a house in Surrey that Thomas had not visited in four years and had no particular wish to visit now. There had been a funeral. He had not cried, which bothered him a good deal less than the fact that he’d glanced around the room afterward, cataloguing who had noticed he hadn’t. He had also taken two sandwiches from the wake and eaten them in the car before driving home, which had seemed practical at the time and disgusting later.

There had been a will, unremarkable, dividing an unremarkable estate between Thomas and a sister who hadn’t spoken to either of them in a decade. And there had been, three weeks later, a box.

The solicitor had found it in the loft, behind insulation that hadn’t been disturbed since the house was built. A biscuit tin, rusted at the seam, holding the sort of things men keep without ever quite deciding to keep them: a wedding ring that wasn’t Thomas’s mother’s, a ticket stub for a ship that had sailed in 1971, and a single sheet of paper so brittle that Thomas had been afraid, lifting it, that it might come apart in his hands like wet ash.

He had it with him now, folded twice, in the inside pocket of his jacket, and he had read it so many times in six weeks that he no longer needed to look at it to know the words. He looked at it anyway. A bruise gets touched. That was the whole of the logic.

There had also been a photograph, loose in the bottom of the tin beneath a layer of dust. A boy, perhaps six or seven, unsmiling, standing in front of a whitewashed building he didn’t recognise. On the back, in a hand that wasn’t his father’s — older, more careful, the ink browned with age — someone had written a name.

Aurel Weiss.

The name had annoyed him. Not frightened him. Annoyed him. It had the smug, sealed quality of a clue in a crossword someone else expected him to solve.

He’d turned it over twice, looking for a date, a place, anything. There was nothing. Some cousin who hadn’t made it, he’d decided, somewhere around his second glass of wine that evening. Half of Europe’s family trees had a branch like that, snapped off during the war and never spoken of again. It happened to everyone’s family. Almost certainly nothing. He’d put the photograph back in the tin, face down, and not looked at it since.

The letter was the part that mattered. The letter was the part with a use.

A woman in a red coat turned the corner.

He watched her come without moving — sixty, maybe, narrow-faced, her dark hair pulled back hard enough to look less like a style than a decision. One button was missing from the coat. He noticed that with relief, almost pleasure. It made her less theatrical. She walked quickly, then too slowly, then quickly again, as though arguing with herself about whether to come at all.

She stopped at his table. She did not sit.

“Mr Vale?”

“You’re late.”

“Yes.”

No apology offered. None expected, evidently. He disliked her before she’d said another word.

“Sit down.”

“I’ll stand.”

“It’s a café table. Not an interrogation room.”

“A man sat at that exact table eleven years ago,” she said, “across from someone he should not have agreed to meet. He didn’t get up from it on his own. I’ll stand.”

Thomas glanced at the table as though it might confirm or deny this. It said nothing, being a table.

“You believe that,” he said, “or you’re testing whether I do.”

“Both can be true.”

Her left hand worried at the missing button without seeming to know it was doing so.

“I was told you had documents.”

“I was told you had answers.”

Her face gave him nothing, though her eyes kept dropping, he noticed, to his hands — to the lighter still turning between his fingers, to the cigarette he hadn’t put out — the way you watch a dog you don’t yet trust not to bite. The waiter drifted past, close enough to listen, and Thomas waited until he’d cleared the next table before reaching into his jacket for the folded sheet of paper.

He didn’t hand it over. Not yet. That was the one piece of leverage he had, and he intended to spend it slowly.

She looked at the fold of it in his hand.

“Where did you get that?”

“Family box. My father died and left me a house full of rubbish and one interesting letter.”

“Your father’s name.”

“You know his name.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

He smiled. He could afford to, now.

“Edward Vale.”

Her hands, he saw, had gone still at her sides. Not flinched — stilled, the way a person goes still when they’re concentrating very hard on not reacting. Recognition, he decided. Better for him.

“And you are?” he said. “Since we’re being formal.”

“Someone who has handled certain matters for certain people for a very long time. My name won’t help you. Names rarely do, in this business.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that. It’s starting to feel like something people say when they’d rather I stopped asking.”

She didn’t answer that. He let the silence sit there until it became hers to break, a trick he’d learned from men who did this for a living and had taught it to him without ever meaning to.

