#technically this snippet is a bit of a cheat bc it's a rewrite of a section i'm keeping that was drafted initially earlier

[hidey-writes]

six sentence sunday

Under Gu Yiran’s hands, the chicken van bumps along the uneven road like a living thing, and he tightens his grip against it. Beside him in the passenger seat, Zheng Bei stares out the side window in silence. Gu Yiran had made Zhao Xiaoguang show him the map, during one of the endless waiting afternoons in the hospital when Zheng Bei wasn’t there. He’d reached out to trace the circled spots, all three, the sleeve of his hospital shirt catching against the edge of the paper as Zhao Xiaoguang said, Ge wanted us to check all of them, even though he was pretty sure you could only be here, pointing. A cluster of rectangles marking the abandoned crematory buildings north of Halan. Zhao Xiaoguang had left a fingerprint smear of grease along the entry road, right where it ran along the train tracks.

another snippet from the start of ch5! it feels so weird to be back to down drafting now that ch1-4 have shifted the story so far from the original final chapter outline that literally none of the draft material is appropriate anymore lol but it's really enjoyable to just sit and type the most medium sentences in the world without having to do any higher-level thinking about pacing or subtext or anything :) brain off drafting my beloved :)