#tbf there are very specific reasons nat wasn't allowed in on the plan as a whole and those reasons are

[albatris]

hewwo

I'm revisiting rental car book one and trying to muddle my way through the whole thing in order

felt like posting the little starting part <3

chapter one opening!!!! the very start of our silly miserable little trilogy :3 I'm not sure if it's too slow or not.........

ahoy taglist! @nicola-writes @saturniiforme @polyaubergine @tracle0 @goosemixtapes @valence-positive @the-one-who-makes-negative-noise @ambiguousfiction @afoolandathief @softboiled-doomdesire (new username? :O!) @mecharose @vellichor-virgo @flapuflapu @multi-lefaiye @writeouswriter @itisi-asimplegay @constellationof0rion @writing-is-a-martial-art and also @incandescent-creativity if you're interested, bc of your 👀👀👀👀's in the replies hehe :3

Nat Finch blinked awake.

He was slumped forward in the driver’s seat of his rental car, his forehead pressed to the steering wheel, his body aching like he hadn’t moved in centuries. His feet were bare. His throat burned. His head throbbed. Curled over his shoulders was the familiar softness of the blanket from his back seat, the one he’d been meaning to give to the Larsons for two weeks now. A deep night breeze leaked through the slightly-open window to his right, the cold gnawing at the dampness that clung to his clothes, to his face and hair. He felt filthy, filmy, disgusting—more so than usual.

A muddle of memories and flickers and voices fought for space in his brain, bumping up against each other and overlapping, threads escaping every time he thought he’d grasped one. He was overcome, for a single, surreal moment, by the sense he had just awoken from an exceedingly peculiar dream.

Nat Finch sat up, groaning.

In his lap, plastic crinkled, disturbed by the motion. A collection of granola bars were scattered over him, a few of them having tumbled down onto the seat next to him and the floor below. Like someone had dumped them unceremoniously over his head and just… left him like that. He squinted down at them.

He recognised the brand, vaguely—something hoity-toity and ridiculous he’d seen at the supermarket, fifteen dollars a goddamn box—but they weren’t something that had any business being anywhere near him. His bank balance barely scraped double digits at the moment.

“Who the fuck…” Nat paused, not sure what question he was even supposed to be asking. “Why the fuck…”

His attention edged upwards, to a scrap of cardboard folded neatly in two and perched atop his dashboard.

DO YOUR BEST! it read in a childlike handwritten scrawl.

Nat squinted harder. “What the fuck.”

He tried to think. His brain, sluggish and laden with fog and aching, refused to provide any context for the mystery shower of nutrition. Or the note.

Or… anything else, for that matter. He didn’t remember falling asleep; he didn’t remember stopping his car. He remembered leaving work, but it had barely been dusk when he’d left work. The trip from Stop ‘N’ Go to his apartment was fifteen minutes, tops.

It was not dusk anymore. The black outside was the pitch dark and solitude of the witching hour, and the world beyond his window was dead silent, save for the buzz and pop of a single faulty streetlight a few metres ahead and the chittering gossip of crickets. No people. No cars. No movement.

Nat’s dread climbed. He craned his neck and strained to decipher his whereabouts. The lonely light offered only flimsy, spluttering illumination—some of it splashing into his car, some of it into dry grass and mesh fence lining the side of the road, most of it merely into the rumble of gravel directly beneath it. He had no idea where he was. He had no idea why he was where he was.

The disco ball hanging from his rear-view mirror glittered at him, blinking urgently.

He shoved the granola bars off himself, suddenly feeling contaminated, sending them scattering. A strident, pulsating pain forked through every inch of his body at the movement—he gritted his teeth, letting out a hiss of air and a wince. The blanket went next, ripped from his shoulders and hurled at the opposing window in a multicoloured flurry. It crumpled to the passenger seat and Nat stared at it, prickling all over with the suspicion someone else had placed it on him. Someone else had been here. Watching. Leaning. Looming. Touching. His hand flew to the window winder and wound it, sealing the opening. Sealing himself in and the outside out.

And then he sat still, mind reeling, chest tight. Panic twisting in his stomach. He waited for his brain to kick over, for his memory to rush back, for the moment he shook free the dregs of post-sleep disorientation and went, Oh, that’s right! That’s why I’m here! That’s what’s going on! How could I have forgotten?

A minute passed.

And another.

Frozen.

Rigid.

Nat swallowed, hard. Nothing clicked into place. Nothing clicked and nothing clicked and nothing clicked. Why not? He’d left work and turned left down Rake Street like he always did. He’d done nothing out of the ordinary.

The dark outside was alive. With every flicker-out of the streetlight, it whined at his window, still trying to reach him. A tapping, a whistling, a whispering in its own made-up language. Nat. Nat. Nat. Something’s wrong. Nathaniel. Something’s wrong. The dark that should not have been there. The dark that should have been dusk.

He'd lost hours. He’d lost hours. What the hell had happened to him? The note on his dashboard just sat there, smirking. It knew things he didn’t.

Nat fought to breathe in.

Nat fought to breathe out.

Nat breathed in.

Nat breathed out.

Five things he could see were that gaudy leopard-print steering wheel cover, the smeared windscreen from too-old wipers, the radio, the hazard switch, his own hands, crusted in cracked, dried mud.

Four things he could feel were the press of the seat under him, the press of his work uniform over him, the sting of the cold on his feet, pain, pain, pain.

Three things he could hear were crickets and streetlights and dark.