“You said documents,” she said eventually.

“I said one document. I’d like to know if there are others.”

“That depends entirely on what you intend to do with what you already have.”

“I intend to find out what it’s worth.”

“That’s not the same question,” she said, “as what it’s worth to you.”

He unfolded the paper. Brittle, yellowed at the creases, the ink gone the colour of weak tea but still legible. A date at the top: 14 September 1948. Beneath it, three lines in a careful, schooled hand that had cost someone time to get right, even in a hurry:

The woman is not what she claims.
The German paid for the orphanage.
The rest is still there.

He tapped the last line with one finger.

“That’s the part I’m interested in. The rest. What rest. What’s still there, and where.”

She looked at the letter a long moment, longer than reading it required. He had the sense she wasn’t reading it at all — that she already knew every word, had perhaps known them for decades, and was instead deciding something about him: how much he understood, how much he didn’t, how dangerous either condition might turn out to be.

“There is a place,” she said finally. “Still standing, as far as I know. An orphanage. The woman who runs it is old. Very old. And has been very careful, for a very long time.”

“Careful about what?”

“About people exactly like you, Mr Vale, who arrive holding exactly that kind of letter and believing it points to money.” She said the word money the way some people say the name of a disease. “I’d advise you to consider, before you go any further, that you may not like what you actually find instead.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Everyone does,” she said. “Until they don’t.”

She stepped back from the table — not turning yet, just putting distance between herself and it, as though the table itself were the thing she didn’t trust.

“I won’t be giving you an address,” she said. “But you’re a resourceful man, or you wouldn’t have found me. I expect you’ll manage.”

“That’s it? You came all this way to tell me nothing?”

“I came all this way to see your face when you said your father’s name. That’s what I needed.”

She turned then, and walked back the way she’d come, faster now than she’d arrived, not looking back at the table once.

Thomas sat with the letter still open in front of him, the ink swimming slightly where a drop of rain had caught the corner of the page. He thought about the photograph in the tin at home, face down where he’d left it — a boy he’d decided meant nothing, standing in front of a building he hadn’t troubled himself to look at twice.

An orphanage. Still standing.

He thought, with the comfortable certainty of a man who had never once distrusted his first instinct: there’s money in this.

The truth, when it came, would take its time correcting him.

He folded the letter, and put it away.

Before you read anything, please understand that the book will go more into depth than this, and the plot isn't the main focus (the arcs some characters go through are the main focus), so the plot's kind of basic.

Chapter 1, Thistle

Situations. There's one we're all in. The one I'm in, isn't exactly ideal. I'm in the middle of zoning out, forced to listen to my friend, Ribbons, babble all and about.

"And this HOLE in the wall! I saw a WORLD outside of this terrarium!" The garter snake yells, eyes dazzling with excitement. Most of the time, he just says things straight from his fantasy. But I nod along, acting like I'm listening to him. Even if I'm not, though, there's a good chance he won't notice.

"Mhm, got it. Say, when did you find it?" I ask, trying to create conversation.

"Find what?"

"The hole"

"What hole?"

"The one you were JUST talking about."

"The one before the one I just said, or the one after the before? Because the one before the after was the one in a cave. And—"

"Nevermind," I sigh. It's as if Ribbons wants to be even more of an idiot today.

"Don't 'nevermind' me!" Ribons shouts, with Iris mocking his words at the exact same time.

"Hey!" Ribbons exclaims while the rainbow boa simultaneously predicts what Ribbons is about to say. Ribbons just sighs, forfeiting easily.

"Thistle doesn't believe that there's a hole in a wall I found," Ribbons says, changing the topic from his loss.

"I do, but you kep on acting like an toddler," I fight back.

"I'm not acting like a toddler!" Ribbons shouts defensively.

"Ribbons... you forget that you ARE a toddler," Iris points out with dissapointment.

"Oh yeah? I officially turned a YEAR ago 2 months ago!" Ribbons says proudly, as if he's any older than he was a second ago. Since us snakes have a shorter lifespan, then one year is 5-6 for humans.

"That barely changes anything," Iris responds, sighing mid-way through the sentence.

