The road ahead was filled with a few cars drifting by. The day overhead was still, with light. Standart City was yet again living in another ordinary time.
Cloey felt guilt overflowing as she rode in her father's truck. After the school day was over, she suddenly left Quad Four and went to her house without even saying a heartwarming goodbye at all.
She must have been so rude and dismissive to them, especially towards Manson. Those words probably affected him on a personal level.
Looking back at the situation, she definitely thought it was harsh to word it like that. She wondered if they would listen to her apologies tomorrow when preparing for the morning. Maybe as a way of apologizing, Cloey would give out presents of her stuffed animal toys from her childhood.
Cloey heard of friend groups breaking up after a rift in their connection had formed. With that in mind, she huddled in terror of that precise situation happening to Quad Four, and that it might be her fault.
Because of Sam's frequent absences at school, and the few appearances that he did make were so distant and quiet, Cloey was more disturbed by the fact that he wouldn't tell her anything about. She even tried calling, but no ringing noise was made that indicated that somebody picked up.
Cloey was worried about what happened to him, and it was hard to concentrate in class. Was Sam feeling even more guilty because of his father dying in Standart City's Green Catastrophe, and that he purposefully stopped attending school? Or maybe it was something that she said in the past?
She tried asking out the homeroom class and beyond, but to no avail; no answers given were deemed satisfactory. It may be disrespectful for her to try to grasp onto the truth by snooping on other people's lives, but her other thoughts overpowered her sense of reasoning and common sense.
So she decided to wait and focus on other things, like hobbies that would make her happy. There was no use complaining all the time.
Right now, Cloey sat in the passenger seat with her father, Cody, driving in their trusty but dusty old pickup truck. Both of them were on their way to the mechanic, since something was broken inside the vehicle.
With no other things to do, Cloey decided to look out from the truck window, counting the telephone poles as she imagined herself jumping from one pole to another.
The country music blasted on the truck's radio as her father sang through each of the lyrics. His short, orange hair flapped through the air as the wind from the open window crawled inside. However, the wind struggled to lift Cloey's tightly braided hair off her shoulders.
After a couple of minutes, Cloey's father reached towards the knob of the radio in front of him and brought the volume down with a slight turn. Both of them were able to hear the internal engine rumbling through their hollow bodies.
"So... doing good on that stuffed animal collection back home, sweetie?"
"Huh?"
Cloey barely caught his words before adjusting the seat belt wrapping itself around her neck. Her collection of plushies and stuffed animals her friends may consider overwhelming. The variety of these critters towered over an adult male human, and one mountain even reached her bedroom's ceiling. Now this didn't mean that she collected and discarded them after putting them in her room; instead, she dedicated her time to carefully brushing off any dirt on them to maintain their pure fluffiness, similar to buying them on the first day.
She stared at the front of the windshield. "It's great, but I have a feeling that it is still not enough."
"Do you wanna try making one at home? Maybe you could make a stuffed dolphin. I'm pretty sure I got some tools and stuffing that will do the trick."
"Maybe some other time."
Her father softly whistled at her response. "Having a hard time with life, yeah? You weren't forced to come with me, and you coulda chose to be with your mom instead."
"Honestly, it doesn't bother me at all," Cloey reassured him. "I wanted something else to take my mind off of, and would love to see how they handle the trucks inside."
He smirked at her answer.
"If you have no problems, then it's fine then, huh, sweetie?"
* * *
A couple of minutes passed, and the repeated gestures Cloey made at her window tired her enough to play with her dress buckle.
The truck finally came to a stop as the engine sputtered from being off, making Cloey finally stretch out her legs. As she stretched her formerly cramped limbs, she looked at the front of the mechanic autoshop; greasy-looking fluid covered a majority of the floor, and tools of all shapes and sizes were scattered throughout the outside. Someone really needed to clean up the place to have a good look for future visitors.