Two things he could smell were the dull citrus hum of the vent-clip air freshener and the fact it was doing nothing to hide the fact he hadn’t showered in a while.

One thing he could taste was—

Okay, okay, alright. Okay. That would do it. Nat breathed in. Nat breathed out. Calm. Calm. Calm. A panic attack would help no one.

He reached gingerly for the ignition, exhaling in relief when he grasped the key still inside. He had that, at least. He hesitated, perched on an agonising threshold between hopeful anticipation and whatever reality was about to find him.

He turned.

Nothing.

He turned again.

Nothing. The car stuttered and clicked uselessly, refusing to start. Relief left him as quickly as it had arrived. Flat battery.

Nat breathed, “Ah, fuck.”

Nat breathed in.

Nat breathed out.

He twisted towards the back seat, feeling along the faux leather for his work backpack. He hauled it to himself and rammed an arm inside to seek his phone, shoving through a jumble of familiar shapes—notebook, hoodie, empty soft drink can for recycling, empty soft drink can for recycling, gum, nametag—ah, there it was.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Nat whined, his finger colliding with the power button. “Please, please, please—”

Nothing. Flat battery.

Nat breathed in.

Nat breathed out.

Nat plonked his forehead back down on the steering wheel and released a long, agonised wail.

Simmering anxiety climbed into roiling terror. Terror branched sideways into paranoia. Paranoia bloomed up through his chest and into his throat, where it squeezed tight and threatened to choke him. He’d lost hours. Anything could have happened to him. Anything could have been done to him. The dark outside mocked and laughed. The disco ball blinked its rhythmic little warnings. He could feel it all, even when he wasn’t looking.

Nathaniel. Something’s wrong. Nathaniel.

“No shit,” he muttered back.

Nat breathed in.

Nat breathed out.

What next?

He lifted his head and flipped the sun visor down to look at himself in the mirror. With no phone screen and no overhead light to guide him, it was hard to get a full picture. He tilted his head, twisted his neck, attempted to catch himself on some jittering streetlight. He snagged a few glimpses—a dribble of blood from a cracked lip here, a smudge of dirt on a cheekbone there. His shirt looked bloody, too, though that could have been more mud. His hair wasn’t sitting right, all caked together and hanging in thick clumps.

Two trembling hands lifted, the quiver partially from weakness and partially from fear, and Nat gripped at his face. Tugging along those familiar edges and curves and juts, finding them not so familiar. Finding them wrong. Hollow. Caved in. His fingertips wandered down towards his jaw—

—and along the thick, uneven mumbling of stubble that hadn’t been there when he’d left the apartment that morning.

Nat’s heartbeat tripped up. He hadn’t lost hours.

He’d lost days.

Nat breathed in. Nat breathed in. Nat breathed in. Not enough. Too fast. His chest heaved. His lungs refused to fill.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He couldn’t have lost days. He couldn’t have lost days. Jesus Christ, Nat had never been the shining poster child of mental health, but he’d never lost days. He’d been God knew where for God knew how long. He’d been—his feet were bare, his hands and face were streaked with mud, someone had clearly been messing around in his car—he’d been taken. Drugged. Kidnapped. That scribbled note? He was being toyed with, probably by some deranged serial killer. And what was with the granola bars? Some kind of clue? A message?

He had to go. He had to run. He had to get help. Something close to a whimper climbed up his throat and fell from his lips. His hand crept to the door handle, and stopped.

Nat didn’t move.

He’d seen horror movies. Not many, but enough. The chase, the hunt, the twisted mind games before the inevitable kill… these were part of the fun. There was probably someone watching him right now, folded into the shadows and out of sight, waiting for him to panic. Waiting for him to make his first mistake and step outside.

Waiting for him to start the game.

He couldn’t leave.

He couldn’t stay.

Could he stay? Could he just wait it out? Someone would find him. Someone would look for him. Someone would look for him, right?

No, no one would look for him. No one would care enough that he was gone.

No, there was no way they’d let him wait this out. They would find some way to lure him out, drive him out, force him out into the waiting hands of the cold night air. Unprotected. Alone. All at once Nat felt a million eyes boring into him, leering from beyond the black, drinking in his every move. He shoved himself lower in his seat, clutching his dead phone to his chest, making himself as small as possible.

Nat fought to breathe in.

Nat fought to breathe out.

He tried a final time to reason with himself.

When he’d worked twelve hour shifts four days straight, he’d started being dogged by the idea someone had snuck a microscopic tracking device into his takeaway pizza, which he had subsequently consumed. When he’d been behind on rent for the third fortnight in a row, he’d become fixated on the idea other customers in the supermarket were reading his thoughts and laughing at him. Look at this fucking loser. Grimy hair and track pants. Can’t even afford instant ramen.

Panic and stress tended to climb on top of him bit by bit. Panic and stress tended to twist all kinds of everyday events into all kinds of unnatural, terrifying shapes. It was normal. Even the tiny, audible hints of speech pushing through the dark, giving voice to his anxiety, those were normal under the right circumstances. It was all… no, not normal. It was a pattern. Tomorrow, he’d be fine. Tomorrow, he’d understand he’d never been in any danger.

So even though he was here now, helpless and stranded in the empty night, barefoot and filthy, abandoned by his memories and surrounded by leering scrawled words and fucking rich people granola bars—he had to take this moment of clarity and hold it tight.

Tomorrow, this would all make sense.

DO YOUR BEST! the dark around him sang.

“Go to hell,” Nat spat.

And with that, he wrenched the door open.