"Really? Because that DOES make me older! Older than a toddler! So I'm not a toddler! Since I'm—"

"You were saying?" Iris asks, already tired of hearing Ribbons' babbling.

"I'm NOT A TODDLER, because—"

"Not that. About the hole," Iris cuts off. I can already tell she's trying to supress anger. Well, at least now I know Iris agrees Ribbons is being extra annoying today.

"The one before the most recent one I was talking about, or—" Ribbons tries to speak, but both Iris and I groan in agony.

"Seriouly, how do you deal with him?" Iris asks, flicking her tail towards Ribbons.

"You're his sister. You're the one keeping him in check," I point out, glancing at Ribbons.

"Can I PLEASE continue?" Ribbons pleads, as if he's been silent for decades.

"How about you show us where both of them are?" I ask, trying to get a break from Ribbons.

"Okay! Follow me!" Ribbons shouts, eyes immedieately widened again.

"Well what else do you expect us to do?" Iris snaps.

"Well... not follow me?" Ribbons says, as if it's obvious. "I have a feeling you're extra grumpy today."

"Well maybe you're extra annoying today," Iris responds.

"Or you didn't get a good sleep," Ribbons counters, still clueless of what he said. Iris just rolls her eyes and trails along as Ribbons slithers quickly to a random corner of a wall. I (and probably Iris too) expect nothing else but straight up drywall.

"Look over here! There's a HOLE in the shadows!" Ribbons exclaims.

"I only see 'shadow,' not any sort of hole, Ribbons." I say, leaning forward a bit. As if there was anything, quite frankly.

"Are you 30, Thistle? Take a closer look!" Ribbons shouts.

"Must I?"

"YES!"

"Why though?"

"Because it's interesting!"

"Not it's not. It really isn't, Ribbons—"

"It is though!" Ribbons exclaims. I sigh, peering to take a closer look. But for once, Ribbons is right.

A young girl sat at the foot of her bed, silent tears falling down her face, mirrored by the rain leaking in through the crack in the window. She found it fitting given the week she had, as though the sunless sky was offering sympathy when no one else cared to.

She was holding the worn book her mother gave her the same week she died. An heirloom she claimed her family brought over from Spain. The girl held it pressed to her chest, hoping to feel the comfort of family. A creeping hate filled her instead.

If only a kind hand were to hold her, a warm voice to tell her what she wanted to hear. Even if it was just a lie to make themselves feel better.

She tried to read the book, but it was in a language she didn't know. And yet she found words she had never heard nor spoken before, aflame in her mind. All she could do to keep them from burning her, was to scream them out.

"Mazmina otah l'Din Torah b'Shamayim!" Their volume choked by her pain into a whisper.

Yet the words took on a life of their own, and rang throughout the house. But when they tried to be heard, they were refused. And so they bounced from wall to wall until they left the ruined house. Moving along the rooftops and power lines, across streets and into the city, still unheard for none wanted to hear them. Save the shadow on the moon, and it moved in answer.

We see Katsura throw one of his Sickle's as Li docks down under effectively dodging Katsura's attack.

Li still docked down under uses his prosthetic leg to run forward cracking the stadium floor as he does so.

As Li runs he does a single side flip, using his left hand still on the floor to turn his body towards Katsura, as he uses his right prosthetic leg and does a bicycle kick slamming down on Katsura.

As Li lands his bicycle kick, we see Katsura blocked it with his other Sickle, with both his feet are shown breaking through the stadium floor.

Li places his other hand on the floor, as he pulls both his legs towards his chest and drop kicks Katsura.

"Arrrgh!! I'll end you now!!" Shouts Katsura as he writhes in pain.

Katsura dashes towards Li swinging his Sickle, as Li dodges with a front flip.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/141xy32x7C-58dThR4HImC2G0H08nktTPtfh\_6\_kL0f8/edit?usp=drivesdk

A hard clap cracks from Ricardo’s car speakers, then the 808 rolls in low and snarling underneath it. A looping guitar sample floats above it all. It’s the kind of beat that doesn’t announce itself.

Kendrick’s voice cut through the speaker—

Ricardo tilts his instant ramen cup, poking his fork around to nab the last few sad peas. He tosses it onto his passenger seat atop  the big tray section of yesterday’s Chinese, which sits on top of Tuesday’s spaghetti, which is nested on top of Monday’s moldy Mexican. Ricardo loves Chinese, loves Italian and loves Mexican, but if he doesn’t get moving it’ll be ramen from here on out. 

