WayFinder (The Fool's Journey)

Chapter 9: Impressions

The first ten miles of road to the caves was clear as we drove. I had my phone gallery map pulled up and followed the directions to a tee. So far, so good. I rolled down my window and took in the sights and the cold morning air. Clouds hung low around the trees creating that beautiful yet eerie feeling Oregon was known for. A glance in the rear view mirror showed Rachel’s camry was right on my tail and Daniel’s sedan stayed close behind her. We all drove about fifty miles per hour down the isolated road. I didn’t want to be going too fast in case we ran into an issue. The others seemed to be understanding of that.

 I drove for about another five miles then picked up my phone to double check the right turn I would need to make a few feet ahead. This was the stretch of road I was most worried about traversing. Not only was it winding but it descended in elevation. Increasing the chances of water and possibly wreckage being present. As we came upon the turn, I slowed my truck and put on my brake lights to let the others know we would need to be more careful. Making the actual turn revealed that it did have about three feet of water and large debris in the way. The wreckage seemed to consist mostly of the wood-shake siding normally found on coastal homes. Though I wasn’t able to make out through the dense trees if any actual homes still stood.

Initially, the amount of water and debris present had worried me, but as we slowly drove through I realized that the debris was easily moved out of the way by the truck tires. We made it about another two miles before the road grew more narrow, and the wreckage became more abundant. I realized the road had been easier to navigate at the turn because the tsunami had forced most of the wreckage further down, where we were now driving.

My breathing grew ragged at the sight. I had to stop the truck to make sense of what I was seeing. The carcasses of houses and drowned cars were pushed against dense forest causing the trees to lean in the opposite direction. Their roots, not able to withstand the weight of so much debris, pulled from the ground and gave the impression that the forest was opening its arms, as if in welcome. The sight that greeted us was anything but.

The water rose higher here and submerged some of the devastation, but what could be seen, told the story of what had happened just a day ago. What none of us had stuck around to witness. Lives had been taken. The chances of some of those bodies being within the remains of these houses and cars we now sat looking at, were high. I couldn’t stop the tears rolling down my cheeks even if I wanted to. My head rested on the steering wheel as I lost myself to the grief. 

It hurts. 

It hurt so damn bad and I would have to drive through it. I would have to convince my mind that my tires didn’t just run over an arm attached to a body. I would have to assure my eyes that they didn’t just see the remains of a man, with his eyes still open, in the driver's seat of the wrecked car to the left. I would have to soothe my terrified heart with affirmations, when we got to the last stretch of road, and I could finally breathe through the agony destroying it.

And I did just that. I did it. We did it.

But I found that I couldn’t drive anymore, and simply stopped the truck when the other two cars had emerged far enough out of the forest; out of view of the desolation we had all just witnessed. I couldn’t get out of the truck like I wanted to because of the standing water so I simply sat and took a moment to find my center. My head and stomach hurt from the chaos within my own energy field and I couldn’t help wondering how the others were doing. My heart went out to the car behind me. Jessie, Rachel, DeAndre, Jace, and Dante had witnessed such destruction yesterday. They had watched Eric, Ryan and Montey be taken by these waters. Their bodies were more than likely in much the same state as the ones I had tried not to find in the wreckage behind us. 

I looked in the rearview mirror to see if I could make out their faces. Rachel was in the driver’s seat with her head resting back against the seat, her eyes closed. While Jessie sat in the passenger seat, her knees pulled up to her chest and her head in her hands. I couldn’t make out the others in the backseat but I could sense their devastation through the tethers. There truly wasn’t a good enough word to describe how difficult this part of the journey had been.