Exhale

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

We’d made it out of the rainstorm about 5 hours ago when we exited the never ending state of Nebraska. As it turned out, I’m sure we had seen more farmland and cows than we did people.

Still being shaken  up from my little encounter with what happened back there, I turned on some music to try and ease some of my racing thoughts and analyzations. As I flipped the channel, the first song to come on was Somebody’s watching Me, which I didn’t find a fun coincidence. As I changed the station, it was all static. Except for the one I swapped from.

Releasing a nervous laugh, I quickly turned it off, and instead pulled out a CD from one of my favorite bands, The Script.

    Mom was snoring softly in the passenger seat, her headphones over her ears and her audiobook from her phone still playing.

    I glanced over at her and smiled, happy that she was finally getting some rest. Eventually the fears and anxiety from the day began to drift away as I drove, knowing that I was getting further and further from the location that haunted me because of earlier.

I took a quick look at my GPS, noticing that is said to take exit 4B to arrive at our hotel in the Chicago area for the night. I thought we were supposed to be staying in Indiana, but maybe I was wrong. I changed to the right lane as the exits began to appear, keeping an eye out for the one we needed to be on.

As I turned the wheel to the right, it seized. Sheer panic filled by chest as I yanked it to the left, hoping some good would come from it. But nothing good happened. We were drifting to the right, as if the car was controlling...itself. My breathing caught in my throat as I tried to wake up my mother, but no words were coming out. I couldn’t talk. Tears began to fill my eyes as my panic rose, and I was sure we were going to run into the guardrails on the streets. Or into another moving vehicle. Cars around us were starting to honk at me, and I silently apologized to them as I prayed we’d get out of this alright. I had no clue what was happening. The song Superhero began playing. I thought it was ironic how we were about to die, and I was listening to a song about superheros. Well, if there were any superheros out there, it would be nice to receive some of their help, before we were pushed over the edge. Literally. By some unknown force.

As my eyes darted from right to left, and I was trying to keep my head on straight, I decided that this was not the way we were going to die. Summoning all my energy which I knew I needed to have, I took the wheel, and cranked to the left, managing to break free from whatever thing was bounding me.

And then I blinked.

I soon realized that nothing seemed to have happened. I was still in the same lane I had been in, no sign of anything being wrong or weird.
    It was as if I only imagined everything. Breathing hard, I glanced at my phone screen once more. The exit appeared, and I stared confused, swearing that I had just experienced this same thing moments before that weird incident happened.

Breathing hard, and feeling hesitant, I maneuvered the vehicle over to the right light - what felt to be for the second time in just a matter of minutes -  and headed towards the exit, this time not having anything weird or screwy happen. I let out a quavering breath as I followed the GPS to the hotel we would be staying at for the night. I nosed the car into one of the Diamond Member parking spaces and parked. It was something that Dad had really wanted. He wanted to have the best quality of everything when we went on vacations. Frankly I didn’t find it necessary to have special service. We had money, but we could do things for ourselves. We didn’t need to be spoiled with special privileges. We could save our money instead. But Dad always believed that hard workers should be able to enjoy the income they brought, so he chose to do just that.