The road to nowhere

Opening Passage – The Road to Nowhere

The night air was thick, heavy with the kind of silence that only comes before something irreversible. In three days, he would be a married man. Three days, and he’d stand across from the love of his life, slip a ring on her finger, and call her his forever. But tonight wasn’t about forever. Tonight was about before.

The 1995 Trans Am idled at the edge of the county line, its headlights throwing pale fire onto the cracked asphalt. It wasn’t just a car—it was his grandfather’s last gift, the kind of thing men pass down with more than a handshake. Do great things with it, the old man had said. And though this road wasn’t what anyone would have imagined, he felt the spirit of that promise riding with him, invisible in the passenger seat.

The car smelled of smoke and gasoline, the kind of scent that clung to leather and memory alike. The passenger seat told the rest of the story: a small mountain of energy drinks stacked like ammunition for the long night ahead, a carton of cigarettes waiting to be burned one by one, and a mixtape locked and loaded with the kind of songs that cut through silence like a blade. Not distractions—supplies. Armor for what he was about to face.

He checked the dash clock: 11:58 PM.

The rules were simple, if you believed the whispers. You had to already be moving when midnight hit. The road to nowhere didn’t appear for the idle. It demanded motion, demanded you risk the unknown with nothing but steel, rubber, and willpower between you and oblivion.

He gripped the wheel tighter, eyes forward. His fiancée’s photo hung from the visor above him, a smile frozen in time, the reason for all of this. He wasn’t chasing glory. He wasn’t chasing selfish what-ifs. He was chasing her peace, her healing. In three days, he would give her the ultimate gift: a past without the scar that haunted her.

The Trans Am rumbled, impatient, as if it too knew what was at stake. He cracked open one of the cans, the hiss of carbonation sounding like a starter pistol, then lit a cigarette with steady hands. Smoke curled in the cabin like a prayer.

11:59 PM.

The horizon ahead looked like any stretch of lonely highway. But he knew better. He could feel the shift already, a tension in the air, the way the dark seemed to lean closer. At the stroke of midnight, the road would no longer be just a road.

And when it opened, he’d ride it until sunrise—or lose himself trying.

---

Chapter One – Midnight

The dash clock blinked over, digital numbers cutting into the dark.

12:00 AM.

He shifted into gear. The Trans Am roared, steady and alive, tires spitting gravel as he crossed the county line. That was when the air changed—thicker, heavier, like stepping into a room you weren’t supposed to enter. The highway stretched ahead, but something about it felt wrong. The blacktop gleamed darker than the night sky, a vein of shadow pulling him forward.

He tightened his grip on the wheel. His headlights clawed at the void, but the road stayed the same: empty, endless, alive.

The radio flickered on without his hand touching the dial. Static first, then a faint hum of a song he couldn’t quite place. The kind of tune that prickled his nerves, familiar in a way that made his chest ache. He reached to turn it off—then stopped. Something told him not to.

He cracked open an energy drink, the hiss cutting sharp through the silence, and downed half the can in one go. He felt the bite of caffeine hit, lit a cigarette, and exhaled into the stale air of the cabin. He was moving. That was the only rule that mattered.

Mile after mile slid under his tires. Out here, time didn’t flow right. Street signs blurred, mile markers repeated themselves. Twice, he thought he saw headlights in his rearview, only for them to vanish without a trace. Once, a gas station appeared on the roadside, neon buzzing, but when he slowed, its windows were dark and hollow, a shell of itself.

The road was playing games.

He muttered under his breath, Sunrise. Just make it to sunrise.

But the silence pressed in harder, as though the road had heard him.


---

Chapter Two – The Tricks Begin

The first real test came around 1:00 AM, though the clock on the dash didn’t feel trustworthy anymore.

A figure stood in the middle of the road ahead. A woman. Her hair wild in the wind, her arm raised like she was flagging him down. His pulse jumped—his fiancée? No, it couldn’t be. He blinked, slammed the brakes, tires screaming against asphalt.

The car skidded, headlights washing over her face—except there was no face. Just smooth skin where eyes, mouth, and nose should’ve been.

By the time the car lurched to a stop, the figure was gone. The road was empty.

He sat there breathing hard, cigarette trembling in his fingers. Then he gunned the engine and pushed forward. He couldn’t stop. Stopping wasn’t an option.

The tricks escalated.

Billboards whispered his name as he passed.

The voice on the radio shifted into his own, repeating words he’d never said out loud.

He drove past the same broken-down truck three times, each time closer to the shoulder, each time the driver slumped a little further in his seat, until on the fourth pass the driver’s head turned slowly toward him, eyes bright in the dark.


He pushed the Trans Am harder, hands sweating on the wheel. He cracked another can, lit another cigarette. Each drag steadied him, but only barely.

The road wasn’t trying to kill him. It was trying to wear him down, mile by mile.

And somewhere deep inside, he could already feel it working.

Trial One – The Hitchhiker

Somewhere past the third empty gas station, he spotted her again—this time, clearer. A hitchhiker, thumb out, standing on the shoulder. Young, thin, in a sundress that fluttered like it caught a wind he couldn’t feel. His chest clenched.

She looked like his fiancée.

He swerved, slowing against every instinct screaming don’t stop. He caught her face in the headlights—her face, exactly her face—but her mouth opened wider, too wide, until it split ear to ear. She whispered his name through the speakers, not her lips.

He floored it. The Trans Am howled, smoke in his lungs, energy drink biting his tongue. In the rearview, the hitchhiker vanished into dust.

The mixtape flipped to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”, pounding drums steadying his heartbeat. He muttered with the lyrics—I am driving with the gods of thunder, and I will not break.


---

Trial Two – The Convoy

Red taillights appeared ahead. Relief struck him like a shot—finally, another car. Then another. And another. Within minutes he was swallowed into a convoy of semis, roaring engines shaking the night.

He leaned into the wheel, trying to keep pace. But the trucks boxed him in. One swerved close, grill towering in his mirror. The CB radio in his dash crackled alive, though he didn’t own one.

