The sun vanished a while ago.

The last remnants of daylight bleed into the sky, battling against the encroaching silver moonlight. The fading light casts the highway in deep orange, purple, and silver hues. Still, darkness is creeping in fast, swallowing the road ahead and making survival increasingly uncertain.

Vroom, Vroom, Pop, Pop, Boom.

My nails dig into the sun-baked handles of the motorcycle, forcing it back under control as it bucks and swerves over junk. The engine roars beneath me, and the exhaust pipe pops like a quick burst of gunfire.

The motorcycle’s headlight flickers weakly before dying again, plunging me into near-complete darkness.

"Shit," I grit my teeth, slapping the headlight with increasing strength. I glance at the cracked left-view mirror.

Hot on my heels is a mass of writhing tentacles, each as thick as a man’s torso and dark as ink, twisting and coiling toward me with terrifying speed. It uses the tentacles to pierce the road and pull itself forward, dragging its grotesque form closer with each heave.

Cars are flung aside like toys, while buses and chunks of wrecked highway slow it only momentarily before it barrel on.

Distracted, I drive over a half-destroyed skeleton, crushing bones under the tires, forcing me to slow down or be thrown off— A sure death. A tentacle lashes out, grazing the back tire, sending a jolt of terror through me.

Pop Pop Pop

I clamp down on the fear and force the motorcycle to stay steady as I weave between the wrecks of long-abandoned vehicles.

The highway is a graveyard of obstacles, each one a potential death sentence if I make a single mistake. The tires screech as they skid over loose gravel, the motorcycle fishtailing for a heart-stopping moment before I wrestle it back under control.

I risk another glance at the mirror—bad idea. The creature is relentless, closing the gap with every second I spend dodging debris or losing control.

Tentacles lash out, almost brushing the motorcycle’s exhaust.

My breath hitches and my chest tightens as panic starts to creep in. The shadows around me seem to pulse, growing thicker and oppressive as if feeding off the fear gnawing at my insides. My hands tremble, fear turning my grip on the handles slippery and weak.

The motorcycle wobbles, veering dangerously close to the edge of the highway where a steep drop-off waits like an open maw.

"Get it together!" With a sharp jerk, I drag the motorcycle back to the center of the highway, but the tremors in my hands refuse to stop. The cold, creeping terror is taking root, and I need to act fast before it kills me.

My hand fumbles for the zippered pocket on my jacket—the one where I kept the pills. My fingers tremble as they struggle to find the zipper, the constant vibration of the motorcycle and the jerking of the road making it almost impossible to get a grip.

The creature surges closer when I slow, the sound of its writhing tentacles growing louder like Lucifer's heartbeat.

Finally, I manage to unzip the pocket, my fingers diving in to grab the bottle of pills. Yanking it out, I fumble to open the lid, trying to keep my focus on the road. With a pop, the bottle opens and pills fall out, scattering behind me, leaving a brief trail of white dots that are quickly devoured by the shadowy mess.

I tip a few into my mouth, dry-swallowing them before shoving the bottle back into the pocket. I don't bother zipping it closed instead focusing on not hitting a truck split in two.

The front wheel lifts off the ground for a split second before slamming back down, nearly throwing me off balance.

The impact jars me, but it also snaps me out of the haze of fear clouding my mind. The tremors in my hands begin to subside as the pills kick in, my breathing evening out. The world around me sharpens—the last glow of the sun fades into memory, and the frantic beat of my heart becomes a dull rhythm in the background.

I lean forward, squeezing the handles until my knuckles go white, and gun the engine. The motorcycle roars, picking up speed as I barrel down the highway. The creature’s tendrils lash out, but they’re just a moment too slow, missing by a hair.

Green Ear is supposed to be no more than two days on foot, but with all the time spent traveling at full throttle, I already see hints of lights in the distance. But there’s a problem—several problems.

The first is that Green Ear lies off into the forest, and the second, the one that will decide whether I live or die, pathing. If there’s no dirt path, or if the trees are too close together, I’m dead.

