Return to the Abyss

The rain hammered against the windshield as Sara clutched the steering wheel, knuckles pale from the strain. The storm was unrelenting, much like the memories she had tried so hard to leave behind. Her breath was shallow, her mind racing through all the places she could go, though none of them offered safety. The small bag of essentials tossed into the passenger seat felt pitiful now, a symbol of her lack of foresight. She hadn’t slept in days, barely eaten, but there was no time for that now.

She was running from her past, and she wasn’t sure if she’d survive the pursuit.

The highway stretched out into the night, endless and desolate. Sara had been driving for hours, each mile taking her farther from the life she had built for herself, a life stitched together with fragile threads. She had always known those threads could unravel at any moment, and now, they had. The decision she had made over twenty years ago—one that had shaped her entire existence—had come back to haunt her.

Back then, Sara was young, desperate, and scared. She had been twenty-four, fresh out of college, with her future teetering on the edge of ruin. A fleeting relationship had left her pregnant, alone, and panicked. She wasn’t ready. She had convinced herself that she wasn’t capable of being a mother, not at that time, not in the midst of a life she was just beginning to carve out.

David had been her anchor back then, or so she had thought. He was older, charming in a way that made him seem like he had the answers. When she told him about the pregnancy, he didn’t blink. His response was chilling in its simplicity.

“You can’t keep it,” he had said. “It’s too big of a mess. You know that, right?”

And she had known. At least, that’s what she had told herself. So she did what she thought she had to do. She made an appointment at the clinic, and David had driven her there in silence. He had waited outside, cigarette smoke curling into the air, while inside, Sara made the most difficult decision of her life.

She told herself it was the right choice. For her. For him. For the future she was supposed to have.

But even after the procedure, nothing had ever felt the same. David stayed with her for a few more months, but their relationship eroded, piece by piece, until he left without so much as a backward glance. Sara moved on—or pretended to. She threw herself into her career, into building a new life, trying to bury the past under layers of success and distance.

But the past doesn’t stay buried forever.

Twenty years later, it had resurfaced. Not in the form of an old lover, but in a person. A young woman—barely out of her teens—had appeared at Sara’s office one rainy afternoon, dripping from the storm outside, clutching a folder to her chest. She looked so much like Sara had at that age, it was unnerving.

“You’re Sara Matthews, right?” the girl had asked, her voice tentative but steady. “I think you’re my mother.”

Sara had frozen. The world had seemed to tilt, her carefully constructed reality collapsing beneath the weight of those words.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she had replied, voice brittle. “You have the wrong person.”

But the girl wouldn’t leave. She laid out her story in painful, methodical detail. Sara had given her up for adoption. The agency had been private, discreet, ensuring that Sara’s secret would never see the light of day. But records weren’t as sealed as they used to be, and the girl—*Emily*—had managed to track her down.

“I just want to know where I came from,” Emily had said softly. “I don’t want anything else. I just need to understand.”

But Sara couldn’t give her that. She couldn’t give her anything. So she did what she had always done when faced with an impossible choice. She ran. She cut Emily off, refused to engage, and told herself it was for the best. She couldn’t let this part of her past destroy the life she had now—a successful career, a fiancé who knew nothing of her old life, and the walls she had so meticulously built to protect herself from this very moment.

That had been three months ago.

And now, here she was, speeding down an empty highway in the middle of the night, running not just from Emily but from the tidal wave of guilt that had consumed her. She had tried to push the memories away, tried to pretend that the past didn’t matter. But it did. And when Emily hadn’t stopped—when she had shown up at Sara’s home, at her workplace, pleading for just a moment of understanding—Sara knew her walls were crumbling.

The final straw had come that evening, when she’d found a letter slipped under her door. The words were scrawled in a shaky hand, soaked with rain, but Sara had read them over and over until they were etched into her mind.

"I know you don’t want me in your life, but I can’t let this go. Please, I just need closure. I need to know why you left me. If you won’t speak to me, I’ll find another way."

That last sentence had sent chills down Sara’s spine. She knew what it meant. Emily was threatening to reveal everything. To dig up the past and expose Sara’s darkest secret to the world she had so carefully cultivated.

And so, Sara did the only thing she could think to do. She fled.

Now, as the rain poured harder, she felt the weight of every mile pressing down on her. What was she even running to? There was no escaping this. She knew that now. But she couldn’t stop. If she stopped, she’d have to face the consequences of her decision from all those years ago—the consequences that had finally caught up with her.

The road ahead was barely visible through the sheets of rain, but Sara kept driving, her mind replaying the choices that had led her here. She remembered the cold, sterile clinic, the bright lights, the doctor’s detached voice, David’s indifference. She remembered the ache in her chest as she walked out of that building, a different person, though she didn’t know it at the time.

And she remembered Emily’s face, so full of questions, so full of pain that Sara couldn’t bear to acknowledge.

*I thought I could forget. I thought I could leave it all behind.*

A sudden sharp curve in the road brought her back to the present. She jerked the wheel, too late to correct her course. The car skidded, tires screaming against the slick pavement, and before she knew it, she had veered off the road. The car plunged into a ditch, slamming into a tree with a violent jolt. The airbag deployed, slamming into her chest with the force of a sledgehammer.

For a moment, everything was silent except for the rain.

Sara groaned, her body aching from the impact. Her head throbbed, and her chest felt tight, but she was alive. Slowly, she pushed the airbag away and fumbled with the door. It creaked open, and she stumbled out into the storm, rain pelting her face, her body trembling from shock and cold.

The forest loomed around her, dense and impenetrable, the trees swaying in the wind. She was in the middle of nowhere, with no way to call for help. Her phone had been tossed somewhere in the wreckage, but even if she found it, she doubted there’d be a signal out here.

Sara collapsed to her knees, the mud cold and thick beneath her. The adrenaline that had kept her going drained away, leaving her empty and exhausted.

She had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.

And then, she heard it. A voice, barely audible over the storm, but unmistakable.

"Sara."

Her heart skipped a beat. She turned, her breath catching in her throat.

There, standing at the edge of the forest, was Emily.

Her hair was drenched, her clothes clinging to her thin frame, but she looked calm. Determined.

"You can’t run from this," Emily said, stepping closer, her eyes locked on Sara’s. "I’m not here to hurt you. I just want the truth. Why did you leave me? Why did you abandon me?"

Sara’s voice caught in her throat. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. All the excuses, all the justifications she had told herself over the years suddenly felt hollow. The truth was there, heavy and undeniable.

"I was scared," she finally whispered, the words ripped from her soul. "I didn’t know how to be your mother. I thought it was better for you if I disappeared."

Emily’s eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t look away. "You were wrong."

Sara nodded, tears mixing with the rain. "I know."

The silence stretched between them, thick with years of unspoken pain. Sara realized, in that moment, that there was no escaping this. The decision she had made all those years ago had shaped not only her life but Emily’s as well. And now, they were both trapped in the consequences.

"I’m sorry," Sara whispered.

Emily knelt beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. For the first time in decades, Sara felt something other than the crushing weight of regret.

She felt understood.

And that, perhaps, was the beginning of something new.