Hellbound. Fallen Gods

Rain ran down the window, blurring the lights of passing cars. For the past several minutes, I had been watching them without much interest, my knees pressed against the glove compartment. The car was stuffy. The heater was on full blast, and the smell of damp clothes mingled with my boyfriend’s cologne. I used to love that smell. I would bury my face in his neck and fall asleep like that, convinced there was nowhere safer in the world. Now even breathing the same air was difficult.

I could see my reflection in the side window. Smudged mascara beneath my eyes, lips pressed together so tightly they had almost lost their color, hair stuck to my damp cheeks. I looked pathetic. Before we left, I had touched up my makeup, trying to hide the fact that I had been crying in the bathroom. I don’t know why. He knew perfectly well what I had been doing behind the locked door. He had stood on the other side, telling me to stop acting like a child.

I ran my fingers over my wrist. It still hurt where he had grabbed me when I tried to leave. He hadn’t hit me. I had been repeating that to myself since we got into the car, as though it made any difference. As long as he hadn’t raised a hand to me, everything else could somehow be explained away.

The last buildings disappeared outside the window. Only then did I straighten in my seat and look at the road. We should have turned at the gas station. Instead, we kept going toward the woods, where there were no more open shops or people I could ask for help.

“You were supposed to take me home.”

He didn’t answer right away. Both hands gripped the steering wheel, his eyes fixed ahead. I knew that expression. One wrong word was enough to turn the silence into another fight. Over the past few months, I had learned to recognize moments like this, and I usually did everything I could to keep them from dragging on. I apologized, even when I didn’t know what for. I told him he was right. I waited for him to get over it. Most of the time, he made me feel like a princess in a fairy tale. Dating a university student was so different from going out with boys my own age. But his father wasn’t nearly as wonderful as the man I loved. He demanded a lot of his son, and our relationship suffered for it.

That evening, his father had wanted something new from him. He kept saying that time was running out, and I was already tired of it all.

“We need to talk first,” he finally said.

“We’ve talked. I told you it’s over.”

I felt the car accelerate. I glanced at the speedometer, then back at him. His expression didn’t change. If I hadn’t seen the needle moving and the trees slipping past the window faster and faster, I might have thought he hadn’t heard me.

“You’re not ending this over something stupid.”

Something stupid. That was what he called everything that made me cry. Taking my phone, reading my messages without permission, insulting my friends. Each thing on its own was supposed to be too small to argue about. And when I tried to bring them all up together, he accused me of dragging up the past. There was no winning. I always ended up feeling as though something was wrong with me.

I rested my hands on my thighs so he wouldn’t see how badly they were shaking.

“I don’t want to be with you anymore. I don’t want this kind of relationship.”

He turned his head and spent several seconds looking at me instead of the road. The dashboard lights fell across his face, deepening the crease between his eyebrows. I waited for him to shout. To ask if there was someone else, because obviously I couldn’t have decided on my own that I’d had enough. Instead, he gave me a brief smile and looked ahead again.

That smile frightened me more than a raised voice.

“You’ll calm down and stop talking nonsense.”

I wanted to answer, but the car hit a puddle and lurched sideways. Instinctively, I grabbed the handle above the door. Water struck the underside of the car, and for a moment I could see nothing through the windshield but the blurred glow of the headlights. The wipers swept across once, then again. The road reappeared ahead of us, empty and shining with rain.

“Slow down.”

He didn’t. I wanted some sign that he was still in control, that he would pull over any moment and let me out. He couldn’t possibly want to hurt us. He was angry, but he wouldn’t do anything stupid. I knew him. My heart was beating faster and faster, and my fingers had begun to ache from gripping the handle.

We passed a bus stop. A small shelter, a bench, and a streetlamp were the only things lit up anywhere nearby. I turned to look back at them, almost pressing my face against the glass.

“Stop. I’ll get out here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I mean it. Stop the car.”

The shelter disappeared around the bend. I kept staring into the darkness for a while, even though there was nothing left to see. It felt as though I had just lost my last chance for the evening to end differently. Stupid. We were on an ordinary road. He wasn’t taking me to the other side of the world. I could call a taxi. Call anyone. He just had to let me out.

I reached into the bag resting on the center armrest. I searched for my phone among tissues, keys, and my wallet, swearing under my breath when I couldn’t find it. Before leaving, I had thrown everything inside without thinking. All I wanted was to get out of his apartment. Now every bend in the road sent the contents shifting beneath my hand.

