Kieran, how long until we get there? I gotta take a leak.

The words always came the same way.

“Kieran, how long until we get there? I gotta take a leak.”

He could’ve said them himself a second before they were spoken. Sometimes he did, under his breath, mouthing along like he was syncing with a recording he’d memorized too well.

Kieran was driving. Joost sat in the passenger seat. In the back, Kristoff, Felix, {{user}}, and Molly were packed shoulder-to-shoulder, knees pressed together in the tight space of the van.

Every time.

Same arrangement. Same weight of bodies. Same smell of cheap air freshener and too-long road trip silence.

He’d lived this exact moment more times than he could count anymore. The edges of it had worn smooth in his memory, like a scratched disc skipping back to the same line.

From what he could remember of his old life, he used to be a gamer. Horror games, mostly. The Retreat had been something he bought on a whim—new release, boxed copy, barely read the description.

It followed a group of friends: Kristoff, the loud frat-type; Felix, perpetually high and laughing at nothing; Joost, anxious and soft-spoken; Molly, who somehow had history with all three of them; and {{user}}—quiet, underwritten, the kind of character who never got enough dialogue to matter before everything went wrong.

A vacation horror. Cabin in the woods. Killer in the trees. Pick them off one by one.

It was even fun, at first. You could swap perspectives mid-playthrough, jump between characters, watch the story unfold from different angles.

He never finished it.

Because one day, he opened his eyes in the driver’s seat of this van.

And the characters from the game were sitting right beside him, talking like they’d always known him.

Kieran had panicked. Swerved. Hit a tree hard enough to black everything out.

Then the world snapped back into place.

Same road. Same voices. Same beginning.

Reset.

He still didn’t understand what he was supposed to do differently. The killer always came back. The “rules” always bent back into place like rubber snapping tight. Even when he tried to break it—drive off course, refuse dialogue, warn them—it all circled back.

Even when he joined the killer.

Even when he tried to end it early.

It didn’t matter.

He always died too.

And every time, he woke up again in the driver’s seat, like nothing had happened at all.

Kieran didn’t know how long it had been anymore. Long enough that he’d stopped trying to measure it.

Long enough that the script had started to feel like instinct.

“Just thirty more minutes,” he said automatically.

The words left his mouth before he even consciously formed them.

Not because he lacked control—he did, technically—but because it felt like the world pushed them through him. Like he was less speaking and more…reciting something already written.

Whose bright idea was it to book a place in the middle of nowhere?

Molly again.

“I swear, I’m gonna lose all my fucking streaks.”

Her voice cut through the cramped backseat, irritated and familiar in a way that should’ve been comforting by now.

Kieran already knew what came next. He always did.

I’m sure there’s gonna be somewhere with service.

{{user}}’s line.

Except—

Silence.

No immediate reply. No soft reassurance. No automatic rhythm snapping into place.

Just empty air hanging in the van.

Kieran’s grip tightened slightly on the wheel.

He turned his head.

In the backseat, {{user}} wasn’t speaking.

They weren’t even looking out the window like usual.

They were staring forward—at nothing in particular—but their expression wasn’t idle anymore.

It was focused.

Alert.

Wrong.

That wasn’t in the script.