Holding Grudges

File I

I never found any joy in driving down this cursed, winding road—neither beneath the unrelenting glare of daylight nor under the suffocating shroud of night. It made no difference. The misery remained the same. If anything, nighttime made the ordeal even more excruciatingly slow. At least, that's how it felt—an agonizing crawl through a maze designed by some sadist obsessed with stop signs, speed bumps, and traffic lights that seemed to conspire against me at every turn.

No exaggeration—none whatsoever. The streetlights, dim and feeble, barely held back the encroaching darkness, their sickly glow stretching long, distorted shadows across the asphalt. Above me, moths swarmed in frantic, erratic spirals, drawn to the artificial light like desperate souls chasing an illusion. Lucky bastards, I thought bitterly. Their night would, without question, be better than mine.And then, the speed bumps—my mortal enemies.

They lurked at every stretch, lined up in merciless succession, each one delivering a jarring, stomach-turning jolt. My vision blurred, my head spun, and my patience withered into nothingness. I entertained the idea—just once—of rolling past one stop sign. Just one. A single act of rebellion in this slow-moving purgatory. But no. The ever-watchful eyes of the neighborhood stood as silent sentinels, their presence a constant, suffocating pressure.

The self-appointed enforcers of suburban law never slept, always ready to snitch, to judge, to scrutinize. And if they didn't catch me, the countless CCTV cameras, hidden in plain sight, most certainly would. Side roads?

No escape. They all told the same monotonous tale, each one a different variation of the same slow-moving torment. There was no shortcut, no loophole—only the ceaseless, crawling pace of frustration. And so, I drove on, trapped in this endless cycle of stops, starts, and silent curses, the night stretching out before me like an unwinnable game.

"The Watch and their power," I murmured, a bitter chuckle slipping past my lips—a sound caught somewhere between amusement and disdain. The weight of those words lingered in the air, thick and suffocating, as if even speaking them aloud risked invoking their unseen presence.

It was the same haunting tale whispered through time, an echo of tragedy that refused to fade. Fifteen years ago, a little girl—just seven years old, full of laughter and innocence—chased after her ball, her tiny feet barely skimming the pavement before fate wrenched her away. In the blink of an eye, the street swallowed her whole. A hit-and-run. A car that never stopped. A driver who vanished into the abyss, leaving behind nothing but silence and a void that no justice had ever filled.

Even now, Justice for Jane Anderson posters clung to lampposts and fences like ghosts of an unhealed wound, their edges curling, weathered by time yet unforgotten. Last week's vigil still lingered in the air—the soft glow of candlelight, the murmurs of grief, the delicate white petals that now drifted along the pavement, carried by the wind like whispers from the past. This was a neighborhood built on quiet, on stillness, on the promise of safety. But that illusion shattered the night Jane's laughter was stolen, and no matter how many years passed, the scars still bled.

I was making this miserable drive to meet someone—a friend, I suppose... though that word felt like a lie now. More like an acquaintance, a ghost of the past I never quite shook off. His name? David A. Williams. And for some reason, he clung to that A like it was the last damn thing anchoring him to this world. I never asked why. Never cared to. We met in high school, though "met" is generous—we were thrown together, forced into proximity by our parents' long-standing friendship. Back then, David wasn't exactly the life of the party. In fact, calling him unpopular would be an understatement. But it wasn't like people hated him. No, he just... faded after it happened.