Time is a fickle thing. 

Humans use it as an absolute ruler to measure every aspect of their life, and yet, time is as unreliable as a clothes iron fifteen minutes before a meeting. It goes painfully slow when you need it to go fast, and it goes blistering fast when you least expect it. Whatever the case is, time usually goes against what we want it to do. 

It stretches insurmountable pain for far too long, and shortens fun to merely a whisper. How anyone would trust it in any shape and form is beyond understanding. Never trust time, for it will always stab you in the back.

A lesson Clara Prendergast learned the hard way when the last five minutes of her life stretched thin to squeeze the last ounce of suffering she could muster. 

5'00"

The first thing that Clara noticed when she woke up was that it was past midnight. The sky was blackened with ominous clouds looming in the distance, covering the faint glow of the moon as they floated by. The dashboard clock read "12:05," and it sure as well wasn't P.M. 

The second thing she noticed was that she was sitting in the driver's seat of her Dodge. The engine was on, roaring loudly as if someone was trying to floor the gas. Her head was killing her, sending needles down her body if she so much as shifted her gaze sideways. 

The third thing she noticed was Murray's corpse strapped to the passenger's seat.

4'42"

Clara screamed, or at least, she tried. Her throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton and lined with sand. Her husband — her sweet and jolly Murray — was sprawled like a gutted fish on his seat. One of his eyes had popped out of his socket, lolling back and forth against the chilling breeze. The left side of his face was mangled and broken, with pieces of his jaw and skull piercing his skin, revealing bone and marrow. His tongue fell out of his broken chin, dripping blood, little by little, unto his white shirt. A milky white liquid seeped through his fractured skull, foaming near the base of his receding hairline. 

The right side of his face rested peacefully and undisturbed, unaware of the bloody mess just a few inches away.

4'37"

Clara tried to feel her lover's face, to make that illusion go away, but she noticed her hands wouldn't respond. She felt her limbs go numb and weak as if all the energy had been drained from them. With painful determination, she raised her hands up to eye level, only to find her wrist covered in a coppery, scarlet liquid. She tried looking for the word that described that liquid, but her mind was a mess. Every time Clara tried making a fist, or move her hands, her energy would falter, leaving her like a trembling rag doll. 

Little did she know, her tendons had been cut.

4'23"

The light draft coursing through the car told her that the windows were down. It scared her how calm she was, considering she just woke up in the middle of...

Where was she, anyway? The last thing she remembered was fighting with Murray. Everything else after that was a blur. She tried observing her surroundings, but all she could see were rows after rows of houses closely knit together. That narrows it down to basically everywhere in Boston.

Her feet wouldn't respond either. She could move her legs, but there was no power to her movements. They felt dead, just a hanging piece of meat dangling from her leg.

She was more aware of her surroundings after a few seconds. Up in the distance, the river roared against the wind. She was most likely on Back Bay, probably, given the townhouses. She was thirsty. 

A lot of things went through her mind in quick succession. Mostly question. What the hell was she doing there? Why was she in her car? Why was Murray not moving?

While she pondered the why's of her current predicament, a hand reached into the car through the window, shifting the stick from "Parked" to "Drive" before retreating and disappearing into the night. 

4'11"

The acceleration whipped Clara's head back into her seat, hearing something pop in her neck. It hurt like hell.

The car was moving forward. 

It took some time for her to realize what just happened. They were speeding down...some street. She noticed a peculiar device on the steering wheel. It was a metal bar that went from side to side. On each end, a small pulley-and-rope system was attached to a little black box on the dashboard. It made a weird, whirring sound, pulling the ropes into itself or releasing them. Every time it did, the car seemed to move either left or right.

Curious, she thought. Where are we going? Wait, we? Oh yeah, Mur's here.

The rough ride had him bobbing all over the place. His unsocketed eye looked like a paddle-toy half-strung by an annoyed kid. His head lolled from side to side. 

Her motherly instinct was to put a hand over his chest to stabilize him without realizing the futility of her action. Not only because her hands were a mess that couldn't pick up a feather from the ground, or by the fact that Murray was dead, but mostly because he was already wearing a seatbelt.

3'58"

While she pawed uselessly at Murray's chest, the car pulled into familiar territory. Commonwealth Avenue, hardly a thing she had to remember. She took that same road every day to get Zacky to school. Cars zipped by them, hurrying to go to their destination as fast as possible. It now dawned on Clara that she was not actually controlling the car, but something else. Or someone else. It hurted her to think.

She tried shuffling her legs enough to see that a weird contraption was placed where the pedals are supposed to go. The whole thing had a murky plastic cap on top of it, so she couldn't really see how it worked. The only thing she could get from it was the same whirring sound from the device on top of the dashboard.

A bump on the road brought her attention back on course.

3'41"

Clara was beginning to think she was in trouble. She thought hard about what led her here, but yet again, she struck a mental wall. Whenever she strained her memory, her temples pressed on her skull. Whatever sequence of events brought her here, she now had to undue to get out. 

The steering wheel didn't budge no matter how much she scratched at it. Trying to kick the plastic cover on the pedals didn't seem to work either, only managing to bring a jolt of pain up her calves with every try.

The only thing she hadn't tried was moving the stick. When Clara tried to grab it, she found her hand shaking with the strain. She had absolutely no strength to her "grip", with her shivering fingers resting on top of it uselessly caressing the knob with her blood.

3'29"

"Mur...Mur...wake up..."

Her only hope was that Murray would wake up from his slumber and help her out. Her strength wasn't enough.

No matter how much she hit him with her flayed hands, Murray didn't budge an inch.

"Mur, wake the fuck up."

