A Kiss To Build A Dream On - Season 2: Bridge

The Wanderer's Blues - Outro

Time is a fickle thing. 

Humans use it as an absolute ruler to measure every aspect of their life, and yet, time is as unreliable as a clothes iron fifteen minutes before a meeting. It goes painfully slow when you need it to go fast, and it goes blistering fast when you least expect it. Whatever the case is, time usually goes against what we want it to do. 

It stretches insurmountable pain for far too long, and shortens fun to merely a whisper. How anyone would trust it in any shape and form is beyond understanding. Never trust time, for it will always stab you in the back.

A lesson Clara Prendergast learned the hard way when the last five minutes of her life stretched thin to squeeze the last ounce of suffering she could muster. 

5'00"

The first thing that Clara noticed when she woke up was that it was past midnight. The sky was blackened with ominous clouds looming in the distance, covering the faint glow of the moon as they floated by. The dashboard clock read "12:05," and it sure as well wasn't P.M. 

The second thing she noticed was that she was sitting in the driver's seat of her Dodge. The engine was on, roaring loudly as if someone was trying to floor the gas. Her head was killing her, sending needles down her body if she so much as shifted her gaze sideways. 

The third thing she noticed was Murray's corpse strapped to the passenger's seat.

4'42"

Clara screamed, or at least, she tried. Her throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton and lined with sand. Her husband — her sweet and jolly Murray — was sprawled like a gutted fish on his seat. One of his eyes had popped out of his socket, lolling back and forth against the chilling breeze. The left side of his face was mangled and broken, with pieces of his jaw and skull piercing his skin, revealing bone and marrow. His tongue fell out of his broken chin, dripping blood, little by little, unto his white shirt. A milky white liquid seeped through his fractured skull, foaming near the base of his receding hairline. 

The right side of his face rested peacefully and undisturbed, unaware of the bloody mess just a few inches away.

4'37"

Clara tried to feel her lover's face, to make that illusion go away, but she noticed her hands wouldn't respond. She felt her limbs go numb and weak as if all the energy had been drained from them. With painful determination, she raised her hands up to eye level, only to find her wrist covered in a coppery, scarlet liquid. She tried looking for the word that described that liquid, but her mind was a mess. Every time Clara tried making a fist, or move her hands, her energy would falter, leaving her like a trembling rag doll. 

Little did she know, her tendons had been cut.

4'23"

The light draft coursing through the car told her that the windows were down. It scared her how calm she was, considering she just woke up in the middle of...

Where was she, anyway? The last thing she remembered was fighting with Murray. Everything else after that was a blur. She tried observing her surroundings, but all she could see were rows after rows of houses closely knit together. That narrows it down to basically everywhere in Boston.

Her feet wouldn't respond either. She could move her legs, but there was no power to her movements. They felt dead, just a hanging piece of meat dangling from her leg.

She was more aware of her surroundings after a few seconds. Up in the distance, the river roared against the wind. She was most likely on Back Bay, probably, given the townhouses. She was thirsty. 

A lot of things went through her mind in quick succession. Mostly question. What the hell was she doing there? Why was she in her car? Why was Murray not moving?