Sometimes you try to escape from something, only to find your life provides a perfect loop and you're right back where you started. For me, that was true in a literal sense. It had all started when I went for a late night drive. For reasons I couldn't justify, I elected to not tell anyone where I was going. It had been a stressful couple of months, and I needed a break from school, work, and even my friends and family. I drove until my town turned from a sprawling metropolis, to a few scattered houses, to farmland, to dusty nothingness. I kept driving, not really focused on anything, occasionally making a random turn, and trying to make sure my car didn't drift into another lane by accident. The stars above drifted gently overhead, making way for the sunrise.
I had been on the highway for a few hours, and I hated to admit it, but my eyes were starting to drift closed, as I hadn't really stopped since I started driving. Every now and again, my car would drift into the other lane, and I could hear the thumpthumpthump of the tires hitting the bumpy strips. I knew that I should have pulled over somewhere and taken a break, if not find a motel to crash in for the night. But for some reason, I didn't feel right stopping just yet. Exit upon exit passed by, yet I refused to pull over for some reason. It felt like I was headed somewhere, and I just wanted to reach my destination. About the fifth time I found myself drifting off, I realised that what I was doing was pretty dangerous. I made up my mind to get off at the next exit. I changed lanes to turn off of the highway, when all of a sudden, an earthquake started. I could feel the earth roll under my feet. Glancing down out of my window, I could see that the road had started to split open under the wheels of my car. I let out a string of swears and slammed my feet on the accelerator. My car rolled over the new gaps in the road. I continued speeding. The roar of the quake was now accompanied by a head splitting noise. It sounded like a mix between a widow screaming upon receiving the news of her husband's death, and wounded animals. Right in front of my eyes, a tear was appearing in the air. I slammed my foot on the breaks about 5 feet before my car was touching it. The rip seemed to tear through the area, and hovered unaided. It was about eight feet across and ten feet wide. The edges of this tear looked as if it was bending the space around it, distorting the area so that everything seemed to be bending towards it. The color shifted from the edge of the tear to the center, turning from a blinding white to lilac in the middle, to dark violet right in the center. The colors gently changed hues, blending together in an almost hypnotic way. I felt the hairs on my arms raise up. What the hell was this thing? Before I could think about pulling off to the side, or returning the way I had come from, the quaking and the noise stopped. I was breathing hard, trying to control my trembling hands. I stared at this mysterious purple void, and then I realized that this gap in reality was staring back. A large purple eye faded into existence in the middle of the tear. In the center, where a pupil should be, there was a waxing moon shape. The eye looked down on me, blinked, and then disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. This was getting too weird. I sucked in a few deep breaths, let them out slowly. I decided that it was about time I got home. I began to pull my car into the exit in order to turn around, when the screeching started again, increasing in loudness and hostility. Instinctually, I let go of the steering wheel to clamp my hands over my ears. Out of the purple portal came six long, thick tendrils. They were midnight black, and I saw as they started to reach towards my car that the light coming off of my headlights wasn't shining off of them. The light my car produced was somehow being absorbed by these ugly tentacles. I screamed, and flung my car into reverse. The tendrils were faster, and with a whipping sound I could hear through the closed windows of my car, they began to drag me into the portal. As a last ditch attempt for safety, I attempted to open the driver door to jump out of the car. Even though there were no visible eyes on the tendrils, it seemed as though they could see what I was doing because one of the tips of the tentacles simply pushed the door closed. I snarled a few choice words as I attempted to push my door open. Long story short, it didn't work. I was dragged through the portal, an unwilling victim of whatever these appendages were doing.
The inside of the void was beautiful, in a mind destroying, horrific sort of way. Various shades of purple whizzed by, accompanied by images of strange hooded beings that I glimpsed out of the corner of the window that wasn't being blocked by the tentacles. Everything whirled around in erratic patterns, and mysterious lights with colors I had no name for occasionally passed by. Purple eyes stared me down no matter where I looked. I still sporadically struggled with getting the door open, or at least I tried to until one of the tendrils wagged its tip at me in a 'no-no' motion. Why the hell was a tendril/tentacle trying to tell me off like that? And why was I obeying it? That waggle seemed like such a human behavior. I was still scared, but not in the soul crushing, adrenaline pumping sort of way. It was more a sort of anxiety that one might get while meeting a new person. I decided to take some deep breaths again, and see if I could calm down completely. What else was there to do? As loudly as I was able to scream, the outside void was able to scream louder, and longer. An occasional rumble would hit the car, and I had calmed down so much that I had turned off my car engine 15 minutes ago in an attempt to save on gas. Nothing I did or said or screamed seemed to matter to the void, and I was having a bit of an existential crisis with my inability to do anything. So naturally, I decided to make the best of it.
I knocked on the driver's window where one of the tentacles was, and when I could see that I had its attention, I asked in a clear voice, "Excuse me, but it's been a long night. Would it be alright if I took a quick cat nap while you take me wherever it is we're going?" It couldn't hurt to be polite to whatever eldritch thing it was, right? The tentacle wiggled in what I assumed was a yes gesture, so I thanked it, reclined my seat back, and closed my eyes.
I woke up (what I assumed to be) several hours later, no longer in the void. The purplish hues and screaming had been replaced by what looked like an endless desert. Looking behind me, I could see the end of the highway; as in the highway literally stopped in a straight line about twenty feet behind me. Looking forward, I saw a little town in the distance. With nothing better to do, I started up my engine and drove forward. A few minutes later, I was within the town, and decided to park near a store called Big Rico's Pizza. I got out of my car, and started to walk. I kept my gaze down on the ground, not wanting to attract attention. Unfortunately, this meant that I didn't see the man I bumped into. "Whoops, sorry!" I said. I glanced at the man, and had to do several takes. At first I thought he had blond hair and glasses, but then he had white hair and several purple tattoos. He had a third eye that changed from white to purple, to black, and then it was gone. His clothes were changing too, I swear! When I bumped into him, I thought he was wearing a white long sleeved shirt and a black vest with a purple tie, but I blinked and then he was wearing cat ears, a tunic, and furry pants. The very edges of his being were blurry, and details changed from time to time. I had a hard time focusing on him at all. He spoke. "Not a problem, Dear Listener. Do try to be more careful next time." His voice was what struck me the most. A deeply sonorous, rich thing that floored me. I swallowed nervously, daring to glance up at his eyes. They also were in a constant state of flux, changing from blue, to steel gray, to deep crimson. "I'm sorry to bother you sir, but would you please tell me where I am?" He chuckled, and I felt myself grow nervous. "A new Interloper, I see. It's been awhile since we've had any visitors. Well, as Radio Host, I will carry out an old traditional greeting." he spread his arms (were there two or three or more? Tentacles? Nothing made sense.) wide.
"Welcome To Nightvale."
End of Chapter