Chapter 21: Refrain
BASEMENT STUDIO, RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT (EARLY MORNING)
A chime pulls Valerie from sleep. She rolls out of bed and dresses to run.
She drinks from a bottle of water on the table and takes up her phone, her buds, her key.
She hits the stairs, emerging into:
STREETS, RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT (EARLY MORNING)
Valerie turns the key in the lock and turns into the run, engaging music to fuel her soul.
She grips her phone like treasure. It’s her everything: her work, her life, her music, her self. It’s her only connection to the world--to everything but whom she misses the most.
She glances at the message on display. :.Her directive.: She knows the place, a couple miles up the street.
Cookie-cutter houses repeat toward infinity on either side. She runs on asphalt, bisecting the empty street, chasing a predetermined destination.
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OVERGROWN LOT, RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT (EARLY MORNING)
Valerie walks from the edge of the block. The music playing in her ears matches her mood: cooldown trance. Chilled. Her exposed skin RAGES PINK against the cold.
It’s autumn but winter knocks.
Could they be any more obvious?
The tickle of deja vu whispers across the base of her neck.
Valerie picks her way through the crispy overgrowth and tugs open the dilapidated incinerator door.
She gropes inside for THE PAYLOAD and comes away with a single paper crane.
The crunch of a fallen branch in the forest beyond startles Valerie to action. She returns to the road and sprints away.
STREETS, RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT (EARLY MORNING)
Valerie stops under an amber streetlamp beside a parked car.
Her heart beats from NERVES as much as physical exertion. She peeks around the car, content that no one is after her.
In one hand she holds the paper crane. In the other she holds her phone. The latter grows cold, DEAD, as if the leash tying her to some designated fate has been severed. The music stops.
She has only the crane.
Valerie (pocketing her phone) appraises the crane. There’s writing. She tenderly unfolds it:
THIS WILL DO. LIVE A GOOD LIFE, VALE.
Below are ten familiar digits she couldn’t correctly order herself. A phone number. The return to the life she left.
Valerie throws on her hood and walks toward a distant dawn.
THE END