My eyes went wide, and the warmth in my chest suddenly became overbearing. It felt as though I had been slapped in the face.

Right. I had forgotten. Harper was my ex-friend, of 17 years.

"And at this point, I'm not even mad about it." Her gaze was sharp, intense. "I don't even know why I bothered coming here. After everything..." Her brown eyes were shadowed with resignation. "You're still you. The same selfish, heartless, conniving little shit."

Those words, for whatever reason, made my heart clench.

"But what the fuck were you thinking? I can't wrap my head around it...!" She slammed her palms on her forehead, as if she couldn't make sense of things. "Tonight, of all nights? Really?!" Her words rang down the hall outside. "Just... What is wrong with you?!" She frowned, her expression teetering on disgust.

I could still feel the rough hardcover under my fingertips... If only I could use it to bash her head in.

I clenched my fist, my grin fading.

"Leave," I simply huffed, shoulders slumping. "I'm not in the mood to argue with you right now." I grabbed the doorknob, swinging the door closed.

But before it could fully lock out her persistent glare, something had interrupting its close; her foot.

"Why?" She held it open, I could hear her bitter smile. "You were in the mood to throw a whole-ass fucking party just two hours ago?"

Before I could defend myself, she had pushed the door open, making me jerk my head towards her in bewilderment.

"Just know that I only came here for your mom." She spat. "Otherwise, you couldn't pay me to look you in the eyes after everything that's happened. Got it?" She stabbed my chest with her index, then grabbed me by the wrist. "Now, shut the fuck up and follow me."

"Let go." I said, trying to pull away.

Disregarding my order completely, she led me out of the house and closed the door. She threw a disgusted glare back at me.

"You reek of alcohol." Her nose was scrunched up, making me press my lips together, balling my fists.

"That's rich coming from you." I countered. "You reek of cigarettes."

Harper shot me a sidelong glance, her mouth opening like she wanted to rip into me, but she stopped short. She let out a sharp breath through her nose, voice tight and bitter. “You’re lucky I came at all.”

I scoffed, feeling the dirty, cold ground of the hallway under my bare feet. I couldn't even get my shoes.

I can't even find it in me to retaliate.

We breezed along the other apartment doors, heading towards the exit of the building.

"Where are we going?" I asked, giving in to her pull. I looked up, watching the back of her head as I waited for a reply that never came.

At least I wouldn't be sobbing in my apartment alone if I went with her... right?

As soon as we were out of the building, the smoke-filled air of my neighborhood seeped into my system, jerking my senses awake. We crossed the street, headed for Harper's white Toyota Yaris. Her car was poorly parked under a flickering light pole, beside a graffiti filled wall.

"Get in the car." She ordered, swinging the backdoor open, a hand on her hip as she did. Despite the lousy orange light under which we stood, I could discern that 'I'm so done with you' look of hers.

It had been so long since I last saw it. Her thin eyebrows were brought together, her mouth unthinkingly pouting, her brown eyes glaring and her hair so disheveled it made her look comical.

I couldn't help but chuckle at it, feeling a slim bit nostalgic as I hopped into the car.

Seven months.

We hadn't seen each other in seven months.

The last time I saw her was such a shitshow, too. We were at the police station. She was crying, I was crying, and her injured shithead boyfriend just stood there silently. I had begged her to hear me out but to no avail. That night, Harper, my best friend of 17 years had officially decided to cut me off.

I leaned back onto my chair, shooing away the giddiness that slowly filled my chest at the familiar smell of her dusty car seats, and the smell of the pungent lemon flavored air freshener hanging on the rearview mirror.

"Put your seatbelt on." A hoarse voice spoke out, making my smile drop instantly as chills ran down my spine.

Suddenly, the air in the car felt nonexistent.

My eyes shot up, slowly registering that a third person was sitting in the car with us. A man. He had short blonde hair, black framed thick glasses, and a slimy, disgusting little grin on his face as he turned around to look at me.

"How—" The moment he opened his mouth, I shot up, bumping my head into the car's ceiling.

"Stop the car." I demanded, glaring at Harper through the rearview mirror.

With dark under-eye bags, puffy eyes, and an annoyed expression, Harper let out a sigh.

"Drop the act already." She said, making tears rush to my eyes as I flopped back down. "At least for tonight, do what you're told, Penelope." She spun the wheel, readying to take a left turn.

We're heading to his house.

They're still together.

She brought him along.

She brought him with her on the day of my mother's funeral.

She put me in the same car with him.

For a moment, my mind could not comprehend the cruelty of this situation, its painful irony. In helpless and confused quiet, I watched the empty road outside.

I turned to Harper with the remaining sliver of hope in my heart.

Staring into her lovely browns, I caught a sight that made me unable to hold onto my tears. Through the mirror, I glimpsed a familiar gaze, a shade of brown carved into the back of my mind, a soul that once intertwined with my very own.

