Yesterday there was a motel sitting outside and more importantly there was a large motel sign near the highway. That little detail was important because not only were the two of them missing… but so was the road leading to the highway.

In fact the entire scenery had literally changed overnight.

The only road leading to the house was one of dirt and it went towards a large metal fence with spikes and barbed wire around the top of it. The type of fence that gave a clear ‘stay off my property’ vibe that was one watchtower short of a prison.

The very high and sturdy fence was built all around the area, even cutting out a small section of a nearby patch of forest that rested behind the house… This entire place looked more like some rich person’s private property instead of a random run down motel for wayward souls to spend the night at.

You’d almost think we imagined the whole thing except for the odd details around the front yard. The first was how the vehicles were lined up as suitcases, bags, and random articles of clothing now left lying on the ground where the rooms should have been.

Just a few feet away from each vehicle that didn’t make any sense… unless you knew what was supposed to have been there.

Magically disappearing buildings were a problem, but it dropped a rank under the battlefield damage I saw. Some of the vehicles had bullet holes in them and you could find a few guns lying on the ground. Somere were a little bit damaged though we still took them just to be safe.

No the real problem laid in the heavily damaged guns like the shotgun snapped in two or an assault rifle cleaved in half from the barrel of the gun to the hilt of the gun. Almost as if somebody had tried shooting something until it cleaved the gun (and person) in half.

Yet there were no bodies. There was blood on the ground and bullet shells… but not a single corpse as everything else was left behind. In my general experience missing bodies were never a good sign.

The girls had started questioning what sort of magic had been utilized to craft the buildings that had been here yesterday… or last week.

My first thought was mind control or possibly illusions. It was a bit of a stretch of the imagination, but something far safer to believe in than something that had the ability to warp reality. The latter of course rarely ended well as there were plenty of stories that had even successful reality warping individuals end up causing a horrific amount of chaos and mayhem… and the mess outside didn’t make me think that everything went off without any problems.

After all, how did four police cars count as keeping things quiet or preventing trouble for happening? One of the police cars had tried driving to the gate and this one was unique, because the roof looked as if it had been cut open with a power saw and the seat was covered in blood.

A terrifying thought ran through my head ‘Those fake cops had real police cars… or were they real cops?’

Somehow I doubted that the person driving the car simply waited for the unwanted passenger to finish slicing through the roof and then into the driver’s chair without a hint of resistance.

“Take a look at this.” Scarlet spoke pointing at a line of blood.

Not a blood spray or pool of blood… but a line of blood as if something solid had been there before it suddenly had been removed… or vanished.

“No… somebody couldn’t have tried messing with reality.” I thought to myself “Any who tries always ends up dying horribly. There are just too many ways it can go wrong. Too many little details and things that people tend to forget or fail to notice which makes the backlash so horrific.”

Yet the pessimistic part of my mind reminded me about the fact that the old lady was in fact… really old and that things probably weren’t going to get better for her. So why go out with a whimper when you could go out with a bang even if you failed?

Urge to flee from this place rising.

“Okay who has car keys?” Alexandria asked out loud “Anyone?”

I head a window shatter as one of them had simply opted for smashing in a window and trying to loot anything of value inside one of the mostly shot up cars… the fact that the car alarm didn’t go off either meant the car battery was shot up… or whatever happened here also took out the alarms.

Thankfully my car was still in one piece even if it had a flat tire from somebody shooting it. All I needed to do was get a few supplies and steal/borrow a tire from one of the other cars.

Small mercies.

Opening up the door and pulling the passenger seat back a quick sigh of relief filled me with ease as the backpack was still there. Opening it up just to be safe I found all of my supplies still resting inside it. Some spare clothing, a few bottles of ink (safely intact with pen), gloves, and two expandable baton ‘wands’ (with safeguards) and the second one a slightly illegal stun baton.

Sadly I didn’t pack any bullets because I didn’t expect to need more bullets… but my ID was missing. A regular ID that showed I was a legal US citizen and the one that allowed me to carry a concealed firearm. Checking the backpack twice over it was… confusing. Of all the things to go missing why would it by my ID instead of… it.

