She got away.
Even after all this time, the thought hangs like morning fog in my hollow chest. I watched her taillights disappear beyond the trees… and she didn’t become one of us.
She wasn’t swallowed by the cycle.
She heard me.
And for the first time, I wonder—why?
Why this girl?
Why this night?
The fog thickens again as if the road is covering its tracks, resetting the stage for next year. The graveyard grows silent, and the shadows tuck themselves back into the soil.
But something stirs in me now. Something long dead.
Curiosity.
For thirty years, I’ve stood on this cursed stretch, reenacting a death I never fully remembered, surrounded by spirits who seem more like smoke than people.
I’ve never tried to leave.
Never tried to learn..
The past...
Mine forgotten past.
I walk.
Past my car, past the old chapel, down the lane where the torches once chased the lovers.
No wind stirs, but the air pulses with memory. Trees lean closer, like they’re listening. The dirt beneath my feet doesn’t crunch—it sighs.
I walk until I reach a stone I’ve never dared touch before. The one with no name. Its surface is cracked and cold, the moss growing in crooked patterns like veins. I run my fingers across it.
And suddenly—
I see everything.
A girl. Me. Aanya.
Rushing down this road on a rainy night, blinded by tears. The radio playing a love song. A voicemail left on a phone that would never be heard.
I was running too.
Not from a person…
From a truth.
I see flashes of my past. Not just the crash, but before it.
A fight. A betrayal. A secret that broke me.
And a choice—to take this road, to take control of my fate, because the pain felt louder than the future.
My death…
Wasn’t an accident.
I feel my knees weaken. I collapse beside the nameless stone, but it’s not just stone anymore.
It’s my memory, buried and forgotten.
And that’s when I hear her.
The pale girl in white.
She’s standing behind me, her expression no longer calm. There’s sorrow in her eyes now. Understanding. And something more.
Permission.
She nods toward the horizon. Toward the edge of the fog. Toward a path I’ve never walked.
Because maybe—just maybe—helping that girl escape tonight was the key.
Maybe each of us trapped here needed to help someone… the way we couldn’t help ourselves.
The boy appears beside her. They hold hands again.
But they don’t run this time.
They walk.
Into the mist.
And fade.
Together.
Maybe towards their new journey.
But ...
I’m still kneeling. Still unsure.
But now… I’m alone.
Completely.
The cycle… it didn’t restart.
Why?
It ended.
Is it really the end?
Is it peace?
And I’m the last one left.
To be continued......
##They say spirits linger because they have unfinished business.##
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