Matthew_Douglas518

HERE’S TO SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

The rain hasn’t fallen on Mercer Street in over forty years. Water is rationed, the market thrives, and the people live hidden from time itself—until she appears.

Margo arrives at the doorstep of an old apartment house, soaked from head to toe in something impossible. Rain. She doesn’t know where she came from. She doesn’t remember how she got there. But she smells like a storm from another time, and that scent is about to change everything.

Park and Key, longtime friends and misfits of Mercer, take her in—one fascinated, the other suspicious. As they uncover the mysteries of her past, they find themselves tangled in a web of forgotten histories, secret societies, and a reality they were never meant to question.

Time folds. The past whispers. And in a world where water is worth more than gold, the girl with the rain might just be the key to everything.

A mind-bending dystopian fantasy soaked in jazz, opium smoke, and the scent of lost memories.

 Mystery, time distortion, and a city lost in its own legend
 A girl who shouldn’t exist—and the men drawn into her storm
 Secrets buried beneath the market and the gatekeepers who guard them
 A journey through a world where the past is a whisper and the future is unwritten

Here’s to something beautiful. Here’s to what comes next.

Here's To Something Beautiful

AKÇAAĞAÇ ŞURUBU

"So how did you get here? To Mercer Street?" Key asked in a peculiar tone I hadn't heard in years. He has perked up a great deal since the last time I was in the living room of our apartment house. I think he wants to fuck this strange woman named Margo.

Maybe she has taken over his mind with some kind of demon witchcraft that we have never seen the likes of before. Or maybe Key hasn't been in the presence of such a lovely woman in a very, very long time.

She has moved from the doorway to the chair at the island in the center of our kitchen.

"I'm not really sure. Where is this?" She responded in a wonderful sound. Her voice was magnificent. It sounds the way real maple syrup tastes. It was easy on my ears. I could see why my roommate was enjoying his time alone with Margo.

I don't really notice beautiful people anymore. People tell me I am a beautiful person. And that I could have all the beautiful things that exist. They wonder why I live where I live, and with Key. None of it makes sense to them. Truth be told, sometimes it never makes sense to me. It's the life that chose me. And led me here to the girl with the rain.

"Can you remember anything?" I asked. I wanted to be a part of the conversation. Or else I felt like I was just standing there gawking at this magnificent woman and her sultry maple syrup voice.

She looked up and took her hood down from around her head, I saw the rain drop on to our kitchen floor. I wanted to get down on my knees and lick it up and roll in it. It was magical. I had never been overcome with such an outside force before in all my days.

"I remember running through a forest." She said with a slight pause. "Something was chasing me I think. It's all a little fuzzy right now, really." She said as she looked towards Key. "All I remember is that it was raining so hard that I could barely see in front of me. And the branches were snapping against me, hitting me in the face, but I just kept running." She finished in a sort of drained tone. Like the wind had been taken right out of her sails. She instantly deflated right before our eyes.

Key waited for the strange woman named Margo to look away and we both caught each other. Our eyes saying "What in the actual fuck."

You see, there hasn't been a natural forest in over one hundred centuries here in Mercer, maybe even longer. There hasn't been an area more than a hundred square meters of woods since before I can remember. And they get harvested every eight to ten weeks. Although, some people would like to change that. That's the maturity point in our time. When they reach that size they are harvested and used in various ways. But, there hasn't been rain since I was a child. I can't remember rain. I try to. I never can. I couldn't believe the things this woman was saying. But I knew she wasn't lying.

That sickly sweet smell of earth and heaven all wrapped up into one big gift. Rain. The closest thing I can think of that resembles the smell permeating from our new strange friend, is when I was a child, I would take the stones from the riverbeds and hold them to my nose. It always made me feel more connected to earth below me.

Chapter Three