Melody

Prologue: The End of Melody

Peter's POV

I stared at the last page of Melody's Twist, the words swimming slightly from the whiskey warming my veins. There she was, my Melody Caldwell, lying lifeless on the page. Dead. The final period on her story was more than just punctuationㅡit was a liberation, a severing of chains that had bound me for nearly two decades.

I leaned back in the uncomfortable chair of the small hotel room, letting out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. My head throbbed slightly from the fumes of alcohol and the relentless focus that had consumed me for weeks.

It wasn't a glamorous workspaceㅡno roaring fireplace, no expansive views of snow-covered mountains, just a stained desk and the faint hum of a radiator struggling to keep the Wyoming chill at bay. But it was enough.

Finally, it's over.

I took another swig of the whiskey, letting its burn ripple down my throat. Melody was the series that had made me famous, made me wealthy enough to afford better than this motel room.

It had also caged me in, trapping me within the suffocating expectations of its fans and their desperate need for Melody's never-ending escapades. I hated herㅡor, more precisely, I hated what she represented: predictability, safety, and creative stagnation.

Yet, tonight, with this final book, I'd killed her. I'd given her a grand send-off, a death befitting the melodramatic world she inhabited. And with her gone, I could finally move on to Winter Echoes, the manuscript sitting in the desk drawer.

The thought of it made me smile. Winter Echoes wasn't safe. It wasn't pretty or poised. It was raw, dark, and bursting with a kind of energy I hadn't felt in years. It was a story I could be proud of, a story that mightㅡjust mightㅡmake people take me seriously as a writer again.

I capped the bottle and stood, the room spinning slightly as I did. The typewriter on the desk gleamed in the dim light, its keys worn from weeks of relentless pounding. For a moment, I reached out to touch it, running my fingers over the space bar like it was an old friend. Or perhaps an adversary.

"I'm done with you," I muttered, my voice rough in the silence.

The storm outside howled in agreement, rattling the windows and sending a chill through the room. I glanced at the clock. Late. Or maybe early. Time felt irrelevant now. All I knew was that I needed to get out of here, to leave this room and this town behind. The thought of staying one more night in Riverside, Wyoming, made my skin crawl.

I grabbed Winter Echoes and stuffed it into my bag alongside the manuscript for Melody's Twist. The latter was slated for delivery to my publisher, though God knew I'd rather burn it and let the ashes scatter in the wind. No matter. It was done, and there was no undoing it now.

As I packed, I felt an odd mix of emotions: triumph, relief, and a simmering undercurrent of dread. Melody's fans wouldn't take kindly to her death. Hell, some of them might take it personally. That was the thing about fansㅡthey thought they owned you, your stories, and your characters.

"They'll get over it," I muttered, zipping the bag shut.

The whiskey was still in my system when I made the decision to drive. In hindsight, it was stupidㅡno, reckless. But I couldn't stay. Not here. Not in this lifeless hotel room with its yellowed walls and faint smell of mildew.

My plan had been to fly back to Chicago, but the thought of airports, security lines, and packed terminals made my head ache.

"Just the road," I said to myself. "Just me and the open road."

The storm outside was a monster, its icy breath coating the parking lot in a slick sheet of danger. My car, a trusty but aging Camaro, was half-buried under a blanket of snow. I cursed as I brushed it off, the cold biting through my jacket and making my fingers ache.

Once inside, I cranked the engine and let the heater blast, shivering as the car slowly came to life. The storm had turned the highway into a swirling, treacherous blur of white. I should have waited. I should have checked the forecast. I should have done a lot of things.

But I didn't.

The wheels spun slightly as I pulled out onto the road, the tires struggling for traction. Visibility was almost nonexistent, the headlights cutting feebly through the snow. My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, my knuckles pale as the snowstorm raged around me.

I told myself it was fine. I'd driven through storms before. The whiskey in my veins dulled my fear, replacing it with a reckless confidence that whispered, You've got this. Just keep going.

The road was empty, a desolate stretch of black asphalt swallowed by the blizzard. I pressed on, the hum of the engine and the rhythm of the wipers the only sounds accompanying me. My thoughts wandered, flitting between Melody's demise and the possibilities that lay ahead.

I thought about Winter Echoes and the life it represented-a life free of Victorian dresses, melodramatic love triangles, and sappy endings. A life where I could write what I wanted, critics and fans be damned.

The car slid slightly, jolting me back to the present. The snow was getting worse, the road disappearing beneath a thickening layer of white. I slowed down, squinting into the storm, but it was no use. The world outside was a swirling vortex of nothingness.

"Come on," I muttered, leaning forward as if that would help.

Then I saw itㅡor thought I did. A patch of black ice, glinting treacherously in the headlights. I tried to steer around it, but the car skidded, the tires losing their grip.

"Shit!"

The Camaro spun, the world outside a dizzying blur of snow and darkness. Time seemed to slow as the car slid off the road, the wheels crunching against the icy shoulder before plunging into a ditch.

The impact was jarring, the seatbelt cutting into my chest as the car came to a sudden, violent stop. For a moment, everything was silent except for the sound of my ragged breathing.

I tried to move, but pain shot through my legs, sharp and unrelenting. I looked down and saw the angle of my knees, the way they bent unnaturally against the dashboard.

"No, no, no..."

Panic set in, my breath coming in short, frantic gasps. The storm raged on outside, its howls mocking my desperation. I fumbled for my phone, but it wasn't in my pocket. It must have been in the bag, which had flown into the backseat during the crash.

I was trapped. Alone. The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. I leaned back, closing my eyes and trying to block out the pain, the fear, the overwhelming sense of helplessness.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a thought surfaced, bitter and ironic: Melody's not dead yet. She's just getting started.

Darkness crept in, soft and insistent, pulling me under as the storm outside roared its victory.