The Final Turn

The road stretched endlessly through the trees, their skeletal branches clawing at the sky like fingers reaching for something unseen. Lillian gripped the wheel tighter, her knuckles pale against the cracked leather. She had been driving for hours. Maybe days. The map on the passenger seat was useless now, crumpled and stained with coffee rings and sweat. She had followed the directions exactly - turn left at the old petrol station, follow the road past the abandoned farmhouse, take the winding forest road. But at some point, the road had stopped making sense.

Her headlights cut through the dense fog, revealing more road, more trees, more of the same. Every turn she took led her back to where she had been, though she never actually turned around. The same jagged branches, the same gnarled roots clawing their way out of the ground, the same hush of the world that pressed against the windows like hands. She checked her phone again. No battery. The screen stared back at her, black and empty. As empty as the road that stretched ahead.

Calm down. You're just tired. She had left the city to escape the noise, the pressure, the never-ending demands. A solo road trip, a reset. But now the silence was suffocating. The radio crackled to life. Lillian jumped, nearly swerving off the road. Static filled the car, broken by a voice - soft, distant, almost familiar.

"Turn back." She reached for the dial, but the moment her fingers brushed it, the voice returned, stronger this time. "Turn back now, before –’

The radio cut off. Lillian pressed down on the accelerator. No more thinking. Just keep going. The road twisted again, and her headlights illuminated something ahead - a figure standing in the middle of the road. She slammed on the brakes.

It was a man. Or at least, something shaped like a man. His clothes were old, in tatters. His skin was pale, almost grey. He lifted a hand in a slow, deliberate motion. A signal. A warning. The moment stretched impossibly long. Then the fog shifted and he was gone. She should turn around. Find a way back. But when she looked in the rearview mirror, the road behind her was gone. Only trees remained. A sound whispered through the air, too low to be the wind. A voice? A breath?

She had to choose. Forward? Or stay? Her hand hovered over the gear stick, indecision locking her in place. Then, from the depths of the forest, something moved. A shadow emerged, shifting between the trees. Lillian squinted, trying to make sense of it. It wasn't animal. It wasn't human. It was something in between, something that didn’t belong to any world she understood. It was tall and thin, its limbs too long, its head cocked at an unnatural angle as it watched her from beneath the canopy.

It stepped closer. It almost seemed to be gliding. The shadows clung to it, distorting its form, as though the darkness itself birthed it. Lillian slammed the car into gear and tried to get it moving. The tyres span in the mud in a scream of rubber and earth, before the car finally lurched forward. The shadow didn't move. It simply watched as she passed, its head turning slowly, tracking her as though it already knew where she was going. The fog thickened, swallowing the road, the trees, the sky. The headlights bounced off the mist, illuminating nothing. She couldn’t stop. If she stopped, the shadow might catch up.

A shape formed in the fog ahead, rising like a phantom from the mist. It was the figure again - the man with the warning, but closer now. She could see his face more clearly, and it was not a face she wanted to see. The skin was too smooth, stretched tight over bones that didn’t sit right beneath the surface. His eyes were hollow and black, devouring the light. She swerved and the car lurched off the road, tyres crunching over roots and fallen branches. She wrestled it back onto the dirt path. The figure watched her, unmoving and unblinking, before disappearing again in another blink of her eye.

The road wound on, but Lillian wasn't sure it was the same road. The trees seemed older now. The air seeping through the gaps around the windows was colder and carried smells of wet earth and decay. Shapes hung from the branches. She hoped they were made of cloth, but feared it might be skin. She didn't look too closely.

The static on the radio came back, louder now, a piercing screech that made her wince. Words twisted through the noise. She couldn’t make them out, but they sounded urgent. She slid the dial to off, but the noise continued. It wasn’t coming from the radio anymore, it was coming from the forest.

A low chant hummed through the trees, carried on a wind that didn’t move the branches. Words in a language that was older than the ground beneath her tyres. She understood none of it, except for one word. Her name.

‘Lillian.’ She looked out the windows, but the fog was too thick. She couldn’t see them. She could only hear them. They were whispering her name. Calling for her. The road narrowed, hemmed in by trees like sentries. The headlights flickered and dimmed. She pressed the accelerator harder, but the car groaned and started to slow. It felt like something was dragging against it, holding it back.

The trees opened out into a clearing. Pale, cold moonlight filtered through the mist. In the middle of the clearing was a structure. It had wooden beams that were black with rot, forming an arch that led to nowhere. Just the same road, the same path she had driven already. Again and again. The trees, the fog, the fear. An endless loop.

The shadow waited beneath the arch. Silent. Patient. She couldn’t do this. Not again. But the car rolled forward, pulled by a force beyond her control. The arch loomed closer, and as she crossed beneath it, the fog lifted and the trees pulled back.

She was back, right where she started. The road stretched endlessly through the trees, their skeletal branches clawing at the sky like fingers reaching for something unseen.