Voices snarled: Turn back. Wrong road. Wrong man.

The guitars from his deck fought back—Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle.” He blasted the volume until it rattled his bones. The song surged, his courage with it. He dropped a gear, roared the Trans Am forward, and when he looked again—
The convoy was gone. Just empty road.

His hands trembled, but he grinned through the smoke. “Not yet,” he muttered.


---

Trial Three – The Loop

The next trick was crueler.

He passed a diner with neon buzzing, “EATS” glowing red. Five miles later, it appeared again. Same lot, same crooked sign. He cursed, pushed harder, only to find it again.

This time the diner’s lights were on, people inside. He caught a glimpse through the windows—her. His fiancée. Sitting in a booth, waiting for him, smiling like nothing was wrong.

He almost stopped. Almost. His hand even drifted to the brake.

But the mixtape kicked into Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.” The words tore into him, rough and honest, just like his grandfather used to say. Take your time, don’t live too fast.

He gunned the engine. The diner disappeared. The road stretched on.


---

Trial Four – The Double

Fatigue gnawed at him now. Cigarette after cigarette, can after can, his body was buzzing, hands unsteady. He thought he caught movement in the passenger seat. A shift. A breath.

He glanced over.

Someone sat there.

Not his grandfather. Not his fiancée. Himself.

The other him lit a cigarette, leaned back, and smirked. “You can’t make it,” the double said. “You think this is for her, but it’s not. You’re selfish. You just want to feel like a hero.”

The stereo spat out Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” The double chuckled, mouthing the words in sync with the tape.

His knuckles went white. “Shut up,” he growled, smoke spilling past his lips. He slammed the volume, drowning out the voice until the double’s laughter warped into static. When he looked again—the seat was empty.

But the damage was done. The road had sunk its claws deeper.


---

The Breaking Point

The Trans Am rolled to a stop on the shoulder. His chest heaved, lungs scorched from cigarettes, throat raw from screaming over guitars and ghosts. His eyes burned, staring at nothing but the endless stretch of blacktop ahead.

And for the first time since midnight, doubt flooded him.

Turn back, the voice inside whispered. This is too much. You can’t win.

He leaned forward against the wheel, sweat dripping into his eyes, terror crawling into his bones. The road was winning. His armor—smoke, caffeine, music—was cracking.

It was there, parked on the shoulder in the dead silence, that the real trial would strike. Not illusions. Not tricks. The truth. The memory he’d buried deepest.

The one he couldn’t escape.

The Last Trick

The Trans Am ticked as it cooled, engine idling low. Smoke curled in the cabin, hanging heavy. He’d killed another cigarette down to the filter without noticing. The mixtape sputtered in the deck, the last notes of Comfortably Numb stretching thin before it clicked silent. For the first time all night, the music was gone.

And in the silence, he heard her.

Not the road’s imitation. Not a whisper from the radio. Her voice. Clear. Soft.

“Come home.”

His head snapped toward the passenger seat. She was there—his fiancée—looking just as she did in her favorite photo: hair loose around her shoulders, eyes gentle, lips curved in that smile that always steadied him.

“Come home,” she said again, reaching out her hand.

His breath caught. The urge to take it was overwhelming. To let the road end here. To turn the key, spin the wheel, and drive back into the world as if nothing had happened.

But her eyes…

He blinked hard. Looked closer.

The pupils were wrong. Too wide. Too dark. Like holes punched straight through.

Her smile cracked at the edges, splitting too far. “Come home,” she repeated, voice doubling over itself, sweet and shrill all at once.

He shut his eyes. Tight. Hands clutching the wheel like a lifeline. He focused on the hum of the Trans Am, the taste of nicotine, the bitter afterburn of caffeine in his veins.

Weed out the noise. Weed out the tricks.

But closing his eyes didn’t save him. It opened the door.


---

The Breakdown Begins

Behind his eyelids, the road’s illusions melted away—and the truth surged up, uninvited, unstoppable.

Not phantoms. Not games. Memory.

Her memory. The one she never spoke of without trembling. The night her innocence was stolen, her father’s shadow heavy in the doorway, her voice breaking in ways no voice should. His chest seized, breath ragged, because even secondhand the terror shredded him raw.

The man who had done it was long dead—heart attack, gone in an instant—but death had been too easy. She was the one who lived with the wound, who carried it like a scar carved into her soul.

His eyes squeezed tighter, tears burning as smoke stung his throat. His “voice of reason” screamed inside him: Turn back. You can’t fight this. You can’t rewrite what’s already carved in blood and time.

But he wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

He lit another cigarette with shaking hands, dragged deep, and popped another can. The hiss sounded like defiance. He took a long drink, eyes still shut, forcing himself to swallow the memory whole.

When he opened them, the passenger seat was empty. The road stretched forward again, waiting.

And he drove on.

Chapter Three – After the Breakdown

The cigarette burned down to ash between his fingers. He flicked it out the cracked window, the ember swallowed whole by the dark. His chest still ached from what he’d seen, but his hands were steady again on the wheel.

He dropped the Trans Am back into gear and rolled forward. The cassette clicked, gears whirring, and the speakers screamed to life with Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” The opening riff hit like a surge of electricity through his veins.

It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t peace. It was survival.

The road stretched on, endless, but no longer silent. Every mile it warped more violently, as though his refusal to quit had made it angry. The lines bled into each other, the stars spun overhead, and once—God help him—he swore the asphalt rippled like water under his tires.


---

Trial Five – The Empty Town

A shape appeared in the distance. Low buildings. Neon. A town.

Relief flared and died just as quickly. He knew the road’s tricks by now. Still, when the Trans Am rolled into its streets, his breath hitched.

It looked like home.

The gas station on the corner. The diner where he’d first met her eyes across a booth. The courthouse steps where he’d kissed her in the rain.

But no people. Not a soul.

