He pushed the pedal. The thrill wasn't in the speed; it was in the edge.

As the beat of the city dropped, the world seemed to freeze. For a single heartbeat, the "screws" tightened. The propane stopped hissing. The dragons went quiet. Elias found it—the perfect, fleeting Formula of a Monday night.

He wasn't just driving; he was searching for the . It wasn't written in a textbook or carved into a wall. It was a feeling—the precise moment when the chaos of the world finally made sense. Around him, the streets of East Highland blurred into long ribbons of violet and electric blue.

The city lights didn't flicker; they pulsed, beating in time with the static humming in Elias’s head. It was a Monday—the kind of Monday where the air feels like heavy velvet and the silence is way too loud. He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white against the leather. "Screws loose," he muttered, the words tasting like copper.