I spent the next several hours hitchhiking along the endless dark highway, getting picked up by seven more cars, a truck, and a minivan. I don’t really want to talk about what I did in those vehicles. Safe to say it was brutal and bloody, and nobody survived.

In the second car, I felt physically sick at what I was doing. I kept telling myself that they were only NPCs, that they weren’t real people. But in my heart of hearts, I knew they were real people. They were real souls trapped in a situation the same as me. The only difference was, they had been sent here to die, to be the victims of the Drifter, and I had been sent here to survive by any means possible.

I just never thought it would come to this. Never thought I would have to become a full-fledged serial killer in order to survive. It was sickening… until it wasn’t.

After the second cold-blooded murder—a woman who just wanted to get home to feed her cat—I found myself standing by the side of the road, staring at my blood-soaked hands. The horror of what I had done threatened to overwhelm me. I felt the bile rising in my throat, the tremors in my limbs. But I couldn’t afford to break down. Not here, not now.

I took a deep breath, forcing the nausea back down. I had to keep moving, keep surviving. I told myself that it had to be done, that there was no other way. I buried the horror and the sickness deep inside, pushing it down into a dark corner of my mind where it couldn’t touch me.

By the third car, the act of killing had become mechanical. I went through the motions, my mind detached from the gruesome reality of my actions. I stopped seeing the faces of my victims, stopped hearing their pleas. I focused only on the task at hand, on the necessity of survival.

With each subsequent vehicle, the act became easier, more routine. I became numb to the blood, to the screams, to the life fading from their eyes. I told myself that it was just a game, that none of this was real. But deep down, I knew the truth. I knew that these were real people, real lives that I was ending.

I became inured to the killing, to the point where I stopped feeling anything at all. I operated on autopilot, my body moving through the motions while my mind remained distant, untouched. I buried the horror deeper and deeper, until it was just a faint echo in the back of my mind.

But even as I became desensitized to the violence, I knew that I would never truly escape it. In some deep place inside me, I knew that these murders would haunt me for as long as I lived. They would be a stain on my soul, a darkness that I could never scrub clean.

I kept telling myself that it had to be done, that it was the only way to survive. But the truth was, I was becoming a monster. I was becoming just like the Drifter—a cold-blooded killer who took lives without remorse.

And that knowledge was the most horrifying thing of all.

Car after car, I became what I despised. Each victim added another layer of blood to my hands, another shadow to my soul. But with each kill, I felt it—a shift in the fabric of this realm, power bleeding away from the Drifter and seeping into me like black ink into water.

The second time I saw him after a kill, he was just standing there on the shoulder, thumb out, that trademark grin plastered across his face. My driver—a middle-aged man in a cardigan—started to slow down.

“Keep driving,” I said quietly, pressing the knife hard against his ribs.

“But we should—” His eyes went glassy, his foot moving toward the brake of its own accord. Even with a knife to his ribs, he couldn’t resist the Drifter’s power.

“I said keep driving.” Something in my voice had changed. It carried weight now, authority. The man whimpered but kept his foot on the gas.

As we passed the Drifter, I saw his grin falter yet again.

By the fourth car, his appearances had become frantic. He’d materialize out of the darkness, running alongside the vehicle, pounding on the windows with inhuman strength. “Stop the fucking car!” he’d scream, his face contorted with rage and something else—fear.

I’d just smile at him, the same way he’d smiled at countless victims over the years. The role reversal drove him mad. Each time his fist hit the glass, it seemed a little weaker, a little more desperate.

The sixth car was when I knew I had him. He stood in the middle of the road, arms spread wide, his form flickering like bad reception. The soccer mom behind the wheel tried to swerve.

“Hit him,” I commanded. The words carried power now, real power.

“Please,” she sobbed. “I can’t—”

“Hit. Him.”

Her hands locked on the wheel. The Hitcher’s eyes went wide as the SUV plowed into him at seventy miles per hour. His body dissolved like smoke, but I heard his scream of impotent rage echo across the highway.

By the eighth car, he was truly desperate. He appeared out of nowhere, hurling himself onto the hood of the sedan I was in. His fingers left frost patterns on the windshield as he clawed at the glass, his face pressed against it like a grotesque Halloween mask. But there was nothing supernatural about the emotion I saw in his eyes—pure, human terror.

“You can’t do this!” he shrieked, his voice muffled by the glass. “This is my realm! My game!”

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“Not anymore,” I said softly, knowing he could hear me. “Rules have changed.”

He screamed again, but it was weaker now, almost plaintive. His form flickered more violently, parts of him becoming transparent. Looking into his eyes, I knew it was time. I’d weakened him enough.

I turned to the trembling driver. “Stop the car.”

“What? But you said—”

“Stop. The. Car.”

The sedan squealed to a halt on the empty highway. The Drifter slid off the hood but stayed standing, his shape wavering like heat waves off hot asphalt. Rain began to fall again, but it passed right through him in places.

I stepped out of the car, ignoring the driver’s panicked attempt to flee. None of that mattered now. It was just me and him—the thing I’d been hunting, and the thing I’d become to hunt it.

“Shall we finish this?” I asked, my voice carrying across the wind with unnatural clarity. Behind me, the car swerved around us and sped up the highway.

The Drifter’s form solidified, and he bared his teeth in something between a grin and a snarl. “Oh yes,” he hissed. “Let’s.”

But we both knew something had changed. The predator had become prey, and the highway had a new master.

All that remained was to seal it in blood.