The large silver orb was still resting near the bottom of the backpack safely hidden inside of a shirt. Slowly pulling the item out it was hard not to shiver as I felt the weight in my hands. Holding the thing, much less seeing it out in the open even if it was in my hands felt like tempting fate.

Somebody had snuck into my car, and took all the forms of ID including the fake ones… and left this behind? If anything trying to find the hiding spots for my IDs should be a secondary goal… or a forgotten one once they found this thing!

“Is this fake or did they actually forget to take it?” I muttered to myself.

The orb was just that… a silver almost metallic looking orb that seemed to reflect everything around it… you could easily see what it reflected as it only showed what was around it. This was the reason that forced me to leave as finding a safe place to hide it… or dispose of it.

‘See if it’s real and cause a scene?’ I thought to myself ‘Or don't... and only to find out it was a fake once you are halfway down the road?’

That second line of thought horrified me more. Something unnatural happened here, memory loss, and if you were to believe four random people being turned into ‘daughters’ of a witch which false memories slowly trying to fill in the blanks.

Biting my lip the answer was as cynical and bitter as it was ‘If they ask... blame witchcraft.’

Pulling out one of the spare pins from my backpack I pricked the tip of my index finger. Not a deep jab, but just enough to get a tiny amount of blood as the wound would probably heal over in less than an hour.

Too tiny to make a difference… heck it was probably already healed up, but if I placed it against the orb… It would be easy to tell if this thing was a fake or the real thing.

‘Ash and Salt.’ I thought to myself ‘Why didn’t I just skip the house and continue driving down the road?’

In resignation my finger gently poked the orb half expecting nothing to happen… before the sharp pain and tug struck my finger causing me to wince in pain. The red blood didn’t so much as smear, but instantly straightened out before it darkened to black. My own hand seemed to clench in pain as blood rapidly flowed across the entire sphere forming shapes, symbols, and things I tried not to focus on.

Everything seemed to slow down as I could hear a clock in the distance. The sound of the grandfather clock ticking which each swing sounded more like a second being cut away from my life.

Reality seemed to grow darker around me yet more focused as if the filters had been removed.

My own gaze in the silver orb stared at me as my eyes had turned black.

The lines twisted in the sphere forming around my own gaze… around my own face seemingly etching the symbols upon it with each line growing closer to my eyes. The lines around it formed the image of an eye as it focused on me keeping me within it’s gaze.

‘Something inside all of us.’ The voice spoke ‘Something that sees what we see, hears what we hear… ever so slightly controlling what we do to guide us ever closer…’

I shoved the shirt back over wiping away the blood, the ink, the nightmare that tried to plague my mind before taking a deep breath. It was real… it was here… and in some ways the knowledge that whatever tried to curse the girls…

That somebody thought it would be safer toying with reality than messing with this blasted orb took a small weight off my shoulders while also being deeply unsettling.

Taking a deep breath and shoving the orb back into the bottom of my backpack it was time for me to get out the tire replacement kit… but that was when something that hadn’t been there a few seconds ago caught my attention.

A small hand puppet was sitting in the driver’s seat.

I mean it looked like a hand puppet… a small cheap gimmicky one that reminded me of a sock puppet only with a bird like mouth and four button eyes. One might even call it cute in a sense as the two small little arms waved out as if somebody had sowed them on as they were just there for show instead of actually holding anything.

The puppet was staring at me before tilting its head in a manner you’d find cute on a dog… but the gap in the mouth was open revealing what looked like a human eye sticking right out of a severed human arm. The eye stared at me and blinked for a moment before I yanked the backpack away and pulled my gun out on it even if the gun was empty.

The puppet suddenly shut its mouth and held the almost comical felt hands up. It might have even been cute if the memory of the human arm and eye didn’t stand out as I hadn’t seen this thing until after I touched the orb.

Two thoughts ran through my head at that moment.

The first was that the non-human entity seemed to be sentient or smart enough to recoinze and respond to having a gun shoved in its face.

The second much more disturbing thought was when I realized that my car was set up as a trap.

