Chapter one: Flesh and blood
–"YOU IDIOT! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
–"YOU WERE THE ONE DRIVING FAST!"
The voices were bleeding into each other. Lir lay on the cold ground, her back trembling against the pavement. She could hear the two young men in front of her, but their words felt like distant echoes, muffled and distorted. Her ears were ringing; everything felt miles away.
–"Agh… Where… where am I?.."
Her voice was a mere whisper, barely reaching her own ears.
Her back was glued to a hard, freezing surface—asphalt. The air was biting; every breath felt like a shard of glass piercing her chest. She opened her eyes in this secluded void, but all she could see was a blurred, grey haze.
As her vision slowly sharpened, her gaze fixed on two silhouettes standing in the middle of the desolation. They were screaming at each other with fury, flailing their arms, their mouths opening and closing in rage, yet not a single sound seemed to echo in this emptiness. Lir's lips quivered.
Every inch of her body ached as if she had been struck by a massive force. She tried to move, to at least lift an arm, but her muscles refused to obey. They were too exhausted, too numb. The pain was so intense that the gap between her mind's commands and her body's reactions was widening; it was as if her body no longer belonged to her.
After a while, the muffled voices faded away. Before long, a deep, mechanical growl tore through the silence.
Car headlights suddenly cut through the darkness. The sharp, white glare stabbed directly into Lir's eyes. She instinctively tried to look away, attempting to turn her head to the left, but a pain like a jagged knife thrust into her neck stopped her cold. She was trapped.
The car lingered for a brief second. Then, it accelerated and vanished into the night.
As the roar of the engine died down, Lir realized she was now utterly alone in this deserted place, feeling nothing but the unforgiving hardness of the ground.
With agonizing effort, she raised her trembling hands. Her palms were coated in thick, dark blood. The warm liquid seeped through her fingers, dripping onto the cold asphalt below. Her gaze froze as she realized the blood was pouring from her own head.
Her eyes widened, her breath hitched. She opened her mouth to scream, but her throat was parched; no sound came out. Lir remained motionless for a few seconds, staring at the crimson staining her hands, thinking this was nothing more than a cruel design of fate.
Then, in the heart of that silence, she began to laugh involuntarily.
–"Haha… hah…"
Her laughter was weak and jagged—more like an act of surrender than mirth.
At that moment, the blood flowing from her head ran over her eyes. Her vision darkened further. The laughter died away.
Her face was numbing in the freezing air. Tears began to mingle with the blood.
– "Was this… all it was?.."
– "Those sons of bitches…"
Those were perhaps the last words to escape her trembling lips.
As the pain inside her head became unbearable, Lir surrendered her eyelids, letting go of the last flicker of light. She didn't want to think anymore. She didn't want to move.
Finally, her consciousness faded into a tragic darkness.