CHAPTER ONE — 9th and Ash
She moved through life like someone half‑here, half‑elsewhere — a girl with too many memories for her age and far too many ghosts for someone still breathing. Her lungs worked fine; breathing wasn’t the problem. People called her sensitiveif she would say something about anything. She wasn’t sensitive.
People called her dramatic.
People also called her broken. Mara called people stupid — unwanted or welcomed opinions, snide remarks, empty insight — so she didn’t particularly care what they thought they knew or thought. She had learned the hard way: under any circumstance, trust nobody. Do not trust anything or anybody — not their words, not their intentions.Her friend Homeless Holly (she named herself that; her words, not mine) didn’t even acknowledge “heard through the grapevine” gossip or chatter. It was only words, nothing more.She sighed out of nowhere — her Eureka moment. Had she finally understood one of life’s biggest ponders in the way only someone overexposed could and under‑appreciated should? She wasn’t fragile; she was raw. They were sheltered, coddled, pompous wealthy bigots with opinions about things they had no clue about and nothing to do with.She felt everything the world tried to hide, but she only thought she felt all of it. In her mind, she had. Truth was, nobody ever really knows the truth — and they never will.The GlitchesThe first time she saw something shimmer at the edges of reality, she chalked it up to exhaustion.
The second time, she thought she was losing her mind and genuinely considered checking herself into the nuthouse.
The third time, she understood.The world was literally glitching — not her.She saw the glitches: thin vertical slices of wrongness that looked like a broken laser disc positioned just right so the sun would send shimmers of bright vivid colors — yellow, green, blue, purple, red, every known and unknown color to mankind. They would appear, but as fast as they became visible, they would disappear into the air, poof". he learned to keep her head down so she wouldn’t see them, mouth shut so she wouldn’t tell anybody about them, and awareness of her surroundings at all times. Not just aware — present. Peripherals were everything on the street.She pretended she didn’t see the cracks in the air or the way shadows lagged behind their owners. She had six to twelve shadows at any given moment, even in daylight. Chalked it up to the weather.She even ignored the hum under her skin — a warning she couldn’t shake — but Mara was no stranger to the impossible.And Sorenson had actually acknowledged her presence.He watched her like a hawk watching its next victim.
Patient.
Hungry.
Waiting for her to make a move.The TearMara was still regrouping, gathering her thoughts, trying to make sense of everything she’d witnessed that day. Suddenly it felt like the world shifted — but earthquakes were common where she was.The sky folded.
The ground let out a sigh.Mara stepped back, but when she did, she unknowingly stepped through the tear — the tear she had been walking toward her whole life without the slightest inkling — right into Sorenson.Into the in‑between.
Into the glitch.
Into the place that had been calling her long before she ever heard its name.He stood there like he’d stepped out of another decade — or another world entirely. Then he knelt.Mara blinked.
“No autographs after two p.m.,” she said in a terrible Australian accent.She apologized, explaining she wasn’t Australian. People didn’t kneel for her. She was homeless, so people automatically assumed the worst. She didn’t know what to do in a kneeling scenario; there’s no chapter two in the book Life on how to handle an awkward kneeling moment with somebody who has feathers under their “trench coat,” if that’s what it really was.SorensonHis eyes were an impossible gray. Not storm gray, not sky gray — more like polished‑with‑baby‑oil metal gray.
Smooth.
Reflective.
Wrong.He studied her the way astronomers study the stars. Not with pity — with curiosity.“You dropped this,” he said, holding out a dollar.“I didn’t ask for—” she began, but he cut her off.“I know you didn’t.”His smile wasn’t gratitude‑seeking; it was like he was testing a human expression to see if it fit into that scenario.She took the dollar. Survival before pride. “Thank you.”He didn’t leave. Most people fled after handing a homeless person anything. Most people acted like homelessness was contagious or she had the plague — neither of which were true.Wear a mask. Put your mask on. Don’t buy booze with this. Don’t buy drugs with this. Get a job.
Shut up.It made her want to scream, but she didn’t. Mara liked to stay low‑key, cause no problems, and just go with the flow of the day.But he stayed.
He sat beside her on the concrete, his tampered leather trench coat pooling around her like a liquid shadow. He tugged the coat free from under himself with a strange, precise motion.“That looks uncomfortable,” she said.“What’s your name?” His voice was slow, deliberate, each word chosen with precision.She hesitated. Names had weight. Meaning. And it seemed strange that this random man sincerely gave two shits. But he felt steady.“Mara.”He rolled it across his tongue. “Mara is my name. Yours?”He paused a bit too long.“Sorenson.”Not I am Sorenson. Just Sorenson. Like a title.They sat in deliberate silence — the kind that felt like talking would break something fragile.Missed“Do you always stop for strangers?”“No.”“Why me?”“You weren’t supposed to be here.”“What?”“You misunderstand.”“People misunderstand me.”A car came up quick over the hill and splashed through a puddle. The driver swerved just to hit it.Sorenson shifted closer, trench coat shielding her without touching her. The coat’s fabric didn’t move like any cloth she had ever seen — it didn’t flow like fabric or cloth.“You’re not invisible,” he said.She started to say I’m not going to fuck you, but before the thought finished, she heard:“Give it time.”
Cool. Clear. Baritone.“No. You are not invisible.”“What are you talking about? Are you on drugs?”“You are… missed.”Missed.
Nobody — not a single person — had ever said that to her in her 36 years of life.The FeatherThey talked for almost an hour — about the city, coffee, pigeons being government drones (she joked; he wasn’t sure). He asked strange questions: what dreaming felt like, how loneliness manifested physically, whether love was predictable or difficult.When he finally stood, the absence felt like a cold gust of wind.“I will return,” he said.“Sure… yep, haven’t heard that before.”He turned to leave, and something brushed her cheek. She flinched, reached up. A feather.
White but metallic.
Perfect.
Warm.Feathers didn’t belong in the city — not like this. Not warm. Not alive.She glanced up at Sorenson’s trench coat. It shifted. It moved out of her way. For a second, she saw something beneath it — something folded.Metallic.
Organic.
Impossible.He didn’t turn around. He walked into the crowd and mid‑blink he was gone.He vanished.Mara studied the feather, bewildered, at a loss for words. People didn’t have feathers. Angels aren’t real. She was non‑denominational and didn’t know what she believed in. She believed in God but assumed she was on His permanent shit‑list for reasons she wasn’t sure of.But for the first time in years, she wondered if she’d just met somebody that wasn’t human — unless he came from a chicken coop that housed experiments on chickens, which would explain the feather.And if he was or wasn’t…