Chapter Text
You had been wandering through the deep forest for what felt like an entire lifetime — in reality it had been a little over a week, but through the delirium caused by the sweltering heat of a summer in the south you had no way of knowing. Especially with the pit burrowing itself through your stomach, a type of burning hunger you hadn't felt in a very long time, you were less focused on how many nights had passed and more on finding something to eat. Your gluttony was what got you here in the first place; barefoot and skimpily clad, stumbling through the forest like it was your first day with legs.
You were originally in nowhere, Virginia, traveling north from Alabama to get some reprieve from the heat. You mainly followed already carved paths; roadways, hiking trails, driveways, walkways, all to avoid getting lost, like you were now. Had you kept on the side of the road, you would've found something days ago. But the prospect of a lone hiker or a fattened deer led you deep into woods that were completely unnavigable, or at least by a starved, half broiled mind. Your insatiability led you places most wouldn't go with a gun, given that you weren't even starving when you waltzed in you could've gone another few days without something, if you even had to. But the idea of having a good meal and not having to clean up after yourself was too gratifying. You only had to worry about getting some new clothes and finding a stream to wash up in after, not the body or carcass of whatever fell victim to you.
But so far, there were no people. You were surprised, especially after the first few days, that nobody was out here. It was a beautiful area, and you knew that the more dedicated hikers didn't care about the weather and unknown terrain, so where were they? You hadn't seen a single trail marker, any areas cleared of branches or patches of dirt made from frequent footfall, no tree stands or bullet casings. There wasn't even a single deer as far as you could see, which, again, was surprising. Given how much foliage and flowers there were, you expected to see at least a few, but there weren't even tracks marks or droppings. No bears, no claw marks on trees, despite the flora and bugs wriggling around.
You had never been in a forest so bare before. You wondered if it was over-hunted, or maybe the area had an overpopulation of predators and not enough biodiversity to support a good food chain. You had seen birds, bugs, a snake or two, but other than that there was nothing. And most things couldn't hide from you, you were a predator in your own way, you had a knack for sniffing them out. There seemed to be more dead than alive things — you had found plenty of bones, dry brush, and empty burrows. It seemed the deeper you went the worse it got; beehives turning to crumbling, empty husks, ant hills empty and reduced to dust. The birds became far and few in between, nests slowly disappearing. The snakes were either gone or hiding themselves. You, of course, had noticed none of this, too engrossed in your starvation induced frenzy to care. There was nothing on your mind but food; you felt like an animal. The quieter it got around you the more desperate you felt, like your mind knew something was wrong but was grossly misinterpreting it as fuel.
Even the trees were dead, some even looked burnt, most were hollowed out or rotting where they stood. You stared at one fallen poplar, the trunk taller than you, the roots now vertical in the air at least eight feet across. The top had cracked off into a steep drop off, but the base stood mighty, held in place by the last few roots still embedded in the ground. You had to climb it. Why? You weren't entirely sure. But the pressure you felt in your body to do so was excruciating, like not climbing it would be the biggest mistake of your life. You didn't know why you had to, but you did. The thought of the physical exertion made your head spin. Logically, you should've turned around as soon as you stepped past the tree line, or better, not have stepped foot into the woods in the first place. The whole thing was setting off silenced alarm bells in your head, left side of your brain rejecting everything about it. But you weren't thinking logically, you were thinking with your stomach, and now, by the animalistic part of your soul fueled by malnutrition.
It took you five minutes to get to the top. The peeled bark made for a good resting spot as you dug splinters from your hands and small stones from the soles of your feet. You took the brief moment of clarity to reevaluate your life. It was nice to sit still, you hadn't stopped moving since before you had even entered the woods. The sun was setting to your left, and the smallest bit of optimism welled in your chest as you realized you were still heading north. It was nice to know your sense of direction stayed in tact even despite your self-inflicted trials and tribulations. The heat was only intensified by the warm glow of the sunset, the light was harsh on your eyes and the buzzing of cicadas seemed to bring waves of hot air with every pulse of their song; you prayed that night would come quick. The crickets, while not quieter, were much more pleasant to listen to. They paired well with the pale glow of the moon and the cool air that swept the sweat from your skin.