The sign right beside the road looked weathered but was attached with lightbulbs sideways so it would illuminate the darkness of the night. The dry shrubbery and grass were a dull green color, not exactly the image of healthy greenery in the city of the ordinary. Some cracks and lines formed in the pavement like a miniature earthquake, only in this tiny area. From the parking lot itself, only one other car was parked in it, which Cloey assumed to be one of the workers of the mechanic shop.
Cloey's dad strode right beside her with his hands twirling his suspenders, chuckling to himself.
"Ah, here it is. The auto shop, known as the place that can fix up any automobile in a jiffy."
"It's smaller than I thought..." Cloey remarked.
"Did ya think we were gonna go to one of those pretentious and digital places where they 'fix' cars by shining the outside with water only and calling it a day? Sweetie, this is where people who really want their drive to be top-of-the-notch. A place where they actually go inside the car itself to find the problem," her father said, walking towards the entrance.
"This place is in the commercial district, so it must be a good place for fixing," she exclaimed, but could tell that her words did not reach her father's ears.
Just as with all other cities, Standart itself was comprised of sections of different parts of the city, each a different district according to what people do there.
Cloey couldn't recall all the districts, but the ones at the top of her head were loud and clear.
The Neighborhood District. Every day, people like Cloey and the Quad Four would live in these houses of both warm and cool colors. Ordinary residents would be used to their lifestyle within the confines, almost like a trap with nowhere else to go.
The Market District. Owned by independent everyday people looking to get their ends met, especially with their financial aspects of life. For those travelling to their jobs, schools, or appointments, the district itself was quite small enough to easily traverse.
The Commercial District. Dozens of shops and entertainment all gather around to present themselves as affordable and sought out by many. Restaurants and gift shops were a frequent stop for Quad Four whenever they got bored.
The Industrial District. A zone exclusive to manufacturing areas and a wide array of warehouses.
The Civic District. An area for public infrastructure and specific institutions for the welfare of the community.
The Whitford District. Visually impactful for those visiting the city with its moderately tall buildings, each of them dedicated to government and logical planning. Additionally, this was where companies were usually stationed, with their electronics as their most presentable aesthetic. As the name suggested, it was named after one of the oldest city-founding families of Standart.
Then there was the additional controversial district with empty lots and frequent clashes over mysterious people. A particular place, Harmist Lane, got the most serious cases of attacks and theft. Cloey cannot remember what the name was for the specific zone so feared.
After a beep from the truck told them it was locked, they walked inside the mechanic auto shop with curiosity; their noses sniffed up a strong odor from afar.
From the looks of it, not a lot of people were actively getting their cars fixed at the current time, or rather, they didn't have broken things inside their cars to begin with.
Cloey found a single car propped up next to the office room with the vending machine. On the bottom, pairs of black-stained jeans with legs wearing them appeared before them on a sliding object.
Cloey's father lightly knocked on a nearby beam to get their attention. The slight shuffling from the person below stopped, and a couple of clanks were heard.
"Ahem, excuse me."
The person rolled over and revealed themselves fully. She was a middle-aged adult woman with dark orange-brown hair, her face patched up with dark splotches from working underneath the yellow car she was working on. The woman set aside her tools on a nearby bench and wrapped a towel over her neck, sweat gleaming on her skin like tears.
"Ah, let me guess. Something wrong with the oil?"
Mr. Taffel blinked in sheer astonishment, or looked like that was the case. "Amazing. How did you know?"
"I got this knack of a sense when it comes to cars and such. But I don't want to say that it works all the time..."
Cloey's father moderately shook her up to get her attention.
"Cloey, isn't this place great? I knew this place would be the one after a long time of thinkin'."
"I'm really happy that you're happy, Dad," she said with a smile.
The woman in front of her father held out her hand for a shake. The latter accepted the handshake in return.
"The name's Carol Stride. I usually run this whole place with occasional help needed, of course."
"Name's Cody Taffel. And this here is my daughter, Cloey. My one and only child."
Cloey's father propped her up front like he was showing her to a crowd of curious people.
