Chapter 1: The Last Thing He Heard

Chapter 1: The Last Thing He Heard

The smell of ozone and dust was the scent of Jake Miller’s life. It clung to the dimly lit space of his IT repair shop, a mausoleum for broken technology. Here, amidst the skeletal remains of laptops and the silent, staring screens of dead monitors, he found a quiet order his own mind could never achieve. He preferred the ghosts in the machines to the ones that lived in his head.

Ten years. A decade had passed since the night the screaming silence had descended upon his house, a silence that had a name: Noah.

Jake’s fingers, stained with thermal paste, tightened around a screwdriver. He wasn’t fixing anything, just holding it, the cool metal a useless anchor against the pull of memory. It came unbidden, as it always did, a flash of flickering garage light and the scent of rain on hot asphalt. He was fifteen, Noah seventeen. They were fighting, the way brothers do—loud, stupid, and mean. About what? A stolen hoodie? A dent in the car? The reason had long been eroded by the acid of guilt, leaving only the words.

“You’re pathetic, Jake! Always hiding, always scared.” Noah’s voice, sharp with teenage cruelty.

“Just go! I wish you’d just disappear!” Jake’s own voice, a venomous shriek he couldn’t take back.

Noah had stared at him for a long, terrible moment, his anger collapsing into something else, something hurt. Then he’d turned, grabbed his keys, and walked out into the storm.

He never walked back.

The last thing Jake ever said to his brother was a curse. And the universe, in its infinite, careless cruelty, had granted it.

The cheerful jingle of the bell above the shop door was a violent intrusion. Maya Chen breezed in, a whirlwind of color and energy that seemed to physically push back the shop’s gloom. A streak of electric purple sliced through her dark hair, and her smile was a weapon against the shadows. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, which made him feel like the world’s biggest fraud.

“Hey, stranger,” she said, her voice warm as she leaned over the counter to kiss him. He tasted coffee and mint. “Still communing with the dead?” she teased, gesturing to the shelves of defunct electronics.

Jake forced a smile. “Someone has to. What’s up?”

“I fell down a rabbit hole,” she announced, her eyes bright with the thrill of discovery. She slid her phone across the counter, the screen glowing. It was a local forum page, the kind of place where people argued about town council meetings and complained about potholes. The thread she had open was titled ‘Havenwood’s Creepiest Legends.’

“You’ve been here, what, six months? And you’re already digging up the town skeletons.” He tried to keep his tone light, but a cold dread was already beginning to seep into his veins.

“This one is different,” she insisted, tapping the screen. “It’s not just some story about a ghost in the old mill. It’s a… a game. ‘The Endless Hitchhiker Game.’ Have you heard of it?”

The name hit him like a physical blow. The screwdriver slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the floor. His hands started their familiar, subtle tremble, a nervous energy he could never quite quell.

“Jake? You okay?” Maya’s brow furrowed with concern.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, his voice too tight. He bent to retrieve the tool, hiding his face for a moment. “It’s just a stupid story, Maya. Kids trying to scare each other.”

“But the rules are so specific,” she pressed, oblivious to the storm building inside him. “You have to drive down Highway X-17 after midnight. You find an old, faded sign that just says ‘SLOW DOWN,’ and you pull over. You kill the engine, turn off the lights, and you wait. In complete silence.”

She was reciting the litany that had played in his nightmares for ten years. Every word was a fresh turn of the knife.

“And then he shows up,” she whispered, her excitement making it all the more grotesque. “A man. He just… appears. You have to let him in the passenger seat, no questions asked. He’ll tell you where to go. And if you follow his directions to the very end, without looking back, you win a prize.”

“A prize,” Jake repeated, the words tasting like ash. “What kind of prize?”

“It doesn’t say! That’s the mystery. People say it’s different for everyone. Something you’ve lost, or something you desperately need.” She looked at him, her expression shifting from excited to pleading. “Let’s do it.”

The air left Jake’s lungs. “What? No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not? It’ll be fun! A little spooky adventure. You’re always cooped up in here. Don’t you ever want to just… do something, Jake? Something exciting?”

He saw the innocent desire in her eyes, the simple wish for a thrill, for a story to tell. She saw a ghost story. He saw a void that had swallowed his brother whole. The police had called it a runaway case. Then a missing person. Then a cold case. But the town knew. The whispers followed him his whole life. The Miller boy. The one whose brother played the game.

“It’s dangerous, Maya,” he said, the words feeling inadequate.

“It’s a local legend! What’s going to happen? Some guy in a Halloween mask is going to jump out of the bushes?” She laughed, but it died when she saw the look on his face. “Jake, what is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He had. He saw Noah’s ghost every day. In his father’s hollowed-out stare, in his mother’s forced smiles. In his own reflection.

This was the obstacle. He could tell her the truth. He could shatter her bright, adventurous spirit with the ugly, brutal story of his family. He could watch her look at him with pity, forever branding him as the broken boy whose brother vanished. The thought was unbearable. It would change everything between them. She’d see the tragedy before she saw him.

Or he could lie. He could protect her from the truth by pretending it didn’t exist.

“It’s nothing,” he said, turning away to busy himself with a motherboard that didn’t need his attention. “I just… I don’t like that road. That’s all.”

But his dismissal only fueled her curiosity. It was a challenge. For the next hour, she cajoled, she teased, she pleaded. She didn’t understand that she was playing with a loaded gun, asking him to pull the trigger for a laugh. The more he resisted, the more it became a referendum on their relationship, on his inability to move forward, to have fun, to be normal.

Finally, he was worn down. He looked at her, at this vibrant, wonderful woman who had somehow chosen to love him, and a terrible, desperate thought took root in his mind.

What if the legend was true? All of it. What if the prize was real? Something you’ve lost.

The desire was a poison, seeping into the cracks of his decade-old grief. To see Noah again. To have a chance to say sorry. To take back the last thing he ever said. It was a stupid, childish fantasy, a lure set by the darkness that lived on that highway. But what if it wasn't?

He had to protect Maya. But what if, by playing, he could somehow save himself? He could control it this time. He knew the rules. He knew the road. He would keep her safe, see what was at the end of the line, and finally, finally close this chapter of his life. He would go, and he would prove it was all just a story. And if it wasn’t… he would face it. For her. For Noah.

The conflict inside him was a silent, screaming war. The need for closure battled with the terror of the unknown. His loyalty to Maya warred with the primal urge to run as far from Highway X-17 as he could.

He turned to face her, his expression a carefully constructed mask of resignation. The fidgeting in his hands stopped.

“Okay,” he said, his voice unnaturally calm. The single word felt like a death sentence.

Maya’s face lit up, her victory so bright it was blinding. “Really? Oh my god, this is going to be amazing!”

He smiled, a hollow imitation of her own joy. He knew what he was doing. He was agreeing to a fun, spooky date night. But he was also walking willingly back to the place that had devoured his family. He was taking the one person he had left to love and driving her straight into his brother’s open grave.

“Yeah,” Jake heard himself say, the lie smooth and practiced. “It’ll be fun.”