Who knows, maybe tonight would be the night that you struck gold. Maybe tonight, you'd find that deer you came wandering in for in the first place. The idea made your body tremble in excitement. You were practically salivating at the idea of a mole or a rat, as pathetic as it was. You would take anything over nothing. Anything. You hated fish but you'd suck down a minnow or two, you weren't sure if water striders or fishing spiders had blood but you were certainly willing to find out if it meant having something on your stomach. You'd have to find water first. Water attracted life in all kinds of shapes, human, animal, bug, bacteria even. Even then, there were no guarantees. Nothing felt like a good option, so you decided to keep walking. If you kept north, surely, eventually, you'd come across something worth your time, right?You braced yourself to jump down, loosening up your legs and sucking in a breath before leaping off the log, welcome to the solid feeling of the cool dirt beneath you.
Except, when your feet hit the ground, something happened.
It was like someone hit a switch. The change was so sudden it jolted you— it was dark out. Not 'eyes closed' dark, not like you had passed out, but like the sun had disappeared from the sky and sent the world into night. Which it had. Looking up you saw the moon, high in the sky above your head like it was midnight. The sudden silence was equally as jarring, the screaming cicadas suddenly ceasing, not to be replaced by cricket but by nothing at all. It was silent. Truly silent. The type of quiet that made your ears ring, like your mind was trying to fill an uncomfortable, unfathomable gap. It was like everything had paused, no birds, no rustling of leaves, no wind.
Everything was still.
Despite the stillness there was something that was stuck to you like a tick under your skin. You felt something. You felt a presence. The back of your neck hurt like you were being naped. You felt like you were being watched. It woke you up, the haze you had been stuck in suddenly replaced by alert panic. Had you passed out? No, definitely not. Your ankles still stung with the force of the fall, your knees still bent. You turned your head, slow, from one side to the next, scanning the forest for glimpses of eyes or hints of movement. You stood from your crouched position, fully straightening your legs out, taking a small step forward and looking behind you as you did. Now felt like a good time to back track, better late than never, right? You scaled the side of the tree much faster than before, hands and feet covered in dead wood and dirt by the time you landed on the other side. The part of you that hoped the fallen tree was some sort of portal was sorely disappointed when you fell back to the ground only for nothing to change.
You scrambled to your feet and felt the cool air move around you as you started back south. You felt like there was a hand inches from your back, like if you stopped moving, it would grab you by the back of your shirt and pull you into the shadows. You knew something was watching you, you had been stalked before, you had been the stalker, and yet, you couldn't seem to find whoever, or whatever it was. Eventually the pins in the back of your neck pressured you into picking up your pace. When that started to feel slow, you broke into a sprint. You were clumsy, it felt like you spent more time on the ground than you did running, too preoccupied with distancing yourself from something to watch for snaking roots and large stones. Your knees were throbbing and skint, caked in mud. Your legs felt like they would give out on you if you stopped, but you weren't given much of a choice as one of your ankles rolled underneath you, sending you to the ground. You caught yourself on your palms, arms trembling as you push yourself over to sit on your behind, back against a tree.
You knew it would be useless to try and stand back up, your spent body screaming and burning with every breath you took. You kept watch of your surroundings, and while you were still alarmed by the persisting feeling of being tracked, your thoughts started to dwindle with every second. The lack of nutrition began fighting back against the adrenaline, winning by a landslide and letting your brain fog return full force. It would be useless to try and figure out what had happened, you wouldn't have the mind to anyways. You located the north star in the sky, staring deep into it like it would give you some sort of answer if you looked long enough. You had been using it to guide you up until this point, but its wisdom only went so far before it became useless to you. The only idea you had was to keep south, to turn your back on it and keep running until you reached the road again. It would take you days, if not longer, but it was worth a shot, better than just sitting here and withering away. So, you pushed yourself to your feet, and trudged through the thick foliage and low hanging branches.
You didn't even care about finding food anymore, more concerned with getting out of these woods and back to civilization. You were a solitary creature, but nothing was this solitary. This was unnatural, even by the standards of something man made. It was unfortunate that you had never come across something like this before, that you had no prior experience to help you in something like this. You were sure you weren't the first and it left you wondering how many had been in this exact position. Lost in these woods, having the time jump by five hours, hungry and confused. You were different than most, sure, but you still played the part of a person very well, and in times like these, you saw yourself no differently from the average man.
The terrain got worse the further in you got, worse than you had remembered. You convinced yourself that you just hadn't realized on your way down, that you were missing parts of your brain that could tell you otherwise. But when your surroundings started to look too unfamiliar, you stopped. You stared at the drop off to your right, at the clearing just twenty or so feet below it. You hadn't seen any of this before. You keep going, though cautiously, trying your best to keep it together.
