I listen as my parents bicker in the front seat about something regarding the map. Internet’s been out for the past three hours of this stupid trip, and both me and my brother have also been trying to manage.

Mum and Dad eventually find likely the last trace of humanity: a small gas station. I go in with a ten-dollar bill, hoping to snag a soda, chips, and some sort of candy. My brother tugs on my sleeve. 

“Please get me something, Emmi! I’m a poor, starving little child and I need sugar to sustain myself!” He says, and I hear Mum chuckle from the car. 

“Erin, go get yourself something before you perish.” She says, and my brother happily takes the five dollars from her and runs into the store. “Please make sure it’s not just junk.”

I chuckle. “Cute idea. Never gonna happen with anyone in this family.” I reply as I go into the shady-looking store.

After I grab my snacks, I have to explain to Erin that five bucks isn’t going to cover seven bags of gummy worms. It was adorable to watch, to be honest.

He pays, then I pay. The clerk looks at me with sunken eyes. “Your parents know that this is the last stop for about thirty miles, right?” He asks in a dull and dead voice that raises the hairs on my back.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Well, I think you should tell them again. Just in case. Don’t want them going in loops, you know?” He laughed before going into one of the back rooms.

I went back out to where my parents were, talking to my brother about why gummy bears won’t last him the next few hours. Funny. So funny.

We go back into the car, and I tell them what the man from earlier said. No reaction from them. Of course not. They’re arguing about the map like they were roleplaying a scene from “Blair Witch”.

We go into one of the next loops, leading lower down. I begin to nod off when my brother shakes me awake. “Hey, Emmi? Didn’t we pass those same trees last time we went down the circle?”

I sit up a bit more. “Huh. I guess we did. Hey, Mum? Dad? I think y’all went into a loop.”

“That’s ridiculous, Emmi. Just go back to your nap. We’ll be there somewhat soon.” Dad said with gritted teeth.

After another hour of travel, I’m surprised to once again see the same collection of trees from earlier. “Seriously, we’re going in a loop.”

“I . . . I know. I even went the wrong way but we’re still somehow here again.” Dad said.

“There is a legend, a legend from not very long ago, about a forever stretch of road that loops forever no matter the direction.” The store clerk says to a small crow. He laughs. “That place is this very place, and all the stories are true.”