Chapter 1

Oh God.
Please, just fucking start.
The engine spluttered as I tried the gas again.
I let my head slump back to the headrest, eyes closed, it was hopeless.

Some road trip this had been, soon after catching my best friend of over a decade in a compromising situation with my fianc , I'd left the motel we were staying at, too drunk to drive, too angry to stay still, cursing their names against a quiet background of 80's rock music, yknow, the kind they play on the radio in the small hours of the morning, at the time when the only people listening are truckers and those we cannot, or will not sleep.

In retrospect, a combination of drunken aggression and low visibility meant it was only a matter of time before something went wrong, and as it happened in this case, the something came in the form of a deer.
It had loomed In the headlights, and I had accelerated, call It a bad mood, call It whatever, but high speeds mean things go wrong easily.
the deer got trapped under a wheel, messing up the steering and ultimately sending me spinning off of the deserted road into a ditch. And now my car wouldnt start.

I opened my eyes. Time to Inspect the damage, the best I could In the moonlight.
I climbed out, wincing at the pain in my head as a lone car passed on the highway, noticable only by its shining red tail lights, like demon eyes in an otherwise pitch black environment.

Well, my car was totalled. I guess I must have blacked out at some point during the crash, or soon after, it looked like my car had been used to beat someone to death, (which, I realised, in a way it had) but i only remembered the intial skidding from the tarmac,and not the apparent barrel rolls and subsequent wrecking of my car. Dents and broken glass smeared red, reflecting a dark ruby in the moonlight, everywhere. The deer lay in pieces around me, dead eyes not seeing, dead mouth making no sound, yet silently letting me know it was disappointed with me.

"Don't start," I warned it. With a sigh, I headed towards the road, leaving the car to its fate.
I felt no shame, it was a rental, for which my so called "friend" had paid.