The rain had come a roar, a grim drumming on rooftops, gutters, shattered windowpanes, and the broken asphalt beneath Maren’s thrills as she pushed forward into the narrowing road. The world around her sounded to palpitate with a deep, retired breath, the fog splashing as if alive, bending and folding in slow, unsettling swells. Every shadow moved as however stirred by some unnoticeable current, every billabong

distorted its own reflection, bending her figure into commodity stretched, stretched, wrong. Yet she moved, deliberate, counting each step, adhering to meter like a lifeline as the girl walked beside her with