Then you saw it again.
The poplar tree.
The same view from the other side, the side you jumped into. It had to be a different tree, there was no way it wasn't, but the chunks missing from your fingers digging into the rotted wood from before didn't lie. You stared at it carefully. The same termite holes. The same peeling bark, the same placement of snapped branches, the same broken edge hanging off of the mountain. It was, without a doubt, the same fucking tree. But how? You turned to look into the sky behind you, only to find the star in the same place you had left it. You were walking south and had somehow ended up farther north. Much to your chagrin, your body pulled you back over the tree and keeps you trudging through the dead leaves and thorny twigs until you came across it again.
On your third pass, you began to accept that you had phased into a different dimension. You had fallen into a loop of some kind, though the explanation made no sense, it was the only one you could think of. You wondered if it was some sort of rift you happened across on accident, or, if it was intentional. If it belonged to someone in particular. You imagined it to be the latter, that something had let you into its home and was keeping a keen eye on you. You hated it, the idea of being watched so carefully. You got the visual of an eyeball being rubbed all over your body, squishy and damp. It made your stomach churn.
On your sixth, you sat back on top of the tree. You tried to conjure up a creature so terrifying that the wildlife had abandoned its place to flee from it. Even outside of it, the forest was empty, save for a few birds or bugs. It was a type of power that was scarce, though not unknown to you. Had you not been so desperate, maybe you would've avoided these woods in the first place; you were sure that in your right mind you would've been able to pick up that something was wrong.
You laid down on the trunk, staring at the sky with your hands laid over your stomach. They were rough against the soft skin, the tattered shirt you wore catching on the wood deep in your hands. You could see the Scorpion constellation and you traced it with your eyes, then the harp, then the big dipper. You found every constellation you could, then you found Saturn, you circled the shape of the moon until your eyes hurt. You didn't have the will power to keep walking, too hungry and too fatigued. You didn't even know how long it would take to bounce back, to get enough strength back to keep moving — if you even could. You were afraid, for the first time in a very long time, that you would starve.
The worst part of being whatever it is you are, is that no matter how tired or hungry or injured, you couldn't die. Say you were stuck here forever, that no matter how long you walked or begged you'd never be spit back out. You would starve for eternity. You'd be stuck with the feeling, edged by the prospect of death without ever actually receiving it. Watching loved ones die, living through some of humanities worst moments, having to cannibalize to feed, none of it bothered you anymore. But not being able to die, having to live with the concept of eternity? It irked you. It was something you had spent the last millennium pondering. Whether the sun explodes or the Earth collapses in on itself, what would happen to you? What would come of you when the world inevitably ends? How immortal was immortal? In a situation like this, you hoped that death would be kind to you and finally find you. You had graced its presence so often that it wouldn't be unfamiliar, on the contrary, you'd like to think it would bring you peace, comfort.
rustlerustle
You peaked your head up at the sound, a wave of dizziness washing over you. You weren't entirely sure what you had heard, if anything at all. The feeling of being watched had returned, full force. You could feel eyes on you like knives.
rustlerustlerustle
You strained your ears —
creeeeeaaaaaakkkkk
Your body tensed. The sound came from right in front of you. You sat all the way up, your eyes darting around, looking for the source. It sounded like a strained tree branch. You heard it again and cocked your head forward, sure you'd find it this time. Your eyes locked on something moving on a tree branch about ten feet in front of you. It was low enough to the ground that you had to peak over the roots of the felled tree to see it in its fullness. To see him in his fullness. The something was a someone, staring right back at you as you leaned over him. You locked eyes, and as you opened your mouth to speak a horrible croaking noise came from with in you. You were sure you looked horrible. Face gaunt and washed out, fingers long and pointed at the ends, elbows inverting in a way that they shouldn't as you leaned over the edge. He was unflinching, either unaware or uncaring. This was best case scenario. You found something to eat. Or rather, something to eat found you. You couldn't help the grin that split across your face.
"Hello." You cringed at the sound of your own voice, hoarse and cracking. He didn't say anything, he didn't even blink. He just stared at you as your hands meet the top of the roots, pulling yourself up past them. You wave your hands around, holding eye contact. "Hey."
