The silence in the taxi pressed on Amara like a heavy weight.
The engine hummed, the tires hissed against asphalt, but the world outside the windows looked… wrong.
Shops had disappeared. The familiar high-rise buildings of the city had thinned into narrow, twisting roads lined with trees she didn't recognize. Their branches arched over the car like claws, scraping faintly against the roof as though urging her to stay inside.
Amara's chest tightened. Her fingers dug into the strap of her backpack.
"This isn't right," she said, louder now. "Driver, stop the car. Stop!"
The man behind the wheel shifted only slightly. His cap tilted lower, shadowing his face further. His lips moved, cracked and dry, and a whisper leaked out—barely a voice at all.
"Almost there."
Almost where?
Amara's throat tightened. She twisted toward the passenger beside her, her pulse pounding like a drum in her ears.
The figure still sat unnervingly still. Only now she noticed its hands. They rested on its knees—long, pale fingers with joints too sharp, too thin, like brittle twigs wrapped in skin. The nails were blackened, as if burned.
She flinched and pressed closer to the door.
Her hand shook as she tried the handle again. It rattled uselessly. Locked.
Her voice cracked. "What do you want from me?"
The figure tilted its head, slow and unnatural, as if its neck didn't quite work like a human's. A hiss of breath escaped from where a face should have been.
"Your stop," it whispered.
Amara's heartbeat crashed in her ears. "What stop? Where are you taking me?"
It didn't answer.
Instead, her eyes darted back to the windshield. Street signs loomed ahead, glowing faintly green under the headlights. But the words weren't words anymore. The letters squirmed, breaking apart, rearranging themselves into shapes she didn't know how to read. Symbols that looked older than language itself.
Her stomach twisted. She forced her eyes away before nausea could take over.
She snatched up her phone again, desperate for anything—a map, a number, a distraction. But the dead screen reflected only her own pale face.
Except… it wasn't quite her face.
Her reflection blinked slower. The corners of its lips curled upward when hers did not.
She hurled the phone to the floor.
The driver chuckled—a dry, broken sound, like paper tearing. "No use running," he muttered.
Amara's breath came in short, ragged bursts. She wanted to scream, but her voice felt trapped inside her throat.
The taxi slowed again.
Her skin crawled. She didn't want to see what would happen next.
The faceless passenger leaned closer, the air around it freezing as it whispered in a low, guttural voice:
"You've been here before."
Amara shook her head violently. "No! I don't know you—I don't know this place!"
But the road outside betrayed her.
Through the glass she saw her old primary school—only it was wrong. The playground was rusted, the swings moved without wind, and the walls of the building were blackened as if they'd burned long ago.
Her chest tightened. She clawed at the window, her nails scraping uselessly against cold glass.
"No… no, this isn't real. This isn't real!"
The driver turned down another road, one Amara swore didn't exist yesterday.
And the faceless passenger—closer now, close enough for her to feel its breath—whispered her name again.
Not just her first name.
Her full name.
And her mother's name.