The road begins to rise as I approach the interchange. The darkness is thick, seeming to be amplified by the shadowy mass still trying to smear me across the asphalt.

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"Am I really worth the calories!?" I scream to the wind. My voice shaky.

Then, as if by divine blessing—or maybe mockery—the moonlight intensifies, giving just enough vision to let me see the collapse ahead. Turning the top where four roads met into a ramp.

If I’m lucky, I have ten seconds before I’m airborne. In the three seconds it takes to imagine my flight, an idea forms.

"How much force can a human body survive?" I think out loud.

I'm near the lip of the ramp. There’s no time to think anymore.

I’m at the top.

"All or nothing," I mutter, braking with everything the motorcycle has, turning it sharply to the side and using my weight to redirect it.

A dozen tentacles lash at me, hitting where I was a heartbeat before.

My pant legs disintegrate as if they never existed, and my legs are next. I choke down a scream as the motorcycle turns toward the light at the cost of degloving my leg.

The creature is on top of me, and without hesitation, I accelerate towards the railing.

The engine screams, and the tires screech as the motorcycle is pushed to its limits. The creature’s presence is tangible, the darkness pressing down on me like heavy mud.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" I scream, drowning the rising terror as I steer the motorcycle over a piece of rubble and unstably pull the front tire up.

The motorcycle jumps, slamming into a car before flying over the railing. My stomach lurches as we go airborne into a series of flips.

In panic, I tighten my legs with enough force to feel the sun-beaten metal warp and fling my backpack around to my stomach, curling my body around it as tightly as I can.

The world spins around me—sky, ground, sky, ground—until the impact comes.

The motorcycle slams onto one of its tires with a bone-rattling crash. I can't stay on it.

I'm thrown across the asphalt, bouncing and rolling like a flat stone skipping over water. Every clash sends sharp, searing pain coursing through me—my shoulder, my ribs, and my knees, all take turns absorbing the impact.

Finally, I come to a stop, sprawled on the asphalt. My breath comes in ragged gasps while pain claws at every nerve like fire.

But I’m alive.

For now.

Maybe I wish I wasn't.

Gritting my teeth, I painfully turn my head and see it—a monstrous silhouette against the night sky, its tentacles flailing as it launches itself after me. For a heartbeat, it hangs in the air like some nasty meteor, and then it crashes to the ground with a deafening roar that breaks the highway as if it were brittle glass.

"Am I that fat?"The idle thought forces itself into existence.

I can barely register the terror that grips me as I try to get up, try to move, but my body refuses to cooperate. My left arm flails uselessly at my side, twisting and bending more than it should. My legs, half-numb and trembling, barely respond to me.

Coughing sends blood splattering on the ground, and I soon start heaving from the mix of unfelt pain and billowing dust, sending waves of agony through my entire body. My vision is a blur. The motorcycle lies a few feet away, on its side with the handlebars twisted awkwardly.

At a side glance, I see the creature struggling to pull itself up from its crash, its tendrils writhing in confusion.

I have seconds—maybe less.

My good hand fumbles for the already opened pill bottle, miraculously still inside my jacket— which fared better than my flesh after the fall. I pull it out, and with a shaking hand down the entire thing, letting the bitter pills spill in and out of my mouth.

I dry-swallow, feeling it scrape my throat.

The effects are almost immediate—a burn surges through my veins, chasing away the pain with an intoxicating, delirious rush of strength. My mind clouds with the familiar fog of the pills, but I latch onto the sudden burst of energy, using it to drag myself to my feet.

My legs buckle and wobble, my vision swims, but I stagger to the faint blur of the motorcycle. Grabbing the handlebars with my good hand, I pull with everything I have, fighting to lift it upright.

“Come on, come on!” I hiss through clenched teeth, feeling the darkness closing in from all sides.

With a final, desperate heave, the motorcycle tilts back onto its tires, It wobbles as I climb on it and slam the throttle. The engine screams to life. The motorcycle lurches forward, and I barely manage to keep it under control.