No response. This wasn't his realm, you could tell that much. He was too nervous, too human. You could hear the blood pumping in his veins, heart beating faster with every step you took forward, and it wasn't until you hopped down that he took a step back. You could see him much clearer now; He was a freaky looking guy, eyes too wide for his face, skin so pale he almost looked gray, and his nervous disposition was off-putting. He was too well groomed to have gotten lost out here like you. His hands were relatively clean save for some scratches and dirt under his fingernails, he had shaved recently enough you could see the razor burn on his neck, his face was bruised but washed. You couldn't help but also notice that his right hand was behind his back, the left's fingers thrumming against his outer thigh. You wondered, as he held eye contact with you, if he could see you as well as you could see him.
He also smelled foul, even from where you stood, like a dead person with puberty level body odor. It didn't matter much to you, you never liked the taste of freshly washed skin — soap was bitter and always left a waxy film in your mouth, some were too perfumed and made your head hurt. You straightened your back out, rolling your shoulders, now filled with rejuvenated life. You stalked forward and he moved back from you with every step you took toward him, each one enticing his heart to beat faster; it only made you hungrier. You were like opposing magnets; he did everything he could to keep the distance, to keep you away from him and him away from you. His back hit a tree and his eyes left yours for the first time since you've spotted him to glance behind him. You stood where you were, feet firm on the ground as you waited for him to make the first move, and just as you were beginning to doubt that he would, you were flat on your back. With in a few seconds there was a bowie knife stuck in your chest, rising and falling in violent, unrhythmic motions as he stabbed into you.
You could hear the hollow crunch of your abdomen as he brought the knife down again, and again. He must have noticed how dry it was, how cold — both his knife and your abdomen, coming to a halt with his knife raised high in the air above him. You were hollow like a hornets nest and you were cool to the touch, probably about the same temperature as the air around you. His eyes widened and his mouth formed a disgusted snarl, brows furrowed. He dropped the knife, which clattered over your face before falling to the ground beside your head, wrapping his hands around your throat instead. The pressure behind your eyes was intense as he pinned you to the ground like he was trying to shove you through the earth. You could feel the twigs and leaves tangle themselves up in your hair, the point of the fallen knife digging into the side of your face with each wriggle of his wrists. He was strong, the veins in his arms called to you like sirens, bulging with every strain of the muscle. Your mouth was watering, drool pooling past your lips you could feel your teeth poking into your lower lip. It was cruel, how he was teasing you.
You reached up to grasp the back of his neck, his body freezing at the feeling of the cool, hard enamel of your finger tips, though his grip didn't let up. He let out a breathy yelp when the tips of your nails dug into the skin of his nape, his weight shifting back and giving you the space to wriggle free. Your other hand came down to his calf, half-way to his ankle, fingers digging deep into the flesh. You could feel every cord of muscle you sliced through come undone, pulled taut before snapping. He hollered, shooting back onto his feet before falling back down onto his ass, pushing himself away from you with his palms and his uninjured leg. You sit back up, suckling some of his blood from your finger. You moaned at the taste, at the warmth. He looked at you with disgust, mouth formed in an open mouth scowl and the rest of his face twisted in a grimace.
"What the fuck ? How— why—" You shushed him, though much to your dismay, his blubbering continued. You picked the bowie knife up from the ground, feeling the weight of it in your wet palm as you stood up, staring down at his cowering form. The man who seemed so ready to kill you mere minutes ago, who tried, had been reduced to a whining dog at your feet. You were filled with a sense of pity. You doubted he had come out here on his own volition. It left you wondering what had compelled him to come to you. The knife plunged deep into his side, the gasping breath he took in coming back out as a howl. He looked afraid. You wondered how many people he had killed, how many had suffered from the same fate he was willing to give you? "You stupid fucking bitch—" He gagged, blood seeping from his mouth. He smelled delicious. "I'll get back up, I'll get—" You plunged it into his stomach. "—he'll fucking kill you—" That piqued your interest.
"Who's 'he'?" You stuck a nail into his side wound, relishing in the warmth gushing around your finger. It was like sticking your finger in a chocolate fountain, sitting on the tips ready to be sucked clean off. "C'mon, tell me. Who?" You grinned down at him.