He crept through at twenty miles per hour, cigarette glowing in the dim. Every shop window reflected him alone, older, worn, gaunt. The radio hissed static under the guitar solo.

Then, as he passed the diner, he saw her inside. Sitting at the booth. Waiting.

She turned. Smiled. But this time, she didn’t beckon. Didn’t speak. She just watched him with eyes that weren’t hers.

He floored it. The town vanished behind him like smoke.


---

Trial Six – The Mirror Road

The highway split suddenly, two identical lanes curving side by side into the dark. His stomach dropped—he’d heard of this trick in the whispers. Choose wrong, and you’d never reach sunrise.

On the right road, the mixtape blared into The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” On the left road, silence.

He swerved right.

The Trans Am’s tires screamed, barely holding the curve, and for a moment he thought the car would roll. But it didn’t. The Stones roared on, and the left lane disintegrated into dust in his mirrors.

The road had tried to trick him into silence. Into nothingness.


---

Trial Seven – The Passenger Returns

Three hours—or three eternities—later, the fatigue finally sank its teeth in. His vision blurred, and when he blinked, the passenger seat wasn’t empty anymore.

She sat there again. His fiancée. But not like before. No wide, false smile. No wrong eyes. This version looked real. Broken. Small.

Her lips trembled as she whispered: “You can’t change it.”

He wanted to reach for her, wanted to say something, anything. But his hands locked on the wheel, knuckles white. He couldn’t afford to believe this version.

He pressed the lighter into a fresh cigarette, the ember biting back against the dark. Smoke filled the cabin, thick as fog, until when he glanced again—the seat was empty.

The mixtape screamed into Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” He laughed, a sharp bark, and shoved the pedal down.


---

The Road Tightens

The night was unraveling. The horizon quivered with a hint of gray, the first kiss of dawn. But the road wasn’t done with him. It twisted sharper, bent reality harder, as if it knew he was close.

The Trans Am rattled over cracked pavement that hadn’t been there before. Trees leaned in too close, branches clawing the car. Shadows ran alongside him, always just outside the headlights.

And through it all, the songs kept coming—louder, harsher, defiant.

The mixtape had become his heartbeat. Cigarettes his blood. Energy drinks his fuel.

And ahead, somewhere in the last stretch of darkness, the crossroad waited.

Chapter Four – The Gauntlet

The dash clock had stopped ticking hours ago, frozen at 12:00 like time itself had given up. But outside the windshield, the night was thinning. A pale gray seam stretched across the horizon. Dawn was coming.

The road knew it.

And it panicked.

The Trans Am lurched as the asphalt rippled beneath its tires, the blacktop twisting like a snake trying to throw him off. Potholes gaped open where none had been. His suspension groaned, sparks flying as he bottomed out.

Then came the lights—dozens of headlights swelling in the rearview. Engines howled, horns blaring. A storm of vehicles bore down on him from behind. Trucks, cruisers, muscle cars, all bearing down fast.

He slammed the gas, the Trans Am screaming as Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” exploded from the speakers.

They closed in, engines snarling like predators. One clipped his bumper, spinning sparks into the night. Another swerved ahead, blocking the lane. He wrenched the wheel, dodged left, tires shrieking.

For a full mile it was chaos: steel and smoke, horns and howls, phantom drivers with eyeless faces grinning at him from every windshield.

Then, as suddenly as they’d come, the swarm vanished.

The road itself buckled next. Trees tore free of the ground, their roots reaching across the asphalt like claws. He swerved again and again, the Trans Am leaping over cracks that opened like maws. His knuckles bled against the wheel, teeth gritted, cigarette ash spilling down his shirt.

And just when he thought he’d outrun it all, the sky itself bent—a storm ripping overhead, lightning crashing down in sheets of blinding white. The stereo fuzzed, then erupted into Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower,” the guitar wailing in perfect time with the storm.

He screamed with it, throat raw, as the Trans Am clawed its way through the madness.

And then… silence.


---

Chapter Five – The Calm Before the Storm

The road smoothed under his tires, glass-flat. The storm blinked out. No more cracks. No more tricks.

The sky was lighter now, a faint blush of orange bleeding into the gray. He was close.

But the silence was worse than the chaos.

The cassette clicked off mid-song. No music. The radio was dead. Even the Trans Am’s engine seemed quieter, like the road itself had muffled it.

The world looked… normal.

Roadside pines swayed gently. A faded speed limit sign leaned in the shoulder. Birds chirped, faint but real.

And ahead—just ahead—he saw her.

Not broken, not twisted, not wrong this time. His fiancée. Standing on the shoulder in her wedding dress, veil lifting in the dawn breeze. She looked exactly as she would in three days’ time. Perfect. Untouched. Whole.

Her eyes locked with his. Her smile wavered. She raised her hand, palm open, asking him to stop.

No tricks. No screams. Just her.

His foot hovered on the brake. Sweat poured down his neck. Every nerve in his body screamed this was the road’s last ditch effort—the one designed to cut deepest.

But God, she looked so real.

He eased his foot onto the brake, the Trans Am whining in protest as the speed bled off. The road stretched quiet and clean ahead, dawn glowing soft and gold at the edges. For the first time all night, it felt like a place he belonged.

And there she was.

The dress fluttered in the early breeze, veil catching light that wasn’t there a moment ago. Her eyes—God, her eyes—were wet but steady, fixed on him with a tenderness that cut deeper than any blade.

“Please,” she whispered.

Not a trick this time. Not a scream, not a distortion. Just one word, soft as it had ever been.

His chest seized. His hands trembled on the wheel. He had dreamed of this exact sight: her waiting, whole, reaching for him. All he had to do was stop. Let the car roll to a crawl, open the door, step out, and hold her.

Three days early. No road. No pain. No risk.

Everything he ever wanted, right here.

He closed his eyes.

Smoke still clung to his throat, the bitter taste of caffeine biting his tongue. His ears rang in the silence, but in that ringing he heard it: the echo of all the miles behind him. The voice that had taunted him, broken him, begged him to turn back.