The light is closer than ever, and the world sputters in and out of cohesion. The pill-induced fog wraps itself around my brain, turning the world into a series of choppy, disjointed, barely discernable images.

The motorcycle rattles beneath me, barely holding itself together after the fall. Somehow, I manage to navigate through most of the roots, broken cars, and fragmented stone.

Then, without warning, the engine sputters, choking on something before roaring back to life, nearly throwing me off as the motorcycle jerks forward.

The headlight flickers on, casting a weak yellow beam ahead. I catch a glimpse of a car directly in my path and barely swerve in time, fishtailing wildly. The headlight flickers again, then dies, plunging me back into darkness.

I keep pushing forward, but it’s fighting me now, the engine stuttering and coughing like a dying animal. The handlebars jerk violently in my grip as the front tire catches on a root, sending me careening.

"Just a little more… just a little more…" I murmur to myself, the words slurring.

The motorcycle skids over a patch of gravel, nearly throwing me off.

The road ahead is draped in faint phantoms while the trees on either side close in, their branches reaching out like skeletal hands.

And then I see it—a break in the road, a gap between the trees, the entrance of a tomb just wide enough for the motorcycle to slip through. I don’t hesitate. I jerk to the right, veering off the highway and plunging into the forest.

Branches whip at my face and batter my body as the motorcycle tears through the underbrush. The ground is uneven and treacherous, the tires bounce over roots and rocks, threatening to throw me at every turn.

I cling to the motorcycle with everything I have, refusing to let go, refusing to stop, refusing to slow.

The motorcycle sputters again, the engine choking. The headlight flickers back on just in time to reveal a massive fallen tree ahead. I yank the handlebars, swerving around it, the motorcycle nearly tipping over as I force it back on course.

"Faster… faster…" The words spill from my lips in a delirious chant, mingling with the crying of the engine. "Keep going… don’t stop… don’t you dare stop… Or I'll kill you."

I'm slowing. The front tire catches on a root, jerking the handlebars from my grip. I nearly lose control again, my body thrown sideways as the motorcycle struggles to stay upright.

I grit my teeth, forcing it back on course, but it's breaking down—falling apart piece by piece, just like me.

It's hard to describe what I'm doing as driving. It can be better described as a blind man going as fast as possible and hoping they don't hit a wall. There's as much luck as ability.

The creature crashes through the trees behind me. I hear it tearing through the forest, destroying everything in its path. I don’t look back. I can’t. There’s only forward, only the light that grows closer, and the trees that seem to close around me.

The motorcycle is dying. I can feel it. It groans, the metal frame splintering like bone breaking as the engine coughs like a dying man. It won’t last much longer and neither will I.

The light of Green Ear flickers ahead, or it's my vision turning dark. The latter is more probable.

The forest thins, the trees parting just enough to give me a glimpse of it—a massive wall, towering and impenetrable, with a slight mound of earth some distance from it.

"Almost there… just a little more…" My voice is barely a whisper, and my thoughts are hardly coherent.

The motorcycle stumbles over another root, the engine choking on its last breath, but I push it forward, refusing to let it die, refusing to let go.

I see the wall—so close now I can almost touch it. But the front gate is closed with no sign of anyone, no one to let me in, no one to save me.

"I… I want this… always wanted this…" The words tumble out, half-delirious, half-lucid, a confession to no one but myself. "Gotta… gotta fly…"

I steer toward the mound, aiming for the highest point. The tires crunch over the dirt, and the engine chokes on its last breath, dying. The creature’s roar is a distant rumble, a sound barely registered in my fading thoughts.

I hit the mound with everything the motorcycle had left. The tires leave the ground as we fly into the air.

For a brief, weightless moment, I’m soaring over the wall, the light of Green Ear blazing beneath me. The world spins, and my grip loosens, my body goes limp as the last of my strength drains away.

We go our separate ways, the motorcycle twisting and crashing down somewhere as I sail through the air.

I crash on something, and everything disappears.