"Fuck —" His breath sounded wet and shaky, teeth stained red and orange. He spat, blood and spit landing just under your eye. "—you-" You shrugged. You'd cross that bridge when you got there. Dropping the knife you hook a finger under his chin, his unfocused eyes doing their best to make sense of you, of your form in front of him. He wheezed out a breath, exhaling something that sounded like words, garbled and nonsensical. His pulse slowed, breathing became more shallow, pupils more dilated. This was when it was best for you, right before they were gone ; they were still warm, still thrumming with life, too weak to fight back and too incoherent to talk. It was perfection. You licked your hand clean, mouthing at the flesh between your fingers before you dipped down to grab his forearm in your maw, a chunk of flesh ripped off between your teeth. You drank from the wound, gnawing at the sides of it as you gulped down pieces of skin and muscle. You tore from him like a dog would a bone, teething at every sliver of meat before trying to chew your way to the marrow. It was animalistic, disgusting. You usually tried to carry yourself with a little more poise, or, at the very least, eat a little more decorously, but you couldn't help it. You were hungry.
You'd never been happier to hear the sound of tires on pavement. You hadn't noticed the altered position of the moon in the sky, the way it jumped from the very top middle of the sky to just a few degrees above the western horizon until you reached the road. You had blood caked down your front, from your mouth to your feet, most of it dried and flaking off. The humidity was somehow worse than it was when you first entered the forest, and despite it not even sprinkling in the forest it looked like it had just rained, the pavement of the road you walked beside wet and glistening under street lamps. You could feel the sticky air clinging to the congealed blood on your skin, and the sweat rolling down your face carried trails of light orange and pink behind them. You looked a mess, the tank top you wore was thin and previously cream colored, now stained the color of rust and smudged with dirt, and the shorts you wore weren't in much better shape themselves. It was apart of your never-ending luck that it was the darkest hour of the night, or rather morning, keeping you practically invisible to the far and few in between drivers you'd seen.
Your surroundings started to blend together about two weeks ago. It was no different now; the majority of Appalachia looked relatively the same, which in some ways brought you the comfort of familiarity. In this instance, you were a bit concerned that you had no idea where you were. The mountains, obviously, but that could be anywhere from Alabama to Canada. You hadn't seen a road sign in a hot minute and there was no chance of you coming across some sort of map that would give it any meaning. It was moments like these that you hated being a drifter. You had no way of knowing what you'd come across and when. The next town over could be a mile away, or ten, or twenty. You were dreading the idea of going back into the forest to find a creek to wash up in, and more than anything wished you had a sure way of getting to town to find a spigot or a hose, even a water fountain would suffice at this point.
Then, you had the issue of finding new clothes. You could fully strip and bathe using someones garden hose, sure, but putting the same soiled clothes back on after would be futile. You guessed it would be light out by the time you found the nearest house, meaning you'd have to wait around to wash up anyways. Your best bet would be finding a solitary house and camping out around it. They'd be easier to break into, no neighbors to snitch and if the tenants were out, it would be easy to do what you needed to get done and leave without making a mess. It was a higher risk of being shot, though the thought didn't terrify you too terribly, it was still a bitch to heal and you didn't feel like dealing with the exhaustion after what you'd already been through. Your feet and hands were another story entirely, stuck with thorns and splinter and rocks, muddy and skint and calloused. You weren't sure what to do about that, if there was anything you could do at all other than wait for your body to heal the deeper wounds in your body and make its way to the more superficial cuts.
It wasn't often that you had to sleep, though, after all of this, you were due for a good nap. The longer you thought about this hypothetical house, the more you felt like Goldilocks. You wanted to use their shower, wear their clothes, sleep in their bed. Maybe there would be meat in their fridge for you to snack on. Maybe there would be a map of some kind, something to clue you in on exactly where you were. You felt greedy with your grandiose ideas of what you would come across. Maybe you were walking through a national forest and there would be nothing for days. You could come across a dense neighborhood before anything else, though in this area, you doubted it. What would you do if there was someone home? If someone got trigger happy you'd wind up waking up in a morgue. Again. You wanted to hope for the best, not that you'd done much in your life to deserve it, but it never hurt to have optimism.
You were grateful to have a full stomach, and your biggest issue was getting clean, which, in comparison to the other adversities you'd faced in your life, was nothing. You felt like a weed, always coming back regardless of how many times you were pulled, always finding a way through the cracks and seams of life to find the sun again. In moments like these, the existential crisis of immortality almost felt like a blessing. You could die a million times over, but that meant getting back up a million and one. Maybe it wasn't so bad, living in a body that could never decay, that was always at its prime. Having to traverse as much as you did surely made you appreciate having a body that could do so, you couldn't imagine what you would do if you had to do so much traveling, especially by foot, as someone who had a deteriorating body.