This was the same voice. Softer, sweeter, but the same.

His eyes opened again. Her figure wavered at the shoulder, veil rippling against a wind that wasn’t there. Her lips moved: Come home.

For the first time all night, he smiled. A tired, broken, defiant smile.

He tightened his grip on the wheel, dropped his cigarette out the window, and whispered, “Not yet.”

Then he slammed the gas.

The Trans Am roared, tires spitting fire as it blasted past her. In the rearview, her figure twisted like smoke, the veil burning away into nothing.

And ahead—just ahead—he saw it.

The crossroad.

Four paths stretching out into the breaking dawn.

Chapter Six – Reflection at the Edge of Dawn

The Trans Am rolled to a stop. The engine ticked, cooling, the steady purr fading into silence. For the first time since midnight, there was no illusion, no trick, no voice whispering at the edges of his mind. Only the soft breath of dawn spilling over the horizon.

He sat back in the driver’s seat, cigarette dangling between two fingers, eyes on the pale glow creeping across the sky. His hands ached from gripping the wheel too tight. His throat was raw from smoke and screaming over guitars. His body buzzed with caffeine and exhaustion, but his mind—his mind was clear.

He’d made it.

Most never did. That was the road’s secret. It wasn’t just about reaching sunrise—it was about outlasting the doubt, the tricks, the memories clawing at your ribs. He had driven through hell and come out the other side.

But he knew this wasn’t the finish line. Not yet.

The road hadn’t let him live. It had brought him here.


---

Chapter Seven – The Crossroad

When the first sliver of sun cracked the horizon, the shadows ahead split open. Asphalt peeled and reformed, stretching into four distinct paths. A crossroads carved into the earth itself, the edges glowing faint as if the dawn burned into them directly.

He stepped out of the car. Gravel crunched under his boots, smoke curling from the last drag of his cigarette. He crushed it beneath his heel and looked around.

The air was still. Silent. Waiting.

Four roads stretched outward, each one clear and undeniable.

1. To the Future: Straight ahead, the blacktop gleaming brighter with every inch, as though the sun itself paved the way.


2. To the Past: To the left, the road darker, heavier, lined with shadows of things long gone. The one he had come for.


3. To Hell: Behind him, the asphalt cracked open, glowing faintly red as if embers smoldered beneath the surface. The air above it shimmered with heat.


4. To Heaven: To the right, the road was bathed in pale gold, a light too pure to look at directly. The wind there smelled clean, untouched.



His pulse slowed. The night’s chaos was gone, but the weight was heavier than ever.

This was it.

The choice wasn’t about survival anymore. It was about truth. About purpose.

He walked a few steps forward, boots echoing against the silence, and stood in the center where all four paths touched. The Trans Am idled behind him, patient, as if it knew he wouldn’t return the same man no matter what he chose.

He closed his eyes, her face filling the dark behind his lids. His fiancée. Her smile. Her scars. Her strength. The reason he’d endured mile after mile.

And when he opened them, the roads waited for his answer.

Chapter Eight – The Wrestling at the Crossroad

He stood there in the center, boots planted in gravel that felt like the spine of the world. Four roads yawned outward, each one tugging at him in its own way.

The road to Heaven glowed like sunrise itself, a light too soft to resist. He swore he could smell his grandfather’s cologne in the air, the faint tang of motor oil and tobacco, like the old man was standing just beyond the bend, waiting with the same smile he’d given the day he handed over the keys to the Trans Am.

Peace. Rest.

“Do great things with it,” his grandfather had said. Maybe this was what he meant. Not endless struggle. Not trying to rewrite wounds that couldn’t be undone. Just… letting go.

His knees buckled, sudden and sharp, as though the weight of the night had finally come crashing down. He pressed both palms into the ground, gravel biting his skin. His chest heaved. His eyes burned. He wanted to lie down right there in the golden dust and let the light swallow him whole.

The thought of her pulled him back. Her face in the visor photo. Her laughter when she teased him about his “old man’s car.” The way she leaned against him after nightmares, trusting him to hold her steady.

He staggered to his feet, turning slowly, eyes darting down each road. The future glared bright, promising the unknown. Hell burned red, a warning and a dare. Heaven whispered peace.

And the past…

The past was quiet. Heavy. Darker than the rest, its horizon shrouded in shadows. It didn’t beckon. It waited.

He lit a cigarette, hands shaking, and drew in smoke so deep it scorched his throat. He exhaled hard, the gray cloud drifting into the dawn. His eyes lingered one last time on Heaven’s road, the warmth of his grandfather’s memory aching in his chest.

“Not yet, old man,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “I’ve still got something to finish.”

He turned his back on Heaven. On peace. On rest.

His boots carried him to the Trans Am. The driver’s door creaked open, the seat groaning as he dropped back inside. He set the half-empty carton of smokes on the passenger seat, the last two cans of energy drink stacked beside it. His hand rested on the wheel like it belonged there.

The cassette clicked, the speakers sparking to life with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” He laughed once, sharp and bitter, because of course the road would throw that at him now.

He slammed the shifter into gear.

Gravel scattered behind him as the Trans Am rolled forward, tires gripping the shadowed blacktop of the left road. The road to the past.

The sun rose higher behind him, painting his silhouette in gold. Ahead, only darkness.

But he drove on.

Chapter Nine – The Road to the Past

The tires hit the blacktop, and the world changed.

The hum of the Trans Am deepened, slower, heavier, like the engine itself was pulling through molasses. The air thickened, too—not the choking smoke of cigarettes, but something older, denser. Every breath carried dust, the scent of old wood, rust, and rain.

This wasn’t the endless highway of the night. The Road to the Past was narrower, lined with crooked fences and sagging telephone poles, the kind he remembered from childhood drives through half-forgotten towns. Every mile marker looked faded, every sign worn down to nothing but outlines.

The cassette player clicked and died, tape unspooled with a dry hiss. No music now. No armor. Just the groan of the car and the pounding of his heart.