“I made it specifically to ensure that you wouldn’t be able to see it.” A faint female voice spoke filling me with dread.

The sound of the trunk popping open caused me to struggle slipping on my backpack while also making sure that the orb didn’t fall out of it. My hands struggled to keep the backpack secure as I also tried pulling out my (slightly illegal) stun baton out to deal with this new threat.

Any thoughts about fighting died when it rose out of my trunk. The creature was large, covered in bits and scraps of cloth sewn together to form a ragged dress. It was tall and lanky… almost unnaturally thin as the stick-like arms seemed more gaunt than what nature would have allowed as the creature directed it’s gaze towards me.

The face was covered in a porcelain mask as it looked almost fitting for a mad scientist to wear. The right side of the mask was whole and unbroken as various lenses stood off near the eye like some sort of steampunk or Victorian style of eyepiece to magnify something… but the left side of the mask worried me.

The porcelain mask was chipped, broken, and seemingly stitched back together as bits of raw leather like flesh seemingly bleed between the cracks. The left eye lacked the lens… or an eye for that matter. There was no light… no eye… just an endless pit of darkness where an eye should have been.

Somebody had stuffed an eldritch freaking monster in my car to follow or murder me after I spent the night in this accursed motel. Of course I hadn’t escaped the problems from that blasted city!

Was it any surprise that something found me considering that I had missed an entire week of trying to put as much distance between the city and myself!

There was only one thing to do and that was see who sent it and how to kill it “Oh… I take it Aeth has sent you?”

“You did not ask that name last time. Who is she?” The monster spoke much to my confusion

I heard the sounds of bags dropping as I glanced towards the others as they were frozen in terror. Alexandria was muttering under her breath, Scarlet held the items she had retrieved from the car to her chest… and the woman with the knife was sitting in one of the police cars not moving… but getting ready to flee at the first chance she got.

I really couldn’t blame her at this point. I probably would have already hit the gas and tried plowing through the gates by now.

“Last time?” I asked trying to figure out what it was.

My mind raced through everything that it could be… if it knew me then that left a short list of very dangerous people who probably wanted me dead. The fact that it hadn’t gutted me on the spot made that list much shorter.

“Last time? What is that thing!” Rebecca hissed in fear before the monster turned to face her

“You can see me. You don’t know my name, yet you can hear me, see me…” The creature turned its head towards the woman in question before looking back at me.

I couldn’t help, but shiver as the monster’s neck twisted in an angle I had only seen owls be able to perform without breaking their neck “And yet you don’t know me... Is it the pact? Some relic? A curse or spell! Tell me!”

Its hands reached around me only to suddenly pause before the creature slowly pulled them back. The body twitched along with its head as the creature was obviously irritated about something, but… It didn’t know. It had no idea and yet… it wasn’t natural.

“Who are you?” I asked in growing dread as the other girls slowly slinked towards the police car as the creature’s focus fell upon me.

“Who am I… you ask as you still don’t know… no memories, no secrets, no knowledge of shooting me in the face!” The monster practically hissed pointing at the left side of the mask

I was about to refute… before slowly nodding in defeat “That does sound like something I would do…”

Want to know what the first rule of dealing with eldritch monsters is?

Do not try flat out lying to their face especially when they know you are lying. Most don’t understand when people try to trick it with careful word play, and the rest simply Do Not Care! Lying would only further tick it off instead of giving me time to figure out how to escape.

“They call me The Stitch Witch.” The monster spoke as it stared at me “And yet the title still rings hollow to your ears.”

The monster was angry, confused… and not trying to kill me as it had no idea who I was. That left one of two possibilities “And I take it that you’re not allowed to kill me because of the pact we made. You don’t kill me in exchange for…”

“Telling me why you shot me without knowing me.” The creature spoke pulling out a small trophy I didn’t expect to see in the light of day.

It was a mask… a black gas mask with a golden faceplate and three red lenses. The line of thought made itself frighteningly simple as I realized why I would try shooting it point blank in the face if the monster thought I couldn’t see it.