He grabs his phone and swipes up through his feed again. Now a video shows a pair of girls jubilantly demonstrating a fireman’s carry. 

One girl drops her shoulder into the seated girl’s stomach, hooks an arm through her legs, and hoists the other girl across her back in one fluid motion. 

“I wish I was a fireman.” Ricardo had wished to be a lot of things, all of which mattered, but as his step-dad said in his gravelly voice: “You’re not special, Ricky, and you had every chance to be. That’s reality number one. Reality number two is that you’re eighteen now—it’s time for you to grow up.” 

Lucky purrs, then vaults to the peak of wardrobe mountain—a collection of trash bags shoved against the driver’s side seat. Lucky climbs to his shoulder, bunting against Ricardo’s cheek. Tears well. His step-dad’s voice again: “You had every chance.”

He did and now he can’t even feed his cat right.

A text drops in from Step-Douche: ‘Bring back my cat!’

Sorry, Charlie, Lucky likes me more. Ricardo opens his delivery app: a color-coded map, him in an area marked gray, dead. He doesn’t really care. He stares at the ‘DELIVER NOW’ button, then thumbs it.  

‘Looking for orders…’ flashes for just a second before the chime starts, Pavlovian.

The payout’s twelve bucks, and he’s already parked outside the pickup, a gas station, and the drop-off is just a block away. Someone named Elias S. 

Ricky leans up, presses ACCEPT. “Not a bad start. Don’t worry, Lucky. I’m going to take care of you—it’s burgers tonight!” 

Ricky swipes and presses ARRIVED AT STORE.

The car door whines and the window rattles as he shuts it behind him.

The cold brew sits at the end of the aisle, glowing under the fluorescent lights. Twelve bucks. Perfect.

“Grab a cold brew for twelve bucks. I can do this.”

The chime at the top of the door rings.

***

“Meow.”

Ricky parks in front of the house. 

Lucky nudges Ricky. Ricky nudges back, massages his ear. 

He opens the car door with an aching thunk and a rattling window. 

Twelve for a cold brew. Whoever this is, they’re crazy. He looks up. A single patch of bruised clouds hang over the house—just this house—on an otherwise clear day. Even the palm trees shake in shadow. The house itself, ruinous. The lawn might be legally a forest. The blue paint is dull and cracked. A torn-screen door that no longer shuts. But otherwise open. No fences, no dogs. No signs of any sort, just a faded old house from a better time.  

Before Ricky takes his second step, the door swings open, clattering against the house.  A large-bellied older man walks out, hands high as if in celebration. His blue bath robe flaps loose, revealing a stretched white tee and checkered boxers. In one hand he holds a half bottle of whiskey. 

He smiles beneath brown bushy brows. “Ricardo Martinez, it’s good to meet you.”

Ricky grips the cold brew bag. “How do you know my last name?”

Elias holds up his palm. “It’s simple—Prophecy,” he says cheerfully, smiling underneath a thick mustache and above a short beard.

“Is that an app?” Ricky says. The breeze catches his shirt. He taps COMPLETE DELIVERY and angles his phone to take a photo.

“No.” Elias chuckles. His blue bath robe flaps in the wind and palms rustle. He’s removed the plastic wrapper and cap, pours the cold brew into his whiskey bottle.  “Prophecy—the good stuff—still comes in stone.”

Ricky takes the photo.

“Come on, I’ll show you—we’ve got a lot to do.” 

“I did my part.” Ricky presses SUBMIT. “Have a good day, Elias.”

“You’ve only just begun,” Elias says, flashing a gentle smile. A real smile like he’s happy to see Ricky, then it widens as Elias remembers something. He fishes a fifty dollar bill out of a bath robe pocket. “Fifty bucks, like ‘it’ said. That’s a lot of hamburgers for Lucky.”

“How do you know my cat’s name?” Ricky says, stepping back, pocketing the bill.

“Prophecy.” Elias turns, walks into his house. “There’s another fifty waiting for you inside.”

