Pieces [ONC 2020 LONGLIST]

Prologue - In an endless ocean of course the hook found you

It was an unusual snow. Like fat, jolly cloud-men, snowflakes sat on the world, creating a white blanket on every surface. Gliding on the wind they clung to the trees, my hair, and the grey tarp draped over Kasey's body.

"Mr. Hale," a woman in red spoke and dragged me back to this inescapable reality. "Tell me everything, anything you remember,"  she asked and held a device no larger than a can of shaving cream between our faces. It's glass canister gleamed with a distorted reflection of my face. Shrunken skull. Elongated nose. But the glossy black hair and dark purple bags under my eyes were real. I was a hollow shell of person.

The woman pursed her lips and waited. My voice cracked as I peered into the woman's icy blue eyes beyond the canister. Despite the threat of tears I told her I had been walking down the street with Kasey. I lifted up the books we had just got—blood now stained the pages of the book Kasey bought. I told her how four people appeared in front of us. My body  shook, reliving the memory.

Their black masks circled. Surrounded. Laughed. They reached for Kasey's skirt. She fought. Screamed. I punched but the mask dodged. My fists hit only air but they hit me solid in the chin.

The lady in red nodded absently. I thought I told her everything important, but she waited for more. I told her anything I could think of, down to the smallest detail. How the next thing I remembered was blinking as a layer of snow fell from my lashes. My cheek was pressed against the cold the sidewalk and a sticky liquid puddled under my left hand. As if on cue, a tech reached for my hand and wiped Kasey's blood away.

I remembered red and blue lights, sirens, coming up the street. "There was a fight..." a man explained to someone who nodded and scribbled in a blue notepad.

A cold numbness flooded my veins, accelerated by every word. I knew what it was, I've done this twice before. The collection. I watched the sorrow, pain, and memories pull from my eyes like liquid light. Each painful memory became a piece of broken glass, quickly sucked into the woman's canister. Steadily, the canister filled with my memories.

I kept talking. I spoke like I was waiting for Kasey to walk around the corner, fashionably late as usual. I told the woman things I never said out loud. How Kasey is more than a friend. She doesn't know it, but I love her. We grew up in the same crowded apartment complex. I'm on floor 67, she's on 108, but I would walk her to her door just to be together a little longer. She is the most extraordinary person I've ever met. In the only future I want, I want to be with her. Kasey makes me care about other people. I would die to save her.

The stretcher knocked against the back of the ambulance.

Those murderers didn't let me.

"They took her," I said through gritted teeth.

I wanted to find them. I hated them. I wanted to take their lives. For a moment the numbness pulled back like a curtain. The woman scrunched her brows and twisted a dial on the can. For a moment I remembered everything about the eyes behind the mask. The voice. The laugh. Then it was gone. I watched as a stream of blue light trickled from my eye and hardened into a shard of glowing glass. An iridescent black mask and an echo of a laugh were trapped inside as the piece floated into the device.

A woman in red stood before me and put something in the pocket of her jacket. She looked down and adjusted her glasses.

Nervous, I stared at the dirty snow on my boots and clutched the two books I bought at the store against my chest. My body trembled from the cold. Where did I leave my jacket?

"Mr. Hale," the woman in red said. "Please tell me everything you remember about Kasey Gold."

I blinked. "Who?"