Page 283 -- XXXIII.

--donation bonus (day #11, post 4/5)--
The chopper was certainly persistent. Clearly, as long as it remained in pursuit, police cars would keep finding him. If he couldn’t flee from it, then he needed to neutralize it--without harming whoever was inside, of course.

Hector waited for the helicopter to draw closer. Then he attached four metal pillars to its landing skids and looped the other ends around separate streetlights. He added a fifth to the tail and attached it to a fire hydrant. He turned the bike around and rode off in a different direction, this time without his pursuer.

He just went straight. He didn’t know what else to do. The more he tried to think, the worse he felt. After a while, he ran out of city. He kept going.

Barren grasslands filled the horizon, save the occasional rise of boulders. He pulled into the road’s shoulder, then into the grass and dirt, and finally stopped next to a cluster of rocks.

And it was finally quiet. He finally had space to breathe. To think. He got off the bike. He pulled off the helm and let it drop from his fingers while he looked out, Brighton in the distance.

He collapsed. Unconsciousness embraced him then and there.

When he awoke, his face was in the dirt. Blue sky and white clouds greeted him. The sun had only just begun to wane.

Hector shut his eyes. ‘...Garovel?’

‘Hector! Where are you?! What the fuck happened?!’

He started sobbing.


Chapter Thirty-Three: ‘O, solemn child...’
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For a time, he couldn’t even respond.

‘Hector?! I... I went to the house, and I saw Geoffrey’s body. And Nathan’s. And. I checked the school and--I... Hector, talk to me.’

‘Everything went wrong, Garovel... everything is... it’s all... I can’t...’