At first, the road was quiet. Too quiet. He thought maybe—just maybe—he’d beaten it, that the worst was behind him. But then the landscape began to shift.

Billboards rose on either side of the road. Not advertisements, but memories.

At sixty miles per hour, he passed a drive-in theater where he and his fiancée had their first date, her laughter flashing in neon as she dropped popcorn in his lap. He blinked, and it was gone.

Further down, a billboard lit up with their apartment—walls lined with boxes, both of them exhausted but smiling after the move. Her voice drifted through the night: This is home, as long as we’re together.

His throat tightened. His grip on the wheel slipped.

The past wasn’t just waiting. It was alive, unspooling piece by piece across the horizon.


---

The First Rift

Then the road dug deeper. The memories weren’t happy anymore.

The next sign lit up with an image of her as a child. Younger. Small. Sitting on a bed that was too big for her. He looked away, heart hammering, but the sound followed him—shaking breaths, muffled sobs.

He swore, slammed a fist against the wheel. “Not yet. Don’t do this yet.”

But the road didn’t listen.

The blacktop bent under him, pulling the Trans Am faster. Ahead, the billboards multiplied—flickering between joy and pain, laughter and terror. He couldn’t look away. Every mile forced him to witness more.

And then the world outside the windshield shifted again. The billboards melted. The fences vanished.

And he realized he was no longer driving down the road—he was driving through her memories themselves.


---

The Pull of Memory

The Trans Am rolled past a house he recognized but had never stepped inside. The curtains were drawn. A light flickered in an upstairs window. His chest constricted.

He knew what was coming.

The road wasn’t going to let him choose the past so easily. It was going to drag him through it first. Force him to live what she had lived.

The cigarette shook between his lips, ash spilling down his shirt. He reached for another energy drink with trembling hands, popped the tab, and swallowed until the bitterness turned to fire.

“Alright,” he muttered, voice rough. “If this is what it takes.”

He tightened his grip on the wheel.

And drove straight toward the house.

Chapter Ten – Into the Memory World

The Trans Am rattled over warped pavement, headlights cutting through a world that was no longer just road. The fences, the telephone poles, even the sky had thinned out into something unstable—like smoke holding the shape of things it couldn’t quite remember.

Up ahead, the house loomed.

Two stories, weathered siding, curtains drawn tight. The upstairs window glowed faintly, a pale square against the dark. He’d never been here before, but the second he saw it, his stomach twisted. He knew where he was.

His fiancée had described it only once, in a broken voice, words choked out between sobs she couldn’t control. He’d held her through it, swore he didn’t need details, swore the past didn’t matter because she was safe now.

But the road didn’t care what he wanted. The road wanted truth.

He lit another cigarette, hands trembling, and sucked smoke into his lungs like it could block the air. “It’s not real,” he muttered. “It’s not real.”

But the house stayed.

He downed another swallow of energy drink, the metallic tang clawing at his throat. The tab clattered onto the floorboard with the others, a pile of failed shields.

The closer he got, the heavier the air became. The engine groaned, the tires dragged like the asphalt itself wanted to pull him under. His pulse throbbed in his ears, louder than the idle of the Trans Am.

Turn back. The thought pulsed sharp in his mind. Turn back before you see what you can’t unsee.

His foot twitched toward the brake. For the first time all night, he considered it—actually considered stopping, shifting into reverse, fleeing into the other roads, any other fate than this one.

But he didn’t.

Because he remembered her face in that visor photo. The trust in her eyes. The strength it took to love after what had been done to her. And if she could carry it, he could face it.

He forced the Trans Am forward, gravel grinding under the tires as the driveway formed beneath him. The upstairs window burned brighter. The air buzzed with the sound of muffled sobbing, distant but sharp, as if the walls themselves were crying.

He parked at the edge of the house, hands frozen on the wheel, cigarette smoldering in his lips. His chest heaved, but he didn’t open the door. Not yet.

Because he knew the second he stepped out, the memory would stop waiting. It would swallow him whole.

The Trans Am idled low, headlights washing pale light over the sagging house. The smoke from his cigarette curled thick in the cabin, drifting toward the ceiling, refusing to fade. He sat there with both hands on the wheel, knuckles pale, eyes locked on the upstairs window.

The glow from that window pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. He swore he could hear it—thudding in the silence, steady, patient.

He took another drag, exhaled hard, and stared at the ember burning down between his fingers. It was the only light in his hands, and even that was dying.

For the first time since midnight, he didn’t move. Didn’t drive. Didn’t smoke just to fill the silence. He sat frozen, like a man staring down the gallows.

He whispered to himself, voice raw: “I don’t need to see this. I don’t need to.”

But the road disagreed.

The air outside pressed against the glass, heavy, insistent. The glow from the window brightened, seeping into the car, flooding across his lap, painting the photo of her still clipped to the visor.

It was no longer asking. It was demanding.

He crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray, grabbed the door handle, and stepped out into the memory.

Chapter Eleven – Into the Past

The gravel under his boots wasn’t gravel anymore—it was carpet, thin and worn, muted brown. The air smelled of dust and cigarettes, sharper than his own. The house wasn’t outside anymore. It had swallowed him.

Behind him, the Trans Am was gone. Only the faint rumble of its engine remained, echoing somewhere distant, like thunder in another world.

He looked down the hallway. The wallpaper peeled in long curls. A picture frame tilted crooked on the wall—family smiling in a photograph that made his stomach twist.

Upstairs, the sound came again. A door creaking. A muffled cry.

His knees wavered. Every part of him screamed to turn back, to run. But the road hadn’t carried him here to turn away. If he chose the past, he had to face it.

One step. Then another. Boots creaking against the carpet as he moved through the house like a ghost trespassing in time.

When he reached the base of the stairs, his chest seized. Each sob from above landed like a hammer against his ribs. His throat ached from holding his breath.

He gripped the banister. It was warm, too warm, like it remembered being touched a thousand times by hands that weren’t his.