"Nice to meet you, kid," Carol greeted with a fist bump, which Cloey awkwardly tried to return it back. "Say, uh, you interested in the work of an auto shop, or maybe be a mechanic when you grow up?"
Cloey put her left hand behind her head; a smirk formed in the corners of her mouth. "Maybe, hehe. If I stay in this place for too long, I may have to be one since I would learn about so many things around here."
"Well, let's not waste any more time then. Cody Taffel? You mind showing me your car so I can find what the problem is?"
"Sure thing," he replied to the mechanic woman. "Cloey, if you want, you wanna wait in that office over there with the open door while we check things outside?"
"Yes, please," Cloey answered. "I need to get some rest from being cramped up in the car so much."
"Alright, then, see ya."
Her father and Carol Stride then went away to their truck, making Cloey go into the office with the empty chairs next to a magazine table stack. She looked over at the windows; hardly anything could be seen through them with all the dirt and grime in the way.
She fixed her dress up and thought about what happened before. The times at school in the morning.
Aside from the absolutely cruel dismissal of concern for her beloved Quad Four members, a moment that Cloey believed that it was similar to a cartoon villain she watched when she was young, she remembered how Jed was treated like a villain when she walked by the school halls.
Cloey couldn't be happy with all her friends and the whole school hating a friend. From how Jed looked and acted, it was as though he couldn't even step on an ant.
Her hopes continued to wish for the innocence of Jed, but an entirely different matter moderately plagued her thoughts. The time at Volanten River, the place next to Vivid Forest and Kelter Park.
At the time when she was looking for Aliana Augero's soccer ball, she tried swimming directly in the river, leading to a monstrous creature attacking. She would have been fish food if Nate hadn't saved her at the last second before it was too late.
Cloey vividly recalled both of them being drenched with water and saw black-green-colored fins on the surface of the water. She thanked Nate for saving her life... from drowning.
"No... that isn't right..."
From that time on, it was the soccer ball that attacked them from under the water. That must mean that Aliana Augero was the true culprit behind the actual disappearance of the soccer ball.
"Wh-what am I even saying? Why can't I remember what happened? Am I having instant amnesia? But I'm not that old yet. I was definitely there with Nate, Aliana, Manson, and... What was his name again? Brady?"
Why couldn't she get the "fire" to remember what happened back at Volanten River? A dark creature was there, but the memory specific to her was fuzzy. Trying to reach for the details inside her mind was like trying to find an accidentally dropped phone on the bottom of the pool at night.
It was an important date and time that she experienced with Nate, but it was like her mind was preventing her from accessing the full picture. Cloey wanted to know what really happened during that day.
The back of her neck was starting to get numb with her strained thinking.
After a couple of paces around the office waiting area. Trying to read some magazines, one of which starred a hero group called the Superhero Stars. And based on the group formation on the front cover, she could safely say that the superhero, Swiftwing, was her definite favorite. The colors of her suit and wings were cool and reminiscent of blue skies.
... But enough of that. Cloey needed to do something physical before she completely lost her mind over being bored in a confined space or trying to remember something that may or may not ever happen.
With a final look around the waiting room, she said goodbye with a hand flick and left accordingly. Cloey was hit with the smell of oil going into her nose.
She looked over to see the truck moving into one of the rooms. Cloey's father was slowly driving the truck while Carol guided him, pointing at a different location. Probably to fix it somewhere with more tools and without the sun glaring into their skin.
With them out of view, she could finally look around without much hindrance. While walking, Cloey counted all the cars that could potentially fit inside the large garage.
Then something caught her eye. A glint sparkled in a corner far away, in an alternate outside backyard. A type of area that looked like not a lot of people would accidentally stumble into.
The area looked like it could be used for extra junk to pile up in case the space in the main garage wasn't enough to hold all the equipment inside.
Cloey walked around to see the source of the glint that caught her attention. An odd bike-vehicle with mechanisms and parts that looked impossible to be comfortable in.