“What are you looking for?”

“My phone.”

I straightened, holding it in my hand. The screen lit up, showing several missed calls. Someone had tried to reach me during the drive, but my phone was on silent, so I hadn’t noticed.

Before I could dial, he reached over and grabbed the same wrist. I hissed in pain, shrinking back against the door. My phone fell between the seat and the armrest. I tried to pull my hand free while watching the road, because the car had begun to drift into the opposite lane.

“Let go! Watch where you’re going!”

He released his grip and jerked the steering wheel. The seat belt tightened across my chest, and my bag tumbled into the footwell. For several seconds, I sat completely still. I could hear my own breathing and his swearing. He was saying something about how I needed to stop, how my behavior was going to get us into an accident.

I looked at the reddened skin on my wrist. I couldn’t believe that earlier that same day, I had been wondering whether to give us another chance. I had even worked out what to say to calm him down. None of it seemed important anymore. I wanted to be in my own room, to close the door and know he didn’t have a key.

“Let me out,” I said quietly.

He said nothing. I started crying. I tried to hold back the tears, but I couldn’t. My nose was running, and my hands shook so badly I could barely find the seat belt buckle. I thought that if he saw I really wanted to get out, he would finally stop. Maybe I thought he still cared whether something happened to me. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

I didn’t open the door. I only wanted to make him slow down, but when he heard the click, he turned sharply toward me.

“Are you fucking crazy?”

I saw him open his mouth to say something else. I didn’t hear what it was, because I looked past his outstretched arm and saw someone standing in the road.

He was just before the entrance to the bridge. A dark figure in the middle of our lane, caught in the headlights. He stood motionless, facing us, as though he couldn’t see the car coming toward him.

“Watch out!”

Everything happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to pull my hand away from the door. He slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel, and the car skidded. I pitched forward, my knees striking the dashboard. I tried to grab something, but my palm slipped across the smooth plastic. Through the windshield, I saw the road first, then the trees, and finally the metal barrier along the bridge. I was screaming. I don’t remember whether he was too.

There was a crash of crumpling metal. I saw the windshield crack, felt something strike my face, and then I was outside. For a brief moment, there was nothing around me but rain and darkness. The seat was no longer beneath me. There was no door to lean against. I reached out, though there was nothing to hold on to.

I hit the asphalt and rolled across the wet surface. Burning pain tore through my entire body. I wanted to call for help, but I couldn’t draw breath. I lay there with my mouth open, trying to breathe, a faint, wet sound coming from my throat.

For a while, I couldn’t understand what had happened. I could see concrete beside my face, pieces of glass, and a trickle of water that was growing darker. Only when I tasted blood on my lips did I realize it was coming from me. I wanted to touch my cheek. Check where I was bleeding. My hand twitched, but I couldn’t lift it.

Somewhere behind me, the horn blared. It didn’t stop for even a moment, drowning out the rain and the water flowing beneath the bridge. I listened for something else. A door opening, footsteps, a voice. Anything that meant I wasn’t alone. A moment ago, I had wanted to get away from him. Now I was praying he would come.

I tried to get up. The pain was so intense that my vision went white. I sank back to the ground, feeling my wet hair stick to my mouth. I couldn’t even brush it away. I was lying in the rain, a few meters from the wrecked car, unable to do something that simple.

Had anyone seen us? Was someone already calling for help? I tried to remember the last car we had passed, but all I could think about was the figure in the road. Had we hit him? Was he lying somewhere beside me? I wanted to look around, but the slightest movement brought more pain.

I was getting cold. It was becoming harder to keep my eyes open, though I was afraid to close them. I had the feeling that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to open them again. So I stared at a shard of glass in front of my face and tried to focus on breathing.

One more breath.

And one more.

A black shoe appeared beside the glass. I hadn’t heard any footsteps. Someone was simply standing there, so close that if I could have moved my hand, I would have touched his leg. Slowly, I shifted my gaze upward. Dark trousers, a long coat, hands hanging at his sides. A man was looking down at me without moving. His hair was the strangest thing about him. Unnaturally pale, almost white, though his face wasn’t that of an old man. Wet strands fell across his forehead. I wanted a better look at him, but my vision was growing more and more blurred.

I tried to ask for help. My lips moved, but not a single word came out. I could only hope he understood. That he would bend down and tell me everything was going to be all right. But he just stood there like a statue.

He was the last thing I saw before I lost consciousness.