00:00Backroads in the Midwest have a silence that feels old, like the land is holding its breath.
00:06I know every bump and bend in the stretch outside my hometown.
00:11I used to ride my bike down it as a kid, but when you're older, alone, and driving past
00:17the fields with nothing but cornstalk silhouettes and your headlights, it starts to feel different.
00:25That night, it was cold enough to see my breath in the cabin.
00:31I remember the way my tires hummed over the asphalt, a low, mournful sound in the silent
00:37night, and how the darkness swallowed everything my headlights didn't touch.
00:43Then I saw it, a red streak, thick, fresh.
00:48It glistened wet under the beams, a visceral sight in the otherwise monochrome landscape.
00:54I thought it was a deer, until I followed the trail, until I saw how far it went.
01:02And when I saw what waited at the end, a shiver ran down my spine, a warning that something
01:08was amiss.
01:10It was as if the very air around me was urging me to turn back, telling me I wasn't supposed
01:16to have followed it at all.
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