Number one is, don’t stop driving.

I think I’ve been on this road for two weeks now. I don’t have any good way to tell: it’s always night time and none of the clocks work in any ways that make sense. But I’ve gone to sleep for a full rest about fourteen times, so I’m guessing two weeks.

If you’re in this same situation, or you wind up as such, you’ll be glad to know that you don’t have to worry about food or water. Whatever time fuckery is going on seems to pause your bodily functions, too.

But never stop driving. Your vehicle won’t run out of gas. It won’t break down. You are on a gravel road, so you can’t take it too fast unless you like spinning out, but don’t stop. We’ll, uh. Get to why in a moment?

Number two is, you’re the only human being here.

There’s some things that will try to trick you. Like those old “lady in white” tales—they stand on the shoulders of the road, waiting for you to appear. Some are convincing—a thumb out, a healthy smile, and some are . . . incomplete. Heads twitching, misshapen limbs. But none can speak. You don’t even really have to bother trying—none of them are like you. And none of them are friendly.

Number three is

Oh, fuck it.

I don’t even know what I’m doing here.

Typing out this stupid fucking list like I actually know what’s going on here. Like I want to survive this. Like I somehow got out of this situation in the first place.

I’m still here. Still in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, the god-damned void, and it’s still night. There’s still creatures trying to get to me, get inside of my truck, and I’m still. Fucking driving.

It hasn’t been two weeks. Two weeks was easy shit.

I’ve been stuck here for four months.

Near as I can tell it.

I’m just . . .

I’m just tired.

What am I supposed to do here?

I don’t starve. I don’t even get thirsty. The gas never runs low. The road never. Fucking. Ends.

I don’t think I can even begin to describe the sheer monotony of it. There’s nothing to see. Just trees, endless trees, the empty sky, and a pale moon. The road itself is a constant—always at least two car-widths, always light gray limestone, and always there. There forest on either side is all but impenetrable—and trust me, I’ve tried. You can’t even squeeze past the tree trunks.

And those fucking . . . things. I don’t know what they are. Hitchhikers, I guess. That’s what they want to be. All of them try to get me to pull over, whether it’s by laying across the road, standing on the side, screaming. Just fucking screaming. There’s no other sounds besides the truck and them. I don’t like to risk spinning out, because then who knows what they’d do to me when the truck stops, but I gun it past them every time. Just to spend less time listening to them. That noise.

It’s never ending. I’m convinced of it at this point. I’ve been keeping an eye on the odometer since maybe my second day here. Sixty thousand miles since I’ve been here. I know that’s a lot, but what else can I do but drive? Drive on, drive into the void of the horizon. Just staring and white-knuckling the steering wheel and listening to the engine chug. Drive straight and fast right into the heart of this, maybe? Or straight into hell? Drive and type on this phone that can’t access anything besides whatever forum this is? Hell, I’ve made posts here before. No one ever responds. I don’t think it’ll be any different this time. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I guess it’s because I don’t have anything else to do, and at least this way I can feel like I’m actually talking to somebody. Like there’s someone on the other side of this screen.

I’m so tired.

I’m parked right now. Not for long, never for long, because then the hitchhikers might find me. I’ve written all of this during short breaks every now and then. Maybe five minutes a piece. I can’t even relax during them. Even now, I have to glance in all of my mirrors and all around the truck between every sentence. And maybe that’s cutting it close, some of those things can nearly keep up with the truck at a comfortable thirty five miles per hour.

Sometimes I don’t even bother to write. I just sit there and stare into the void. Wonder if I should just let them get me, because nothing could be worse than this. And then I remember my friends and family, and I grip the wheel, and I step on the gas.

So fucking tired.

I don’t physically need sleep anymore. Haven’t since I got here. But I can feel the want for sleep like a constant pressure in the back of my skull, even if my eyes don’t get tired. I just want to pay down on the grass and let whatever takes me, take me.

The night sky isn’t even like the one back home. You’re just staring into an endless abyss, besides for the moon, which doesn’t even look like the real one. Just staring into the edge of whatever this place is, with no way to reach it, and certainly no way to break through. I don’t know if it’s wishful thinking or some instilled truth, but I feel like if I could crack through that sky, then I’d be there. I’d be home. No more road. No more truck. No more hitchhikers.

But instead, I’m here. Writing to no one on a forum that I don’t think anyone can read, sitting in an infinite night on an endless gravel road, trying to come up with rules to survive even though I don’t even think I want to survive any more. Because that’s all I have left.

I just.

Want.

To go.

Home.

So, yeah.

Rule one. Don’t stop fucking driving. Grin and bare it and keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

I’ll say it one more time, because three times for good luck isn’t good enough for a place like this: keep going. If anyone reads this, then . . . I don’t know. Pity me. I doubt there’s anything you can do to help. Maybe by the time you see this, then I’ve already let the hitchhiker’s have at me. I don’t think I can last much longer. But I guess I’ll leave that part up to your imagination.

Bye, for now, anyone who’s there. May you have a better life than this.