Nothing. Murray adamantly refused to give Clara anything but the cold shoulder.

"Mur. I need help. Wake up. Please."

But it was useless. Murray was gone. As for why he was gone, she couldn't remember.

A flash of hot, white pain burst through her forehead, making her squirm on her seat. That was enough to snap her out of her state of shock.

She remembered. The pain. Murray's skull caving in. His body fell on her living room with a wet thud. 

Dead. 

Dead. 

Dead. 

Dead.

"Mur! Mur! Help!" she yelled. At Murray. At God. At whoever could be listening.

But nobody came to her aid.

3'02"

"Shit!"

2'59"

Clara began to trash out in her seat like a child in a temper tantrum, flailing her arms and hitting everything around her, as if that would help anything. It only managed to increase the pain in her joints. Her blood was everywhere now, especially all over her palms, making her weak grasp fade into nothingness.

The car suddenly stopped in its tracks. In the distance, the Harvard Bridge loomed peacefully against the Boston skyline, with the river raging under it.

Just as it stopped, it began accelerating with even bigger strength than before.

2'33"

The car sped towards the bridge, making the roaring engine echo against the passing buildings. Clara was in full panic mode now. The only thing crossing her mind was a continual, guttural scream, pushing and pulling at everything her weakened fingers could lay on.

Every time she tried to lunge forward, the seatbelt would snap her back into position. She tried a couple more times, with the same result, until the idea of unfastening the seatbelt crossed her mind.

She slammed her hand into the button with all her available strength. Unfortunately, without her tendons to focus that strength, her middle finger received the brunt of the force, breaking it in two different places  

The broken bone sent pins and needles all over her arm, taking a hold of the right side of her face, making her feel numb all over.

"Dammit..."

2'09"

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts!

Her finger was bent in three different ways. It hurt to even think about moving it. 

She tried to grip it as if that would somehow dull her pain, but it sent a fresh wave of pain to the back of her skull with even the faintest touch. 

In an impulse of stupidity, she decided to bite down her finger, hoping it would straighten her bones. It failed miserably. The only thing it managed to do was stifle her whimpers.

1'58"

In a last-ditch effort to unlock her seatbelt, she pressed the button with her elbow. To her surprise, it worked, unlatching with a snap. Sadly for her, it was the worst moment possible, because, at that very second, the car crashed against the bridge's guardrail, sending the vehicle into a spinning front flip over the bridge.

1'49"

Without the seatbelt's protection, Clara's head whipped forward, making her head smash against the steering wheel. Her nose burned as it broke into pieces, spouting blood all over the windshield. Cartilage and bone pierced the walls of her nose, which soon flooded her lungs. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't feel anything besides pain and fire. It took her attention from the fact that she was free-falling head-first into an icy river.

1'47"

The impact of the car against the water smashed Clara against the roof of the car. Her neck took most of the strain, with something cracking somewhere on her back. The second thing she felt was the cold water pouring into the upside-down car through the open windows. Clara didn't have time to think about the pain assaulting her every sense, with her survival instincts kicking in. She took a deep breath, holding in as much air as she could.

1'39"

The freezing river water made her muscles immediately tense up against her body. It felt like a million needles piercing all over her unprotected skin. Her throat reflexively closed up. Nothing was going to get in or out of that route. Somewhere in her brain shouted that she needed to cover her face, and she quite agreed with that notion, but when she tried to actually move her hand, she found herself unable to move. Not her hands, or her arms, or even her neck. She was completely paralyzed, unable to escape her sinking car. She wanted to scream, to ask for help, to no avail. Her mouth would not even move.

1'13"

The car was halfway submerged now, with the back being the first one to go under. Clara's panicked eyes saw how the water slowly engulfed the top of her head, teasingly licking the rest of her body, sprawled on the roof. She couldn't do a thing as her vision mucked in the swaying waters.

This was it. She was going to die.

Why me? Why now? Why?

Help me. Please help. Somebody. Anybody.

I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die. Please. Help.

Need help.

Please.

1'00"

By this time, the oxygen deprivation was unbearable. She felt her eyes being pushed from the back of her skull. Her lungs were in intense pain, being crushed by the pressure of the sinking around her. 

The water around her began to darken. The car was completely drowned, slowly sinking into the depths of the river.

0'57"

Nothing.

Emptiness.

A still calm.

No sound.

No feeling.

Just an infinite void. A cold, endless void with no way out.

0'56"

Clara's lungs couldn't hold anymore. Her reflex told her to breathe in. To let oxygen in. But there was no solace, but water and pain.

0'55"

Her lungs burned up. Her throat burned up. Her entire body screamed that whatever she was doing, it was wrong and must be stopped. But it was too late. She had signed her death sentence in one deep breath.

0'50"

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for being a lousy wife. For being a lousy friend. I'm sorry, Zizi, for not being with you when you needed me.

0'45"

I'm sorry, Mur. For not being the best wife for you. For always being jealous of my best friend over you.

0'40"

...

0'35"

...

0'30"

Wait, what about Zacky?

0'29"

My son! What about my son?!

0'28"

Oh God, he is going to grow up without a mother. Without my love. Without his mother's embrace.

0'27"

I need to move. I need to live. For him. For his future.

0'26"

Please, body, move. Please, let me live. I'll do whatever it takes, just let me live.

0'25"

Please, God. Not here. Not now. I swear I'll be good.

0'24"

Please, please, please.

0'23"

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

0'22"

...

0'12"

...

0'02"

I'm sorry.

0'01"

I love you, Zacky.

0 MINUTES — THE SECOND TRAGEDY

THE WANDERER'S BLUES — END

TO BE CONTINUED IN SEASON 2 — BRIDGE