And slowly, with the weight of the night pressing down on him, he began to climb.

The stairs groaned under his boots, each step heavier than the last. The air grew hotter, thicker, as though the house itself was breathing. His throat was dry, his hands slick against the banister.

Halfway up, the sounds sharpened.

A door creaked. A bedframe shifted. A voice—low, male, slurred with whiskey—murmured something he couldn’t make out. Then came a muffled sob, soft and broken.

He stopped cold. His chest tightened so hard he couldn’t breathe. He knew that sound. She had made that sound in her sleep sometimes, when nightmares pulled her under. He’d held her through it, whispering her name until she woke.

But here, the sound didn’t stop. It echoed down the stairwell, raw and real, too close.

His body begged him to turn back. To run. To break through a window and claw his way into the night. His mind told him this wasn’t his to see, not his to carry.

But his heart—his love—kept his boots moving.

Three more steps.

At the top of the stairs, the hallway stretched long and narrow. Shadows bled from under the first door on the right. A pale light pulsed through the crack, flickering like a broken bulb.

He pressed forward.

The closer he came, the more fragments filled the air.

A cough. A groan. The snap of a belt buckle. Her voice—high, desperate—whispering, Please, stop.

He staggered. His vision blurred, his knees almost buckling under him. He clutched the wall, nails scraping wallpaper that peeled like skin.

The house was no longer memory. It was alive. The walls shivered with her fear. The floor vibrated with her terror. Every sound cut into him like glass, forcing him to feel what she had buried.

He pressed his forehead against the doorframe. His chest heaved. Tears burned his eyes.

For a moment, he thought he couldn’t do it. That he’d collapse right here, broken, another soul claimed by the road.

But then her laughter—her real laughter, from their present life—flashed through his mind. The way she’d smiled when he first told her he wanted to marry her. The way she had trusted him with her scars.

He clenched his fists. Lit another cigarette with shaking hands. Inhaled deep, smoke burning into his lungs until it steadied him.

And with one last drag, he pushed the door open.

Chapter Twelve – The Threshold

The door eased open with a groan, hinges whining like they hadn’t been touched in decades. Smoke drifted from the cigarette clutched between his fingers, curling into the darkness beyond.

The room smelled of sweat and whiskey, thick and sour, clinging to the walls. The light inside was dim, jaundiced, like it came from a single bulb dangling on its last breath.

His eyes adjusted slowly, each detail sharpening one at a time.

A dresser against the wall, drawers half-open, clothes spilling out. A chair tipped over in the corner, one leg cracked. A blanket twisted on the floor, like it had been kicked there.

And then the shadows moved.

A figure hunched near the bed. Broad shoulders, back curved, head bowed. He couldn’t see the face, but he knew who it was. The shape alone was enough to freeze him.

Beside the figure, a smaller shape curled into itself. Her. So young she barely looked like the woman he loved. Fragile. Trembling. Her hands pressed over her face, as if hiding could undo what was happening.

The man’s breath came heavy, rough, a rhythm that filled the silence. Every exhale was a blow. Every inhale, a threat.

The sound of the belt buckle returned—a faint metallic clink, casual and cruel.

His whole body rebelled. His legs locked, stomach twisting so violently he thought he might be sick. The cigarette burned down to ash between his fingers, smoke stinging his eyes until tears slipped down his face.

He wanted to scream. To charge. To rip the shadow from the bed and tear it apart. But his voice was gone, stolen by the weight of the memory. His fists balled helpless at his sides.

Because this wasn’t his fight. This wasn’t now. This was the past.

And the past was merciless.

The girl on the bed shifted, whimpering. Her voice cracked as she whispered a single word—no.

It shattered him.

His knees buckled. He gripped the doorframe, knuckles raw, every ounce of him trembling.

The road had dragged him here, held his eyes open, forced him to stand witness.

And it wasn’t finished yet.

Chapter Thirteen – Nowhere to Look

His throat clenched. He couldn’t take it—couldn’t watch the shadows bend closer, couldn’t listen to her voice crack under the weight of fear. His chest felt like it was caving in, ribs splintering around his lungs.

He staggered back from the doorway, pressing his hand to the wall, nails digging deep into peeling paper. His eyes squeezed shut, tears burning, jaw locked tight.

I can’t. God, I can’t.

He tried to turn, to pull himself down the hall, back toward the stairs. Back toward the car. But the air itself fought him. Thick, heavy, like tar filling the hallway. Every step forward pulled him two steps back, every breath stolen halfway from his chest.

He forced his head away from the doorway, but his body betrayed him. His eyes dragged back, snapping open against his will.

The house wanted him to see. The road demanded it.

His pulse thundered in his ears, drowning everything, until the world felt like it was beating in time with his heart. He clamped his hands over his ears, but the sounds bled through anyway—the buckle, the groan, her broken sobs.

“Stop!” His voice ripped raw from his throat. “Stop, please—”

The walls shivered with his words. The air vibrated. But nothing stopped.

The shadow at the bed leaned closer, a hand reaching down. The girl flinched, curling tighter, voice gone hoarse with pleading.

And his body locked in place. His arms stiffened at his sides. His feet planted firm in the carpet.

The road had him.

He was going to see everything.

Chapter Fourteen – The Locked Memory

The air crushed him still, pinning him to the floor. His lungs burned. His fists trembled at his sides, nails cutting into his palms. He wanted to scream, to tear free, to rip the shadow away from the bed — but the road wasn’t giving him that choice.

The memory swallowed him whole.

The room sharpened around him. The smells hit first: sweat, whiskey, stale cigarettes ground into carpet. The sound of the bed creaking, the belt buckle clinking, her muffled sobs breaking through the dark.

He staggered forward without moving, the road dragging him closer until he stood just feet away. The shadow loomed larger, every breath a monster’s growl. The girl’s small hands clutched the blanket, knuckles white, her voice a hoarse whisper of no, no, no.