“I thought you were working for Akara.” I slowly replied as the monster paused for a second

“That is a new name you didn’t speak before. You truly have lost your memory to have revealed a second name unspoken before.” The monster spoke in growing interest “No fear, no doubt, and yet…”

The creature never got to finish it’s sentence as the police car hit it. The fact that I didn’t even hear the car starting up much less achieve ramming speed showed just how focused I was on the monster before me… and of the back seat car door opening up as Scarlet motioned me to get inside.

Climbing into the car and slamming the door shut behind me the car drove back for a moment as the monster from before slowly rose back up as body parts snapped back into place. The mask glared at us as a green light seemed to blaze from inside focusing on the car.

“You hit me?” It spoke in disbelief “You lack my name and yet you hit me?” The car pulled back as the engine started to reeve back up “Ah of course…”

The creature snapped it’s fingers before holding its hand straight out as the car tried to ram it again. To my surprise the car went through the creature as if it was a ghost. It might not have been that bad if the creature’s outstretched hand didn’t suddenly become very solid when it hit my neck as the ghost witch was not pinning me to the roof of the car and strangling me.

“I think we lost it!” Rebecca shouted as she turned around only for the other girls to see me being strangled by it.

“A simple trick, but an interesting one nonetheless.” The monster spoke as the car didn’t seem to affect her, but her hand had a nice solid grip on my throat as I struggled trying to breathe “Yet you still hear me, see me, and feel my touch upon your flesh without the knowledge of my name.”

One of the girls shouted in panic “Where is it!”

The monster chuckled “I shall not kill you, but simply put you in a safe place. After all... I can’t let you die from the trial ahead without the answer I seek.”

Scarlet tore my backpack off and swung it around wildly. I had no idea if she was trying to hit the creature’s hands, but she missed and swung it at the creature’s face, shocking it and everyone who promptly screamed seeing the creature one moment… and then the very sudden bump the car experienced.

The creature was gone as I gasped for air looking out the back window as apparently that blow knocked the creature out of the car… and the bump was the car running it over. This might have been a comforting bit of knowledge if it wasn’t for the monster rising back up… and simply wave me goodbye before brushing off it’s dress.

There was a grim sense of knowledge that it was almost expecting to see me again.

“What was that?” Rebecca cried out in shock again.

“I think it was the freaking Stitch Witch.” Scarlet practically shouted as she was staring at my backpack in disbelief

Alexandria was holding her head as she kept shaking it “No that can’t be The Stitch Witch! We don’t know her name so she can’t harm us! We don’t know her name so we couldn’t have run her over with a car!”

“We ran her over twice!” The woman with the knife replied “I mean the first time was lucky, but the second time?”

“No it had to be a fake because if that was the Stitch Witch then we’d… we would be…” She shivered almost lost in her own fears and doubts

“What was she talking about?” Scarlet spoke as everything went silent “About you shooting her in the face and thinking she was someone else?”

They all looked at me as I realized that it wasn’t going to be easy pretending I didn’t know anything at this moment. It was kind of hard to argue against them seeing a mythical monster they all feared go out of its way to strangle me when they tried to ram it with a car.

“Not a local and no idea what it was.” I replied trying to change the subject “I have no idea how it went through the car to try and strangle me.”

“And your backpack hit it.” Scarlet replied not letting me off the hook.

The car kept driving forward, but all eyes were on me. Telling them the whole truth would probably make them think I was crazy… but magic curses and ghost strangling witches probably also counted as impossible, but for today it was merely improbable.

“Fine… I got into a bad incident with a mafia group that employed… non-human entities for less than ethical purposes.” I reluctantly replied as they watched with morbid attention “The incident in question was me pushing one of their higher ranking members out of a skyscraper.”

“A skyscraper…” Rebecca spoke in disbelief “As in…”

“He did one of those taunting speeches in one of those chairs with wheels.” The scene was almost fresh in my mind once again.

He was mocking me. Taunting me about my inability to learn much less survive against the threats I had barely begun to understand. The only reason why he had even let me into the room was to feed his own ego. I barely knew anything about magic and he wanted to offer me a job only after hammering in how helpless I was as any attempts at trying to go up against him would fail horribly.

