A stream of consciousness blended in with Town Surfers, my first novel that I’m working on.

The night grows cold with torment. Echoing alleyways tempt us with their concealing shadows. Your chest is feeling the pressure of a thousand oceans, and is about to implode. You scream, only for the sound to be trapped in small bubbles, that reach the surface with a whimpered pop. Droopy eyes, heavy sighs, darkened eye bags and smoking fingertips. Ambition met with laziness. A spark falling on soggy wood. A bottle of water that can’t quench your thirst, left with a dry mouth. Beating your fists on a door that won’t give in. You’re weak. You’re pathetic. That’s all you’ll ever be. You tell your loved ones that you’re fine, and somehow, you dupe yourself too. Stew’s car tears across the horizon, tearing a strip in the sun’s totalitarian view on the horizon. Tears threaten to blind him and meet his demise in the dust, the skulls lining the side of the road like a racetrack barrier, but Stew presses forth. The tears are reminders of who he lost, who took them, and who needs to be exchanged for them. Rest is for the weary. Blood is for the worthy. Stew remembers back to a year ago, when he was still at home, bored out of his mind as he daydreamed about the wild wasteland, the secrets it held, the friends waiting for him. He looks into the backseat and sees the bloodied gun, then down at his burnt clothes, his sun bleached hair, his calloused hands and the empty seats, and how he could have never dreamt of this.