Prompt: New Life | Word count: 1000 | Genre: literary fiction
The darkness closes around my car, and my headlights cut a tunnel of wan light through the night, eerily illuminating road signs and thorny bushes along the highway. I sit on the very edge of the driver’s seat, clenching the steering wheel, half expecting one of those bushes or road signs to be a person. A frightening apparition, lunging at my car menacingly. I keep expecting for the form of a huge elk or deer to appear standing across the road, smashing my car to smithereens. I am flying nevertheless. I would rather die hitting an elk than stay in this place for one more minute.
My jaw hurts. My whole face is swollen. I can feel bruises forming under my shirt, which clings to my back with hot sweat. Now my hair is beginning to stick to my neck, too. I want to reach for the AC knob but I’m already low on gas. If I run out, I want to at least be as far from home as possible.