Worst part of it was that he wasn’t even doing this to me because I was a threat or an annoying thorn at his side.

No.

It was just to mess with Jack. He was using me as a minor nameless pawn just to get back at Jack for whatever he had did… that I was a nameless red shirt placed before him to be sacrificed to prove to Jack just how powerful/dangerous that man really was.

“He just didn’t expect me to shove him out the window…” I could still remember that look of disbelief on his face as he honestly didn’t expect me to do it.

The moment when the glass broke as he realized what had just happened as I watched him fall.

The looks on their face didn’t help as they seemed bothered by it “To be fair I didn’t expect him to survive the drop onto a three story condo down below. I learned the importance of head shots that day and that Akara has really good health insurance to make him have a full recovery.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what bothered them more at that moment. The fact I had pushed someone out of a tall building trying to murder someone… or the fact that the person in question managed to survive.

Honestly they shouldn’t have believed any of it as they should have been trying to pick it apart or something while claiming that I was lying.

I took the backpack from Scarlet and opened it up just a little before turning off the sphere as it was real… and really annoying to deal with. All of their eyes were still focused on me as I needed something to pull out to give a half baked excuse besides the one object none of them needed to know about.

“Anything else?” Alexandra spoke “I mean to defend ourselves with? Besides looking for tall buildings... I mean are there any magic books, mystic scrolls, perhaps a staff stuff inside that backpack?”

“I had a friend who tried to help deal with some of the problems.” Pulling out the teaser baton and placing it in Scarlet’s hand since she was the closest one “She gave me this for self defense.”

“A shock baton?” Alexandra spoke in disbelief “Nothing more… esoteric?”

The women who weren’t driving stared at me in disbelief as they could believe a ghostly murder witch who could harm you if you knew her… a men falling out of sky scrapers only to walk it off… but a shock baton was where they drew the line?

“Really?” I asked in disbelief “In my personal experience guns, shock batons, and cars still have a pretty good effect against things that shouldn’t exist. I mean the shock baton isn’t the best weapon because you need to get up close, but…”

There were a few groans and mutterings from the others expecting something more magical or perhaps a little less mundane looking. Well mundane compared to weapons to defend themselves against murderous eldritch ghost witches or something.

Scarlet seemed to be the only one staring at the weapon “So it’s enchanted or something? I mean it did hit someone we shouldn’t have been able to hit.”

The groans and mutterings stopped as the logic of her statement suddenly made them look at the weapon in a new light. That was a bit confusing to me as… they didn’t realize something that simple? A baton is used to hit people and they didn’t think that it might be used to hit monsters?

“I mean it’s… legal enough. A little bit modified, but easier to explain away than carrying something bigger than a handgun.” I informed them much to their disbelief “Did you think I was carrying a wand or some sort of mystic sword? Magic doesn’t exist.”

“This is coming from the guy who was strangled by The Stitch Witch.” Rebecca spoke in an exaggerated tone “The fact you can say that with a straight face makes me worry.”

“Looks like mom isn’t half the witch she thought she was.” Alexandria spoke with a slight groan “Though seriously… you don’t believe in magic?”

My mouth opened up to say ‘no’ but my heart said ‘yes’ as there was quite a large difference between what they thought and what I knew to be face . The key word being logic and reality. Yes there were some things that went past our understanding, but when you broke it down… you could see the logic behind it.

It was a horrible twisted logic that was best left unknown, but it was more scientific than mystical magic finger twirling nonsense! There were no blood of virgins involved, no blood lines, and honestly you could treat it more along the lines of a field of science.

People didn’t really have a firm grasp on how computer programming and coding actually worked… unless they actually knew or studied the subject. Otherwise you got people who thought the skull hacker GIF was the height of computer hacking that would instantly download everything and destroy the computer it was sent to.

“Twiddling fingers, fancy words, and broomsticks I don’t believe in.” I replied in an honest answer “Things that we don’t understand or can’t explain just yet… that I believe in because once you see it… it won’t forget that you saw it.”