Ricky looks back to his car. Lucky’s perched on wardrobe mountain, licking his paw. A hundred bucks takes a full day on the app. This guy’s offering another one just to walk inside. Ricky looks back at Lucky. Creepy beats hungry.

***

Inside, the house is dusty. The air is stale. Hexagonal ocean-blue walls surround a beige-carpeted living room. Large frames rest against a plastic fireplace holding ancient-looking parchment, each waist-high, at least, each scrawled with some language. 

Elias motions to them while rounding his coffee table, covered in white paper and manila folders. He picks up a coffee mug that says, ‘Best Dad.’ “That first stone has your full name on it and your cat.”

Ricky takes a cautious step forward.

“It’s okay, get close. Look at the first one at the top.”

Ricky leans closer. Sure enough, between symbols and markings there’s his name, out of place and crudely written, ‘Ricardo Martinez’. More scrawling, ‘Lucky.’

“Is this some influencer bit?” Ricky’s eyes dart around the room looking for cameras.

“It’s Prophecy. Take a picture. Ask AI.”

Ricky does.

The AI responds:

The scroll is written in ancient Hebrew. It declares that in five thousand, one hundred and sixty-three years, early in the third day of the second month, a courier named Ricardo Martinez and his beast Lucky shall meet Elias outside his home in the City of Angels.

Hey guys I am eighteen years old and am really eager to write my first book! I want to make a comedic paradoxical story revolving around the lives of five girls from a very posh private school in the uk. I want it to be ironic and have a light hearted tone generally whilst also drawing on some serious issues to do with class. Anyways I have written a prologue for it about this girl called Mary who has just left having a conversation with a mother who is thinking about sending her daughter there. Please let me know your thoughts!