Yet... that soulmate of mine was now gazing at me with such loathing I could hardly breathe.

The sheer level of anger and spite I caught through her teary eyes made my soul shiver and my heart tighten. Tears were streaming down my face as I disconnected from it.

I pressed my lips together and curled my shaky palms.

"STOP THE FUCKING CAR!" I banged on the window, making the two jump. "HARPER!"

"Yo, what the fuck?!" Benjamin, that devil incarnate, turned around and reached out.

Memories I thought I had forgotten arose.

Before the flashing scenes in my mind could paralyze my body; before I could think and completely out of breath, I swung the book I forgot I even held anymore at his face. He let out a pained scream and turned away to hold his face.

I flung the door open, sharing one last broken look with Harper through the rearview mirror before I jumped out of the moving car.

"PEN-" She couldn't complete her sentence before I landed onto the concrete.

Thanking whatever force it was that helped me stand on my feet as I made it out, with a surging pain in both of my ankles, I took a sharp, cold breath in, trying to regain my balance.

I ran away, ignoring the loud calls for my name, because I could see a highway with few cars in the distant night. And I knew being far away from these people was the only thing that could help me breathe again.

Clutching the book in my hand, ignoring the harshness of the ground under my feet, I rushed towards it.

I'm going home.

I'm so fucking done.

I looked up at the few misty clouds floating in the darkened sky, now hiding the moon. I bit my lips, taking in sharp and rapid breaths.

Why did I trust her again? How could I let myself be in this situation, again?

"I'm such a fucking idiot." I bit my bottom lip, feeling a sharp sting on it and a liquid emerging from the injury.

Suddenly, the night's darkness disappeared, and all I could see was light. I looked down quickly, eyes widening at the sight that greeted me.

A loud honking echoed through the night, and before I completely registered what the vehicle heading towards me at a deathly speed was, I was already in the air.

I couldn't feel much, as I limply lay on the ground. Cheek on concrete, I listened to the muffled screams around me and watched the blood from my head form a pond around me, staining the shiny black book sitting a few inches away from my head, open.

I could die right now.

My surroundings got darker by the moment.

but the thought of death didn't faze me much. I came close to it too many times for it to scare me anymore.

I'm stronger than this.

I'll be fine.

Harper had stopped the car in a frenzy. She had gotten out to check up on her friend after she ordered her anxious and feral husband to stay in the car, at the top of her lungs. 

Harper's had a terrible feeling about it all. That was why she came to check up on Penelope in the first place.

She thought herself numb to the entire situation. She truly hoped she was. But she was crying as she looked around in a craze for Penelope.

She wasn’t outside. Penelope was running in the other direction in full force, barefoot in the dead of night, like the crazy woman that she was.

The night sky was sprinkled with glowing white, stretching into the distance. And there she was; a girl Harper thought she could never meet again, clothed in black and slowly merging with the night sky. For a split moment, that had been the painting.

Harper started running in hopes of catching up with her Penelope. She yelled her name out, but she didn’t hear.

Recognizing that one of the white dots in the distance was getting bigger by the second, Harper screamed louder.

Still no reaction.

Eyes wide open at the white dot that had turned into a vehicle with an unconscious driver, she opened her mouth to bellow Penelope’s name as loud as she could, but what came out instead was a scream at the sight of her best friend's body being flung in the air.

She didn’t have the guts to go closer to it.

She stopped in her tracks and shakily took out her phone. Benjamin was running to the scene in terror.

A shaky hand held Harper's phone to her ear while she waited for the ringing to stop, a second hand on her belly.

Her eyes remained fixated on the bloody scene, never blinking, hollow and shaky.

“911... yes, there is something I'd like to report.”

Penelope Horne:

Birth: January 21st year 1997.

Death: September 12th year 2024.

Day 1: Start

The familiar scent of aged wood gently tickled my nose, prompting me to open my eyes. Silence enveloped the room as my gaze cautiously wandered. For a moment, I was lost between consciousness and the lingering haze of... what?

The chamber boasted a lofty ceiling adorned with intricate hand-carved designs from marble and dark stone. The windows lined the walls, wide yet small in length and placed too high to allow any view of the land. Nothing but the sunlight and the clear blue of the sky outside could filter through.

My legs were swollen, bare, and sore, planted firmly on the chilled white marble floor. My hands pressed against a sturdy ebony desk-like stand before me. I tried to shift, only to feel the cold bite of iron around my wrists. Shackles. What the fuck.

I breathed in and out, attuned to the calm and rhythmic rise and fall of my chest as I breathed.

Okay. I think... I think I'm alive.

My pulse quickened in disbelief. After everything—after that—I’m still here.

What a relief.

“Lady Hiba, would you care to elucidate the nature of your association with Lady Penelope Ashdown, past or present?” A voice broke me out of my stupor, making me jerk my head towards it.

Lady?

Surveying my surroundings, I realized I was in what seemed to be a traditional courtroom.

Uh... What?