The pain ripped through him like it was his own. Not his body, but his soul. He felt her terror in his chest, her helplessness flooding his veins, her silence after the word failed her. The weight of it crushed him down, left him gasping like he was drowning in her fear.

He tried to shut his eyes again, but they wouldn’t close. The road held them open.

“Please!” he screamed, his voice breaking. “Not her—take me, not her!”

The shadow turned then. Just for a moment. And though its face blurred, though it wasn’t truly there, he saw enough — the cruelty, the ownership, the utter disregard. The thing that had haunted her life.

His rage boiled so hot it scorched the grief. His teeth ground until his jaw ached, his body shaking like it could tear itself apart. He wanted to kill, to rend, to erase this man from existence.

But the road wasn’t about vengeance. It was about truth.

The shadow bent low again, and the memory hit its peak. Her body went rigid, then limp. Her eyes wide and glassy, staring into nothing. A scream built in his throat, but nothing came out. He couldn’t make a sound anymore. He could only feel.

And then—silence.

The shadow slumped. The bed went still. The man who had broken her staggered back, clutching his chest, falling heavy to the floor. A heart seizing. Breath choking. His death.

The girl stayed curled, frozen, not daring to move.

And the room—her prison—locked itself inside him.


---

Aftermath

The grip released. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the carpet, chest heaving, eyes burning. The shadow was gone. The room dimmed. But the weight remained. Her fear, her pain, her broken whisper — all of it lived inside him now.

He dragged himself to the doorway, half-crawling, half-falling, cigarette long gone from his lips. His body shook as though the memory itself had carved scars into him.

And when he looked back one last time, the bed was empty. The girl was gone. The house already fading into the dark.

But he knew.

He had carried her wound. He had lived her night. And nothing would ever erase it from him.

He stumbled forward, through the doorway, down the stairs, until gravel crunched under his boots again. The Trans Am waited at the edge of the driveway, its headlights glowing faint in the dawn.

He slid into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and sat there shaking, smoke still clinging to his clothes, the taste of fear still raw in his mouth.

And for the first time all night, he whispered her name. Not as a prayer. Not as a promise. But as an oath.

Then he turned the key.

The engine roared back to life.

The road to the past stretched ahead.

And he drove on.

---Chapter Fifteen – Resolve

The Trans Am idled at the edge of the memory’s wreckage, headlights cutting across gravel that looked more real than the world he’d just crawled through. His hands shook on the wheel, his breath ragged, his chest sore like something inside him had cracked open.

Smoke clung to his clothes, but it wasn’t his. Fear lingered in his lungs, but it wasn’t his either. He had carried her pain, her terror, her helplessness — and now it lived in him as much as it had in her.

For a long moment, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t even light another cigarette. His hands wouldn’t steady enough to strike the lighter.

So he just sat. Let the engine hum like a heartbeat. Let the silence remind him he was still here.

The road had broken him, twisted him, dragged him into places no man should ever have to go. But he was still alive. Still driving. Still moving forward.

And when he thought of her — not the girl he had seen curled on that bed, but the woman waiting for him three days from now, the woman who trusted him, who smiled through scars the world couldn’t see — his resolve hardened.

He wiped his face with the back of his hand, smearing sweat and tears into the grime on his skin. He picked up the carton of cigarettes from the seat beside him, shook one free, and lit it with a steady hand this time. He inhaled deep, smoke burning into his lungs, and exhaled slow.

Then he cracked the last unopened can of energy drink. The hiss was sharp, defiant. He drained half of it in one pull, the bitterness biting him awake.

“Almost there,” he muttered. His voice was raw, but steady. “For her. All the way.”

He looked up.

The road ahead had changed. No more tricks. No more towns or billboards or convoys. Just one long, narrow stretch of blacktop leading into the last of the night. The horizon bled faint orange where the sun was trying to rise.

He dropped the empty can on the floorboard, clenched the wheel tight, and pressed the gas.

The Trans Am roared, its engine echoing like a war cry. Gravel scattered behind him as the car lunged forward, chasing the dawn.

Whatever waited at the end, he would meet it head-on.

Not for himself.

For her.

Chapter Sixteen – The End of the Road

The blacktop narrowed until it was only one lane, hemmed in by shadow. The Trans Am’s headlights barely reached ten feet ahead, and even that light seemed swallowed whole.

But the horizon was glowing now — not bright, not yet, but enough. Enough to promise the sun was coming. Enough to promise an ending.

The car slowed on its own, the engine easing down no matter how hard he pressed the gas. The wheel pulled forward steady, like the road itself was guiding him. For the first time all night, he didn’t fight it.

He let the Trans Am carry him until the pavement gave out, the tires crunching to a stop on dirt. Ahead, there was no more road. Only an open stretch of gray, flat as the surface of a lake, waiting.

He cut the engine. The silence was immediate, vast, pressing against his ears. He sat there for a long moment, cigarette burning down between his fingers, before finally opening the door.

The gravel crunched under his boots. He stepped forward, toward the gray, the air colder now, sharper, like dawn itself was holding its breath.

And then he saw it.

A door.

It stood alone in the middle of the flat gray stretch. Old wood, paint peeling, a brass knob dull with time. No frame, no walls — just a door, upright, waiting.

His chest tightened. He didn’t need to ask what it was. He knew.

This was the past. The moment he had come for.

He dropped the cigarette, crushed it under his heel, and walked closer. His knees shook, but his stride never faltered. When he reached the door, he rested one hand on the knob. It was cold, almost icy, like the metal had never felt the sun.

Behind the door was everything he had fought for. The chance to rip away the scar before it was ever carved. To give her the gift she never asked for but always deserved.

He closed his eyes. Her face filled the dark — not the child broken in fear, not the woman haunted by memory, but the fiancée waiting for him in three days, her smile bright, her eyes steady, her trust in him absolute.

His hand tightened on the knob.

And for the first time all night, the road was silent.

It didn’t whisper. It didn’t trick. It didn’t fight him.

