Anything could be waiting for us in those woods. After all, too many souls are dancing in the trees.
I watch the time on the clock tick down, finding myself holding my breath after every five minutes that pass. Five more sets of five, and we’ll be driving through the town line, passing the sign we both love so much…
Welcome to Augustus, California. The friendliest town in the U.S.A.
Thinking of that stupid phrase elicits a chuckle out of me, causing Roman to turn and give me a fierce look.
“What’s so funny?”
Augustus is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t say friendly is one of them.
“Just… can’t believe this is where we are. Can’t believe we’re really going back.”
From the look on his face, he can’t believe it either. But this was his decision… this was the only thing that would help us, he claimed. So here we are.
“We need to do this… no matter how fucking painful it is,” Roman states, fixing his posture, so he sits high in his seat, face stern as he convinces himself of his lies.
I’ve been hurt enough… I never wanted to be hurt again.
The closer we get to home, the deeper my dread digs its claws into me, the louder the garbled voices in my head grow, and the further I feel myself sink into an endless abyss.
I pray and pray to any God that hears me to stop this car from moving, kill our battery, make every tire burst as they run over the old, worn road, split the asphalt in half and swallow us whole. Please do something, but don’t let this happen.
Please don’t take us back home.
I should know better by now not to pray to a deity that’s abandoned me before. They’ve never listened. So, why would they now?
Thirty minutes feel like nothing, and before I know it, the trees thicken, and the road narrows as the forest consumes the land.
I can see something coming in the distance, a tall, off-white sign with a rounded top. I don’t need to be right next to it to read the greeting.
I don’t need the cheery, forest-green letters to welcome me back to hell. But as I pass Augustus’s town entrance and take in the bright colors, promising comfort and serenity, I let myself believe, for just one moment, that maybe this won’t hurt so bad.
†††
I was wrong. Nothing is more painful than coming home.
I can’t do this.
Our car drives over the dead leaves, filling the quaking silence with familiar crunching. It’s like bones, each snap of a twig. I shouldn’t be able to hear them over our labored breathing or the whirring of the running engine, yet each crack is like a bomb in my ear. It’s all I can focus on.
It’s all I can feel.
There are track marks in the damp earth. I spot each ridge of the four-wheel tires as we drive over them. Someone has been here, but I can't think of who.
My concentration was so stuck on the twigs that I overlooked the charred remains of the forest beside me.
A horrified gasp leaves my lips as I stare at the burnt branches hanging off blackened trunks.
“Did we do this?” I ask, hand clapping over my mouth as I gape at the scorched land.
I didn’t mean to do this… I just wanted to get away. I wanted them to know they couldn’t hurt me…
But fuck. What did we do?
“We had to, angel. To keep us safe.”
“We didn’t have to dothis! They were dead… that was enough.” My tone rises in pitch the farther we dive into the trees. I don’t even know if I can call them trees anymore, just the bare bones of a stolen life.