You thought of what to do when you made it to the next city over, after you've washed up and made yourself look presentable. You were sick of the forest, despite it being your home most of the time, and you were dreading the idea of going back. Pick-pocketing and shoplifting could only get you so far in finding places to stay in more urban areas, and most of your time in cities was spent outside, anyways. If it wasn't a tourist destination a motel room shouldn't be more than a hundred bucks, which, given that you had nothing at all was a lot. But, also given that you've scrounged up that much change on a short notice before, didn't leave you feeling too defeated. It was the hardship of getting there, of staying on your feet not knowing how far you had to go.
Your face was only a few inches away from a felled tree when you snapped out of your thoughts. Not the same as before, though you felt your spirit get temporarily crushed at the idea that you had somehow landed yourself back in the pocket-hell. You chose walking across the road over going around the other side that was in the woods, surprised all the way around the log that it hadn't been pulled further away from the road. You were piecing together that it was a lower income area, the potholes were deep and the lack of maintenance around the snaking foliage was only making the cracked pavement worse. You had picked a good time to move to the shoulder, the mountain dropping to a steep decline next to you, pieces of the road crumbling down into the trees below.
You were tip toeing on a plank of wood that teetered on the edge, slow and careful, too focused on not falling to hear the purring engine behind you. It wasn't until the headlights hit the area in front of you that you realized, freezing mid step. You couldn't see who was behind you, but you could hear the engine getting closer, the scraping of old brakes as they rolled to a stop. They could be anyone, and so could you. So you chose a part to play and hoped that you played it well, falling to the ground, eyes welling with crocodile tears. You scooted yourself along, as humiliating as it was, on your hands and knees, spit and tears dripping on the ground below you. You hear a shift in gears before a door slams behind you, headlights still beaming right in your face.
"Ma'am?" You snapped your head around, mumbling incoherently enough that he couldn't tell exactly what you were saying, but coherently enough that he gathered someone had attacked you. Or something. You weren't specific. "Oh shit, okay, um— hold on, hold— just stay right here, I'm gonna get my pho—"
"Please!" You cringed at how aggressive it came out. "Please don't call nine-one-one, I can't—" You prayed to everything that would listen that you could convince him to get away from that phone before he did. "I don't want them to find me, please, just take me away, please—"
"I think I have to—"
"I don't have insurance," You forced more tears and a deeper frown, "Please just take me-" You hold out a hand, reaching for him blindly, hoping he'd help you up off the ground. He grabbed your arm and you came to hold it tight with your other hand, pulling him to the ground as you pulled yourself up. You were grateful for his help, you could tell that he was a kind man, being so willing to help. He was on the younger side, robust and full. You made it quick and as clean as you could. You hit the jackpot, tonight. Two meals, free clothes, and a truck? IT felt like divine assistance, like whatever fucked up angel you had on your shoulder was pulling some strings for you. You move the truck off to the side of the road, shutting off the lights and concealing the both of you as you stripped him down, taking what clothes you could that you hadn't slobbered all over before pushing his body over the side of the cliff. He had half a bottle of water and an undershirt on that substituted as a shower, and while his clothes were oversized and itchy, they were fresh and warm.
Hopping back into the truck, you turned the key and flipped through the radio, landing on some cowpoke station before putting it into gear and setting off. You hadn't driven in a long time and it was obvious; you were lucky to be on such an empty road while you regained your control over the gas and brakes. The potholes were worse than they looked, every one that you hit jostling every bone in your body and everything in the cabin. It felt good to go this fast, the trees you walked along turning to blurs and streaks of green next to you as you continued forward. You couldn't help but feel like you were running from something still, like this was a last ditch effort to get away from whatever had been chasing you before, from whatever had sent that man after you. And after checking your rear-view to see nothing, you waved the feeling off.
You shifted your eyes back to the road, allowing your train of thoughts to move with you. You still didn't know where you were. It took you thirty more minutes of driving to see anything, a driveway tucked away between trees and rhododendrons, and another thirty after that. The sun had risen over the horizon, basking the world in soft peach and orange, illuminating everything in front of you. It was on the side of a highway you had turned onto, a white and yellow board beaming light into your eyes and making them water, the letters of the sign faded and barely legible, but just legible enough;
MARYLAND WELCOMES YOU
LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND