"What I'm saying is, it's fucking crazy."

It all started with a road trip — as simple and stupid as that. One minute, you were joking about taking the long route home, and the next, a massive tree blocked the road, forcing you to swerve. Crows circled above like a bad omen, their cries scraping at your nerves. You turned around, thinking it was just a detour, a weird coincidence.

But every road twisted back to the same place. Every turn, every shortcut — it all led to that town.

From that moment, something gnawed at your gut. An unease you couldn't shake, like a thread pulling you closer to something you weren't meant to see.

"Has no one tried to get out of here?" Jason asked, jaw tense, eyes sharper than usual.

The answer was laughter — hollow, tired. The kind of laughter that said they tried. And they failed.

They handed you a house key and a small, worn amulet, with a simple warning: lock the doors before sunset.

"There are creatures out there," they said. Monsters that tore through flesh like paper, that whispered to you in the voices of the people you loved.

It sounded like a crazy children's story. Something out of a fucked-up fairytale Jason would mock under different circumstances.

But the way they looked at you — the way they pleaded — made it harder to laugh it off.

Jason didn't trust this place. He didn't trust the way the sun dipped too fast behind the trees, how the streets emptied in the blink of an eye. He didn't trust how easy it was to feel like prey.

He clenched the amulet in his hand, feeling its edges bite into his palm.

He had died once already. He knew what it felt like to lose everything. To be trapped. And the fear curling in his chest wasn't just about surviving another night.

It was the fear that maybe this time, he wouldn't make it back.

Maybe this time, no one would find him.

Maybe this time, there was no way out.