Writing Prompt

(CW: supernatural activity, car accident, missing person, implied death, and don’t read this if you’re afraid the dark)

Sybil Johnson stared dully at the dark horizon as she drove down the long, winding roads that snaked through the Midwest farmlands. 

It was an ordinary July night.  Humid, dead quiet, and would have been black as pitch if not for the street lights illuminating her path.  Sybil sighed, struggling to keep her eyes open.  It had been a long day, and the drive back home seemed even longer.  She still wasn’t used to the empty endlessness of rural roads, and the up and down of the rolling hills was making her feel seasick.

As she turned yet another corner, the song Sybil had on the radio flickered into a cacophony of garbled static, and the street lights dimmed then blinked out completely.  Her eyebrows leapt up.  The surprise was enough to jolt her awake, but even just the four days she’d been visiting her mother had shown her enough strange country occurrences to know this was nothing too out of the ordinary.  Wavering lights, shaky signals, and uncanny roads were barely scratching the surface.  She adjusted her glasses, switched off the radio, and continued down the road.  After glancing around and seeing no other cars, she flipped her brights on as well.

It was at that moment when Sybil became aware of the acute sound of breathing.  Her heart stuttered and she nearly froze, eyes wide and darting.  There was no one else in the car with her to make the noise.  She would have thought the breathing was her own, except the sound seemed to come only from behind her.  And the more she focused on it, the sensation of warm, eerie whispers of breath grasping the hairs on her neck became more and more apparent. 

Her headlights abruptly shut off.  She yelped, moving her foot to the brake pedal in an attempt to pull over, but it was in vain.  No matter how hard she pushed down on that pedal, the car wouldn’t so much as slow down.  It was like the vehicle had its own will, and it wanted to drag her further into the danger of darkness.  

Sybil didn’t know what to do.  Her mind became a frantic flurry and a desert of blank thoughts all at once, and she was sure she was screaming as both the breathing and the car sped up until she could no longer feel the road underneath her.  What little light she had from the dashboard vanished and she flailed around, crying, clawing at the car doors in hopes of opening them.  It was impossible.  She was trapped, speeding down a twisted road to nowhere, drowning in a terrible pool of night.  She couldn’t even see the curved hands in front of her face.  But she could feel the rhythm of heavy breath tickling the bridge of her nose. And then she felt nothing at all.

Sybil Johnson’s car was discovered a few days later, abandoned off the side of the road next to a “no entry” sign.  It was locked and nothing inside appeared to be disturbed whatsoever.  Law enforcement and various investigators searched intensely for Sybil herself, but she was unfortunately nowhere to be found.

Lost in the night And forgotten destinations Trips taken in the dark Lead to darker situations.

Jack slowed the car to a crawl, and turned the full beams on. They illuminated a strange scene; from the black marks on the road that could be burnt rubber; to the broken glass scattered haphazardly across the asphalt. ‘What the fuck happened here’ muttered Jack, turning to me as if seeking validation that I found this as strange as he did. ‘I don’t know’ I said, pointlessly. The car leaned down to one side, with the tires clearly blown out on the left-hand side. There was a black headrest in the midst of all the broken glass. It was impossible to tell what had happened, but at my best guess it looked like someone had been attacked. Jack stopped the car just shy of the chaotic scene. ‘Maybe we should get out and have a look’ he said, taking his hands off the steering wheel and looking at me. I didn’t want to agree, but equally I didn’t think I could ignore such a strange situation. ‘Sure’ I said, fishing my scarf off the back seat and wrapping it around myself. ‘But lets be careful, yeah?’. I reached across and popped open the passenger door. Jack followed suit and opened his own door. We approached the wreckage cautiously, looking for any signs of life or any clue as to what had happened. As I walked towards the car, I felt my trainer slide slightly on the ground. Looking down, I saw that there was a patch of crimson blood on the ground that I had nearly slipped in. I gestured to Jack, and pointed to my shoe. The blood was bright in the full beams of our rental car, and I saw his eyes widen in shock as he realised what this meant. ‘Fuck!’ he hissed, panic flushing his face as it drenched me as well like a bucket of cold water. He turned and briskly approached the car, looking through the windows briefly. He looked back at me and shook his head. ‘No-one there’ he said. This didn’t make either of us feel better. At this moment, the street lights down the road emitted a loud hum. I looked up at them to see that the dim red lights were getting brighter. The road and immediate surrounding areas of desert were illuminated in a red glow that was only getting more and more intense. Jack jogged back to me and said the exact words that I was thinking: ‘We need to leave, NOW’. I wasn’t in any mood to argue with him, so we turned and made back to the car. Back inside, Jack turned the key in the ignition, and I waited for the familiar hum of the engine starting. Nothing. Jack turned the key again. Nothing. ‘But…’ he murmured, confusion in his tone. Two dull thuds outside made us both snap our heads up and look at each other. We both listened as the left side tires of our car slowly began to deflate.