An aspiring eighteen-year-old author realizes she is a character in an unwritten horror novel and must use her storytelling knowledge to survive.
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Eighteen-year-old romance writer, I...
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The fog slowly scattered from around the car as we drove. The tires kicked up dirt and dust behind us as he increased speed. My heart raced, hoping we would soon see the highway ahead.
So far, the same dark, eerie forest surrounded us. The Blair Witch vibe encompassed the scenery as we passed tree after tree. As I looked out across the forest of dense pine, bright blue formed in the sky near the horizon. Only a speck of the sunrise shone through the thick leaves, but it was enough to keep hope alive.
Suddenly, ahead was a familiar scene as we approached the second campsite and the supplies Zeke and Felicity had left behind. We slowly passed the landmark and my worry meter drastically increased as the silence in the car grew louder.
"Keep going," Atem instructed. "There's nothing here we need to stop for. Keep driving."
He was right. I didn't want to stop either. Even if it led us to the same spot over and over, we shouldn't give in until it forced us to.
Upon approaching the next campsite, I stared at the icy fire pit, remembering the blazing fire that had once seemed to never end. Now the fire was no more. If it proved to be non-eternal, wouldn't this loop? Our tents and bags lay where we left them, but I didn't care for anything at that camp. Nothing mattered more in the moment than getting home.
As we drove by, Felicity mumbled in disappointment. "Oh, no."
I knew exactly what that meant. She feared we were bound to make loops forever, wasting time on a dirt road that didn't obey the rules of time or physics. She was afraid of being right, that our ordeal was far from over.
It was after we approached the blazing ranger station and its forever burning pile of planks we reduced it to, that my heart and my hopes sank.
The frowns and disappointed gazes as they realized that this hellish nightmare had become our forever place. Still, I refused to do like Felicity and express my disappointment. I stared, sitting in silence, and ignoring the radiating pain that surged through the chambers of my heart.
We crept past the burning building and along the dirt road as if hesitant to see what came next. The highway should have only been a mile or so from the ranger station, but as the car crawled to a stop, I prepared for the worse.
"What's wrong?" I looked at Zeke, but he only stared ahead at what lay on the ground in the middle of the road.
When I blinked to clear my vision, I recognized the fluttering pages attached to my fully restored notebook. The headlights lit it like a precious artifact on display.
"Shit." Felicity's face twisted in disappointment.
I gulped, feeling the notebook's magnetic pull, hearing it call to me to take it back in my arms. It begged me not to forget or leave it in this nightmarish hellscape. That book and its contents were important. Those words written on each of the pages were part of me. And now I faced a decision. Do I accept that part of me and hold on to what it represented? Or do I leave it all to rot?