‘Like is a strong word’, scoffed Mary, aggressively stirring a small silver teaspoon round her mug. Mrs Purnell raised an eyebrow curiously, ‘is it?’. Mary put down her saucer onto the small round coffee table and sighed theatrically as if to suggest a great deal about Mrs Purnell’s intellect. ‘Nowadays the word ‘like’ is extremely suggestive, you have to be quite careful.’ She purred. ‘I mean you can like tea but that suggests its like oh tea is alright but its not great, you know.’ Mary’s eyes met Mrs Purnell’s, whose tight Botox induced features were yearning to scrunch into a baffled knot at the front of her face. Mary continued, gesticulating wildly, ‘But in some cases ‘like’ can suggest much weightier things. Like if you claim to like Nicholas O’Brian who's this gorgeous boy in my chemistry class, then ‘like’ would suggest you want to get in his pants so its not really a question of indifference in that circumstance…’ Mrs Purnell’s eyebrows strained towards her hairline (alas they could not stray far from the upper echelons of her eyelid). Mary continued unfazed, ‘In fact the word then suggests quite a deal of passion. Of lust.’ She exaggerated the word with a taunting emphasis. ‘As the world is fostering a generation of slightly illiterate bright-eyed youths.’ She lowered her tone, granting each syllable a slow exaggerated precedence. ‘The word ‘like’ is peppered literally in every young person’s vocabulary. When it is used off the bat in sentences, it loses all meaning besides suggesting we find spaces awkward and need to appear like we are saying more than we actually are.’ She hesitated briefly before moving her eyes back to the wall and resuming rapidly ‘I suppose in the context of liking Burleigh, I could say yeah sure I liked it. Or I could be like fuck yeah, I liked it! Or I could say yeah I suppose I liked some parts of it.’ She paused, taking in Mrs Purnell’s unmoved squinting black eyes, so small and set into her milky complexion they reminded Mary of two pieces of caviar sinking into a smooth cream cheese cracker. ‘So its weighty, extremely suggestive. Tread carefully Mrs Purnell.’ Mary grabbed a handful of tortilla chips from a wide thick rimmed bowl on the coffee table and began to crunch each one down slowly, gazing into Mrs Purnell’s eyes, interrogatively. A few moments went by whilst Mrs Purnell awkwardly straightened her posture. She attempted to create a rebuttal to Mary’s soliloquised ramblings and eventually blurted, ‘Well if a word such as ‘like’ needs all of these considerations before conversation can progress, how do people ever discuss anything?’. Mrs Purnell’s eyes bulged and her jutted chin nodded resolutely, appearing satisfied with her claim. Mary was delighted and clasped her hands together making one soft clap before drawling on sarcastically. ‘Oh Mrs Purnell that is indeed the question! In this generation, you don’t. You sit still like a fat fucking hen with your mouth slightly open and head moving slowly from side to side until the universe throws you an opinion.’ Mrs Purnell blinked slowly. Mary leant forward and spoke slowly. ‘And then you whole heartedly scream your fucking head off about it, despite not really understanding what you are saying, until the world has moved on, which generally doesn’t take long.’ She reclined back and slouched into her lavender chesterfield sofa, scoffing a second handful of tortilla chips, mostly missing her mouth, creating a nest of crumbs round her collar and hair. ‘Then you adopt your prior resting stance, bumbling along in a cosy first world bubble until the next wave of activism piques your fancy. Makes life quite simple for us really.’ A period of resolute crunching. Mrs Purnell twitched and pulled at her stiff white collared shirt, laced with repulsive doe eyed baby lambs that diseased the garment from the collar to the tips of the arm cuffs. A prolonged silence wafted through the room. The faint ticking of an old wooden mantel clock – an inherited relic from some great aunt – was suddenly audible. Periodically, Mary sighed exasperatedly. Mrs Purnell was utterly perplexed by Mary’s forthright demeanour. She had never met a young woman who not only was so indifferent as to who she shared her opinions with but a young woman with such a prolific multitude of opinions at all. Her tone imbued she was angry, looking to pick at any ebbing frustration in her life and broaden it to some greater issue in the world. And yet she was perfectly content now. She smiled lazily and was sprawled with her manspreading legs and lolling head whilst making her way through the tortilla bowl like a cow – ignorant to the nature of the world beyond her pasture - chewing her cud. For a girl who had everything, Mary was certainly quite the contrast to her extravagant family home. Mrs Purnell was slightly disgusted by the girl but undoubtedly intimidated nevertheless. Her face scrunched further, attempting to delve into thought for an astute challenge to cast Mary’s way but not managing to encroach beyond the parameters of her bewilderment. With no further rebuttals drawn, she returned to the purpose of her visit. ‘Right. Your mother said you would be happy to speak to me about your experience at Burleigh, did I um… come at a wrong time perhaps?’ Mary stretched out and yawned, revealing chewed up tortilla nestled between her teeth and smeared over her tongue. ‘No, you’ve caught me in a great mood actually; I am more than happy to talk about Burleigh at present. Last night would have been rocky but this morning I’m feeling ready to go.’ She smacked her jaws together and drew breath between her teeth before bringing up her hands to once more support her rambles with flickering hand motions that was almost elegant, out of context. ‘I mean the bottom line is that your child… what’s her face, Susan?’ Mrs Purnell’s eyes narrowed. ‘Susan Purnell sounds like a name that will do just fine at Burleigh to be honest.’ Mary fell back into the sofa and playfully drawled in a sing-song tone ‘Susan Purnell! It really has quite a ring that will contribute wonderfully to the morning register I’m sure.’ Mary yawned. ‘Yeah, Burleigh is a place where you will feel like you get your moneys worth. I mean they play lacrosse and have a bunch of musicals. Also, it's in the middle of fucking nowhere so its unlikely little Susan will find herself ambling into the dodge parts of the Kentish countryside. Like Malling Green, God forbid.’ Mary shuddered melodramatically, ‘Sorry, excuse me. Malling Green is where the local state school is so… naturally quite a rough area. Anyways she will be fine.’ Mrs Purnell patted down her skirts and looked around slowly to locate her belongings, intending to make a swift departure. Whilst avoiding Mary’s attentive eye she curtly said, ‘I get the impression you didn’t like it.’ Mary’s eyes glistened as she waggled her finger towards Mrs Purnell as if the woman was a naughty little child. ‘Now now Lisa let's not be presumptuous. It was alright. Yeah, it was just fine.’

GENRE: Slow(ish) burn romance novel in dystopian setting

CHAPTER ONE — HIS NAME

The doors to the medical wing slid open with a sharp hiss. There were two square windows set into them, one on each panel, probably intended to make the place feel less institutional. Everly had thought, more times than she could count across six years of walking through these doors, that it might have helped if you could actually see through them.