In a split second, one of the guns I’d taken from the dead cops materialized in my hand. Without hesitation, I raised the gun and emptied the full mag into the Drifter. Every shot drove him back a little further, pushing him toward the edge of the highway, and the sheer drop beyond the barrier.

Black blood oozed from the bullet holes in the Drifter’s body, but he never went down. He just maintained that manic grin on his face, as if he delighted in getting shot.

“You fool,” he said, rain streaming down his face like blood. “You think bullets can hurt me?”

“No,” I said, tossing away the empty gun and taking out the butterfly knife instead, flicking it open and holding it up for him to see. “But this can.”

A flicker of fear crossed the Drifter’s face for a second, then his grin retuned as he took out his own knife—the bloody switchblade. “I have to say, you’ve impressed me, Kade,” he said as he began to circle me slowly, and I matched his movements, both of us holding our blades out slightly. “No one has ever made it this far. No one had the foresight, or the balls, to do what you just you did—to become like me.”

“I’m nothing like you!” I jumped toward him and slashed with the knife, the blade cutting across his stomach, slicing through his filthy shirt and the flesh underneath.

The Drifter backed off slightly, but he didn’t counterattack. “You’re exactly like me, Kade,” he said, trying to get under my skin. “You left multiple bodies scattered across the highway. All those dead cops, all the innocent people you slaughtered just to get to me.” He grinned. “You’ve got a lot of blood on your hands, Kade. Blood you’ll never be able to wash off.”

With a roar of fury, I lunged at him again, slashing wildly. The blade cut through empty air as the Drifter sidestepped, and in that moment of overextension, I felt the burning slice of his switchblade across my ribs.

I staggered back, pressing my free hand against the wound as I glared at him.

“Did I strike a nerve, Kade?” The Drifter’s laugh echoed across the empty highway. “Tell me, how did it feel when that woman begged for her life? The one with the cat?” He started circling again, rain dripping from his blade. “Did you look into her eyes when you did it? Did you see that sweet, sweet innocence there?”

We clashed again, blades flashing in the darkness. His knife found my shoulder while mine carved a deep gash across his chest. Neither of us showed pain anymore—we were beyond that now.

“Or what about that family in the minivan?” he taunted, blood and rain mixing on his face. “The little girl in the back seat? That’s not something a ‘good person’ does, Kade.”

I charged him with another wild swing, and he caught my arm, driving his knife into my side. I barely felt it.

“Face it,” he hissed in my ear. “You’re just like me now. A monster wearing human skin.”

“Fuck you!” I shouted, pushing him away as lightning flashed overhead.

The word ‘monster’ echoed in my head, and suddenly I understood what he was doing. Every taunt, every reminder of my sins—he was trying to keep me angry, keep me fighting like an animal. Because that’s how he would win, by making me the victim again and taking back the power I stole from him.

Fuck that. I won’t be his victim again. Not ever.

I took a deep breath, letting the rage flow out of me. When I spoke, my voice was calm. “No. I’m nothing like you. Because unlike you, I can stop.”

The change in my demeanor made him hesitate, just for a moment. It was all I needed. I feinted left, then struck right, driving him back step by step toward the barrier. His strikes became desperate, erratic.

“You can’t kill me!” he snarled, but his voice cracked. “Not in this place! I am this place! I am eternal!”

“No,” I said quietly. “You’re just another dead man walking.”

With a final surge, I knocked his blade aside and slashed my knife across his throat. Black blood sprayed into the rain as his switchblade clattered to the ground. His hands went to his neck, eyes wide with disbelief.

I leaned in close, my voice barely a whisper. “Game over, motherfucker.”

My boot connected with his chest, and he toppled backward over the barrier, disappearing into the void below. His scream faded into the darkness, leaving only the sound of the rain as it pelted the earth around me.

I stood for a second, still gripping the knife, almost afraid that the Drifter would somehow come floating up out of the darkness with that manic grin on his face. But after a moment, I realized that wasn’t going to happen.

The Drifter was gone.

Exhausted, I dropped to my knees and stared out into the darkness. The rain suddenly stopped, as if someone had flipped a switch.

And then something amazing happened.

A sliver of pale gold appeared on the horizon, piercing through the eternal night. It grew slowly at first, then faster, spreading across the sky like watercolor on wet paper. Pinks and oranges bloomed through breaking clouds, painting them in hues I’d almost forgotten existed after so long in darkness.

The sun—the real sun, not some artificial light or twisted imitation—crested the horizon. Its rays reached across the highway like golden fingers, touching everything with warmth and color. The wet asphalt gleamed like black glass, reflecting the dawn sky in countless tiny mirrors.

I stayed on my knees, feeling the warmth on my face, my arms, seeping into my rain-soaked clothes and battle-worn body. After an eternity of darkness and violence, of cold rain and colder blood, the sunlight felt like salvation.

Like absolution.

My eyes burned, partly from the brightness, partly from tears I hadn’t realized were falling. How long had it been since I’d seen a real sunrise? Since I’d felt real warmth on my skin? Time had lost all meaning since the beginning of the Trials, but now... now I could feel every second, every heartbeat, every breath of fresh morning air.

The highway stretched out before me, no longer a corridor of horrors but just a road, catching the light of a new day. And for the first time since I’d been trapped here, I almost felt human again.

My HUD flickered into view suddenly.

Congratulations!

You have successfully completed your second Trial!

Prepare for transport back to Infernum…

Right in the middle of the highway, the giant Ghosts ’n Goblins machine appeared, its bottom doors opened to reveal the portal that would take me back to—not home, but what passed for it these days.

Infernum.