I wouldn’t forget seeing the ghost witch who tried to strangle me and she wouldn’t forget the human who shot her in the face with a handgun. That was all it really boiled down to honestly.

I didn’t say any more as they didn’t ask. We ran into something that had tried to strangle me through a car… something they thought that they knew. Something that didn’t make sense to be, but one they thought they knew because of some witch that cursed them had implanted memories in their head to make them think they should believe it.

Either I was horribly wrong about what was going in the town… or their misconceptions were going to cause a ton of problems if anything else tried to attack us. Right now the plan was to get to the highway and drive as far away as we could.

It had reached the middle of the day as everyone was getting tired of this place. Streets seemed to be blocked off at random and it always felt like a close shave as all it would take would be for one police car to pull us over before everyone was thrown in jail.

The only stops we made were quick ones to the restroom and picking something up to eat. Even then that was only done as quickly as possible as it was hard not to be paranoid when the knowledge that the ‘Stitch Witch’ for a better lack of a name could pop up at any minute.

Trying to distract ourselves was hard as the first few attempts at ‘road games’ didn’t work out. They tried finding out any more information they could get from me which didn’t help because the answers I gave them either conflicted with what they ‘knew’ or they weren’t happy with the information I gave them.

The attempts at guessing what they knew about magic went equally poorly as half of it seemed ripped straight out of fairy tales with fairy tale logic… and the other half just vague ideas that none of them really understood, but it never seemed anything close to what I tried to guess.

By the time we reached the highway it felt less like a question if we should stick together… and more of a question on how the group was going to split up at the next town.

Knife girl (whose name I still didn’t know) didn’t believe half of what I said and she planned on trying to figure out where ‘home was’ trusting her gut in directions. Alexandria on the other hand thought I was misguided… but acknowledged that while I may not know much about the supernatural I did know how to hurt it.

Which to be fair was the most important detail when something was trying to kill you.

It was also why Scarlet didn’t return the shock baton I had let her borrow on the grounds of ‘Men should give women protection’ which was just an excuse for her to keep the only confirmed weapon everyone knew about.

Rebecca on the other hand was just going through her phone debating on what she should do. Unlike the others while she had memory issues she also had a phone with people she could call. They might not recognize her or even believe who she was… and that made me feel a little bit sympathetic towards her plight.

It was one thing to try to find who you were and what you lost… it was another to know and question if one simple phone call would make everything better or if it would make things worse. She didn’t know what her relationship with the people on the phone was and even then how could she convince them who she was if she didn’t have any proof to prove she was who she claimed she was?

Would it be easier on everyone to simply pretend you were dead?

I tried to banish that thought and focused on what to do next. I had a limited amount of funds and resources as my first task would be buying or finding a new car… and of course getting money for a new car. That or try seeing if the internet had any tips on how to paint a car while replacing its license’s plate.

The highway was just in sight as the car started to slow down much to everyone’s growing disbelief and annoyance. The end of the city limits were just a few feet away practically within walking distance and yet it decided to die on us now!

“Did we spring a leak or something?” Rebecca asked with frustration seeping into her voice “We just filled the gas tank an hour ago.”

Everyone moved to get out of the car as the knife woman quickly went around and opened up the hood to inspect the car. None of us bothered her as we didn’t know what was wrong… but she acted as if she had a slightly better idea on how to fix this problem than the rest of us.

It took her a few minutes to go through all of her attempts at checking what was wrong before circling around the car for a moment and starting it back up again. Everything seemed fine as the car continued driving forward until it was past the city limits before she stopped and motioned for us all to get inside.

Of course that’s when things started to go south as a burning sensation came across my wrists as I continued to move forward. The pain grew sharper as I tried to push past it only for my arms to be yanked back as I stopped unable to move forward. They stared at me in confusion as my wrists flared up in pain as the smell of smoke started to drift in the air.

Alexandria was the first to move as she ran over to my side and pulled my sleeves back to reveal a new set of tattoos that I hadn’t paid much attention to or really noticed until now. They looked like chains wrapped around my wrist, but they kept me from moving forward as the tattoos now burned as if they were on fire. The edges of cloth near the chains had been burnt and still smoked as if somebody had tried to light them on fire.