She had a narrow strip of green cloth tied around her right elbow, where they had just drawn blood (the second time this year, the next was scheduled for October), when two soldiers in black Gradex uniforms pushed through in front of her. One was supporting the other, whose weight leaned heavily against him as he limped forward, jaw set hard against the pain. Both were muddy and their boots left a trail of mud on the floor. She had yet to learn their names.

Everly barely spared them a glance. It was the one who came in after them that caught her attention.

She would have recognised him anywhere. No one else in Gradex let their hair grow that long — dark and falling to his shoulders, damp from the rain outside and sticking slightly to his jaw and collar. His jacket was wet, glued to his shoulders under the dark grey Armorex-vest they were supposed to use outside of the compound. Nothing excessive in him, just the kind of build that came from use rather than effort. He was holding his right hand with his left, just below the elbow, and there was a handful of shallow scratches across his face from something she hadn’t been there to see.

Cade.

He had arrived in March. It was June now. Thirteen weeks of him moving through the compound like he had always been there, quiet in a way that was nothing like absence. He kept to himself, stood still at the edge of the room in briefings and didn’t speak if he didn’t need to. Most words she had ever heard him use in one conversation had been in the yard on the first day.

The fingers pressing the pad curled, just slightly. She flattened them against her skin and let the arm drop.

The limping soldier was guided to the nearest bed immediately. Cade took the one on the other side of the room without being told, more out of convenience than obedience, she suspected, and started rolling up what remained of his sleeve. One of the medics on shift today, the one with no name and no patience, pulled the instrument table next to the bed and settled into the chair beside it.

“It’s nothing,” Cade said.

“Blade?” the medic asked.

Cade nodded.

“Then it’s not nothing,” the medic replied flatly, already cutting away the fabric to expose the wound beneath. “Did you water it?”

Cade glanced down at his soaked clothes. One eyebrow went up.

“What does it look like?”

That earned him a look. Not from the medic. From Everly. The corner of her mouth moved before she could stop it.

He noticed. His arm moved on the table before he caught it.

“Hold still.” The medic guided the arm flat again and started cleaning the wound.

It wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous, but the edges of it told a different story, showing the damage that only the white stone of a Blade left behind. A clean cut from little above his wrist to the elbow where the stone had gone in surrounded by the specific deep red discolouration of tissue that had met something hotter than metal and yet burned without heat. The burn spreading in every direction, the way a Blade burn did until it was watered, reaching well past the line the stone had made.

Cade didn’t look at his arm. He looked at hers instead.

“That’s why you skipped the morning?”

Everly frowned and started walking. Not away, just to a better position, which was not the same thing. She was aware of the distinction even if she didn’t examine it.

“Mandatory screening. I got transferred to group five later today. Didn’t think anyone would notice.”

“Yeah.” He tilted his head and she could see the smile tugging at his lips. A quiet huff followed. “I noticed.”

She stopped a few steps away. Her gaze dropped to his arm, where the medic was halfway through the stitches. The medic turned his head, just enough to place her in his peripheral vision, then brought his eyes back to his work without meeting hers. Cade was still watching the medic when she looked at his face and said:

“Didn’t know they’d ask you.”

“They didn’t.” He turned to look at her. “Ask.”

She knew that. In Gradex you were told, not asked.

“You were late.”

“That’s what usually happens when somebody tries to kill you.” The eyebrow went up again. “Missed me?”

She kept her lips pressed together until she was sure the smile was gone. Not letting it show took more effort than it should have.

“No. We just can’t afford to lose more men right now.”

That almost made him laugh. She could see it, the way it moved through him before he contained it.

“Careful. Someone might think you care.”

“I don’t.” Too quick. She heard it even herself.

The medic pushed the needle through with more force than necessary. The next knot he drew too tight, pulling that stitch out of line with the rest. Everly’s eyes cut to him. Cade himself didn’t seem to mind.

“What happened?” she asked. An unnecessary question, and she knew it. Only one group out there had gotten their hands on Gradex weapons. Had she been out there like she would have without the bloodwork, she wouldn’t even have needed to ask.

“An echo.”

It wasn’t the first time he had given her an answer that wasn’t one.