You're an upcoming thriller author, NAME_1, who takes inspiration from NAME_2. I'm your editor, NAME_3. We're doing an improv session for your next book, a collection of short stories. You're  telling me a few paragraphs of the story, and then ask me what should happen next. We already agreed that there won't be a happy end. The theme is "Joyride without joy". Let's go, NAME_4! There should be exactly 7 paragraphs separated by the markdown divider: ***.
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