“Water.” She spoke, glancing back at the others “I need a bottle of water.”

They rushed back before somebody tossed her a bottle of water and tried pouring it on my wrists to wash the ink off. Instead the water hit the tattoos and began to instantly crackle and pop as if she was pouring water on hot iron. My mouth was clenched shut trying not to scream as the water was already turning into hot steam or burning my flesh a little before the entire bottle was emptied, but the chains still existed.

She pushed me away from the car… and back into the city limits as the pain began to die down.

The others stared at me in disbelief as I could see it in their eyes… doubt, confusion… but most of all that willingness to leave me behind. Before I was an oddity… then a commodity since I had a slightly better idea on how to hurt things they just found out existed. Now that I was at the ‘end of my chain’ it had made me a liability.

“Look we can figure this out.” She spoke as she kept staring at my wrists “There has to be a counter-spell or some sort of way to release…”

“Leave him.” The knife wielding woman shouted “He already has The Stitch Witch after him so leave him while we get to safety.”

The other two girls already were going back to the car as they believed they couldn’t do anything to help me and decided to leave before things got worse. Alexandria on the other hand looked as if they had just drop kicked a puppy.

“But he’s…” She spoke in a desperate tone

“A guy and we are girls.” Rebecca countered “He isn’t one of us.”

The vote had been set aside as the car started up. I sighed as while it left a bitter taste in my mouth it was hard not to see their cynical point. At this point my role was dead weight and they wanted to escape this place before it got them.

“No… I’m not failing a second time.” She spoke in growing desperation as she tore open her backpack “There has to be something in this book… something that you have or… What about that stone?”

She held her hand up as she pointed at the small pendant I had kept hanging off my backpack. My eyes widened in fear as one of them was slowly rising up and pointing off into the distance as I could hear a vehicle suddenly accelerating.

“Get in the car and drive away quickly.” I spoke as the only one who wasn’t planning to ditch me stared at me in confusion as I handed her my nightstick “Pop the bottom, turn it counterclockwise and press the button if you get in danger, but run now!”

My own heartbeat quickened in fear as I was too late. One of them already found me because I lost a week of time… because I spent the night at the wrong house.

I saw my own fear reflected in her eyes as she didn’t understand, but she nodded taking hold of the nightstick before turning around and running into the car as the door slammed shut behind her. The fear that had infected her had spread to the others as they didn’t know what was going on… but they knew something bad was about to happen.

My phone rang as somebody was trying to call me as I picked it up “Hello?”

An elderly voice spoke “If you want to survive you need to do what I say. When the police arrive, drop to the ground, surrender, and do not do anything foolish.”

The request caught me by surprise “The police are on their way now?”

“Yes they are on their way now and if you…” The voice snapped

“Good.” I spoke in sweet relief “Hopefully they’ll get here before he kills me.”

There was an odd pause “What? Your trial shouldn’t start until…”

The phone died as the cell phone jammer had already kicked in. Glancing behind my back I could hear the roar of a van trying to race down the highway and approach peek ramming speed for vehicular manslaughter as it screamed towards me. The police sirens rang off in the distance as I continued running for my life.

The police cars stopped as a few dozen cops stepped out shouting as they pulled out their guns ready to shoot… and then it happened. The van hit the line for where the city limits started and just… spun into the air as if it had been struck by something… or it struck something.

There were no real words for the disbelief you experience seeing a van crash into nothing and just keep spinning forward and unable to move a single inch past the invisible line. The police were also stunned at the absurdity of the moment allowing me to get up close to the police line and jump face first into the ground trying to duck from anything hitting me… and nothing happened.

Looking up the police were still staring as I saw two more vans sitting off in the distance at the police line and the fallen burning van… before they turned around and drove away. The was a mixture of relief and confusion as whatever was keeping me stuck in Willow’s Hill was also apparently keeping me safe for some odd… reason?

I had no idea how it worked, but it had bought me a little bit more time to figure out how to escape… before somebody figured out a way to get past the mystical barrier that kept me here before they figured out a way to break in.