The road was empty. Just asphalt and dusk stretching endlessly ahead. Ava glanced at the clock on her dashboard—7:12 p.m.—same as it had read twenty minutes ago. Her phone showed no signal, and her GPS had frozen on a screen that said simply:
“Recalculating…”
She hadn’t passed another car in at least half an hour. No towns, no gas stations, no signs—until she saw it.
Exit 37.
A rusted green sign leaned sideways, nearly swallowed by overgrown brush. It hadn’t been on her map. But the tank was low and her eyes were heavier than she wanted to admit.
She turned.
The off-ramp was longer than she expected. Trees crowded both sides of the narrow road, thick and dark, their branches like fingers reaching inward. As she drove, the light dimmed unnaturally fast. Even the sky above seemed to fade into ink.
Then, as if summoned by her desperation, a faint orange glow appeared ahead.
A gas station. Old, boxy, and humming with flickering neon. A sign above the door read “RUSSELL’S”, but some of the letters were missing. The pumps looked like relics from the ’60s, and the station itself looked closed—except for the light still on inside.
Ava pulled in.
She stepped out and immediately felt it—the silence. Not quiet. Silence. No crickets. No wind. Even the hum of the fluorescent lights seemed muffled, like the sound was being swallowed.
The bell above the door chimed when she walked in.
Behind the counter stood a man in a faded red flannel. He looked about seventy, but his eyes were too sharp—almost aware in a way that felt wrong.
“Evenin’,” he said. “Lost?”
Ava hesitated. “Just passing through. My GPS cut out. Thought I’d stop for gas.”
He didn’t smile. “Not many folks pass through Exit 37.”
She glanced around. Everything inside looked untouched for decades. A rack of old candy bars. A rotary phone behind the counter. A wall clock that said 7:12.
“Do you have a restroom?” she asked.
He nodded toward a back hallway. “Third door.”
The hall was longer than it should’ve been. The doors on either side were all closed, no labels. She walked past the first… second…
The third door creaked open before she could touch it.
Inside was not a bathroom. It was her apartment.
Her coat on the hook. Her couch. Her coffee mug on the table—the one she broke last year.
She backed up.
The hallway was gone.
She turned. The room had changed. Her apartment again, but… not right. The walls were off-white instead of gray. Her bookshelf was full of books she didn’t own. Photos on the wall showed people she didn’t recognize—but there she was in each one, smiling beside them.
The lights flickered.
Ava spun around and opened the door again, heart pounding.
Back in the hallway.
But it looked… different. Cleaner. Brighter.
She ran toward the front, back through the store, past shelves that had changed—new snacks, modern displays, everything updated. The man behind the counter was gone.
She burst outside into daylight.
Cars zoomed past. A group of teenagers stood at the pumps, taking selfies. The gas station was alive, bustling, freshly painted with digital displays.
Ava blinked. Her car was gone.
So was her phone.
A newspaper sat in a rack by the door.
She pulled it out with shaking hands.
September 11, 2030.
She had lost five years.
Exit 37 was gone from every map she checked.
No one had heard of Russell’s.
No one believed her story.
But sometimes, late at night, Ava would drive the highway again, searching for that rusted green sign.
She never found it.
But every clock in her home still stopped at 7:12.
Thank-you for reading.
Remember there are many paths back to God.
Follow your own path,
Brenda Marie
Discover more from Writing Through the Soul
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This is masterfully unsettling. The slow build of dread, the perfect details (the clock, the muffled silence, the ‘recalculating’ GPS), and the horrifying twist of losing time itself. It leaves a chilling, lingering dread. Excellent work.