It just waited.

He took a long breath, exhaled slow, and whispered to her through the dawn:

“For you.”

Then he turned the knob.

And stepped through.

Chapter Seventeen – The Door

The knob turned with a dull click. The door swung open on a hinge that didn’t creak, didn’t resist. Beyond it, there was no gray stretch, no dawn — only a room he already knew.

The house.

The upstairs bedroom.

But different.

The shadows were thinner, the air less suffocating. The shapes on the bed were frozen in place, the moment paused like the world was waiting for him. Her small body curled tight, trembling. Her father leaning over, face twisted, hand reaching.

His stomach lurched, but his body didn’t lock this time. The road had given him no choice before, but here — here, at the end — it let him move.

And he moved.

His boots thundered across the carpet. His hands ripped the man backward, shoving him away from the bed. The shadow of her father stumbled, eyes wide with shock, and for the first time in this cursed memory, he looked afraid.

“You don’t touch her,” he roared, voice raw with every mile of rage the road had burned into him. “Not now. Not ever.”

The shadow clutched his chest, breath seizing. The heart attack. But it came sooner this time, sharp and sudden. He crumpled before the act could scar her. The floor swallowed him whole, leaving nothing but silence.

He turned back to the bed. The girl stared at him, wide-eyed, silent. He wanted to reach for her, wanted to tell her she was safe now, that everything would be different. But before he could speak, the room dissolved around him.

The door closed.

And the road spat him out.

Chapter Eighteen – The Return

The Trans Am screamed back into daylight, tires spitting gravel as the road narrowed to nothing. His chest heaved, lungs raw, but his heart surged with fire. He’d done it. He had stopped the moment. He had given her back what had been stolen.

All that was left was to get home. To her.

He reached for the visor where her photo always hung. His fingers brushed bare plastic. No picture. His brow furrowed. “What the hell—”

The radio snapped on. Not music. Not static. A vision.

The windshield flickered, light bending, and the road played its last trick.

He wasn’t behind the wheel anymore. He was watching.

A hospital room. Her father on the bed, chest seizing, breath choking. Monitors flatlined. The mother sobbing into her hands, grief pouring out of her in waves.

The image shifted. The little girl — safe, untouched — standing at the foot of the bed. Confused. Silent.

Then the mother’s face hardened. Grief turning into something colder. She signed papers. An office. A man in a gray suit. The girl’s hand slipped into a stranger’s, her eyes wide and wet.

The vision fractured again.

A foster home. Cold walls. A slammed door. Shouts. Another hand raised against her. Another scar, different from the one he had stopped.

Then—
A teenage girl, older now, but not her. Not the woman he knew. Eyes hard. Smile gone. She passed him by in a crowd, a stranger brushing shoulders without pause. No recognition. No spark.

The windshield went black.

The radio clicked off.

And he was back in the Trans Am, gripping the wheel so hard his hands shook.

His heart fell hollow into his chest. He understood now.

The road hadn’t let him win. It never had.

He had saved her from one nightmare only to deliver her into another. And in this version of the world, their paths had never crossed.

No wedding in three days. No laughter in the dark. No photo in the visor. No her.


---

The Final Blow

The Trans Am rolled to a stop in the middle of the empty street. Dawn spread wide across the horizon, golden and merciless.

He staggered out of the car, knees weak, throat raw. He called her name once, then again, louder. The sound cracked in the morning air, but no one answered.

The silence was absolute.

And as it settled over him, the lesson sank like a blade into his ribs:

You can’t change the past. You can only trade one trauma for another.

The road had carried him to truth, and truth had left him hollow.

He dropped his last cigarette into the dirt, unlit. His hands trembled. His chest ached. And for the first time since midnight, he had nothing left to fight with.

The Trans Am idled behind him, waiting, but he didn’t turn back.

Because fate had proven crueler than the road.

And he was alone.

Epilogue – The Last Chance

He stood in the dawn, broken, empty. The Trans Am idled behind him, engine rumbling like a growl, like the road itself wasn’t done.

And then it came.

The radio crackled to life. Not music. Not static. A voice. His own voice, but deeper, older, warped.

“One more chance.”

The horizon shimmered. The streets around him bled away, melting into shadow, until only the crossroad stretched before him again. Four paths glowing in the newborn light.

But they weren’t the same.

The future was gone. Heaven was gone. The past flickered faint, burned out like an overplayed reel. Only one road glowed now—red, cracked, smoldering. The air above it shimmered with heat, the stink of sulfur and ash seeping into his lungs.

Hell.

He staggered, shaking his head, whispering, “No. That’s madness. That’s…”

But the radio cut him off.

“If you can’t keep her, save her. Bring him back. Drag him out. Make him different. Better. The man she deserved, not the monster she got.”

The thought sank sharp into his bones. He’d seen her father die twice now — once cruel, once cut short. Both ways left her broken. Maybe this was it. Maybe if he could drag the man himself back from fire and torment, remake him, redeem him, she could finally be free.

He closed his eyes, her face flashing in the dark. Her laughter. Her smile. Her trust. Gone now. But maybe not forever.

His hands trembled. His throat burned. But slowly, he turned back toward the car.

The Trans Am growled as he slid into the driver’s seat, the wheel warm under his palms. He lit his last cigarette, flame flaring in the dawn, and dragged smoke deep into his lungs.

He exhaled, staring down the road to Hell.

“Alright,” he rasped. “One more ride.”

The cassette clicked alive one last time. The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” filled the cabin, eerie and relentless, like a dirge and a dare.

He dropped the shifter into gear.

The tires screamed, gravel burst, and the Trans Am roared forward — into the fire, into the smoke, into Hell itself.He wasn’t chasing her anymore. He wasn’t chasing the past.

He was chasing the one thing left: a chance to tear the monster from the fire and force him to be something better.

And if it cost him his soul, so be it.

The car vanished into the inferno, taillights swallowed by the dark.

The road to nowhere had him now, and it would ride with him forever.

The End.