Chapter 3- Empty Roads

"Whoa! Buddy! Hey, are you alright?"

Cole blinked against sudden, blinding sunlight. Confusion caused him to stumble back, and a sharp pain in his leg finished the stumble with a fall. A shadow peaked down at him.

Bright hair. Blue eyes. Jay again.

"What?" Cole shook his head, unable to say anything else. He was outside. Outside. The cool mud beneath his fingers was all too real. As was the uncomfortable ache that accompanied him as he stood.

"Instead of what, let's go with why." Jay said, glancing at the torn part of Cole's jeans. "Why break the window? With your leg no less? That looks like it hurt. Also, the owner's probably not going to be happy about that. Don't worry. I'll cover for you."

"I was. . . no." Cole shook his head again, but before he could continue the confused speech, Nya's face peeked through the broken glass. She looked as startled as he felt.

"What happened?" Nya blinked, frowned, and rubbed her eyes. "You're bleeding."

"I am." Cole nodded. "I kicked the window. I. . ."

"Why don't you come on out?" Jay asked, waving Nya forward. "The rain's all gone!"

"Yeah. I see that. The. . . we waited. The owner never showed."

"I'm sorry about that. Maybe you can head home and call back later? Or I could call you." Jay shrugged. "Either works."

Nya nodded, still looking heavily dazed. Her face disappeared from the window, and soon enough, she was outside. Cole and Jay moved to meet her.

"We need to get the truck out." Cole forced himself to focus. The bizarre happenings in the house. . . they must have all emanated from his overly exhausted mind. With no desire to sound crazy, Cole swallowed the experience, determined to move forward.

Neither Jay nor Nya responded. Nya looked half asleep and Jay looked as if he were waiting for some sort of cue. Cole moved to the truck. He stuck the keys into the ignition, then twisted.

The engine made a painful, hissing sound. Then nothing. Cole tried again. Same result.

"C'mon, Rocky, don't do this." Despite Cole's pleading, the truck refused to work. With an annoyed huff, he popped open the hood.

Both Nya and Jay peeked inside. Cole did too, although, if he were honest, he didn't have any actual idea of what to look for. Despite having the truck for almost two years now, he knew absolutely nothing of what made it tick.

"Ah. Yeah. There's a hole on the hood there." Jay pointed. "Which means the rain soaked everything. Things are probably drenched. Maybe if you drain some parts it'll work? For a while, at least. Enough to get you home!"

"Right, yeah." Cole nodded, pretending to understand. "So which. . . parts?"

Jay pointed, but Cole couldn't make out what he was supposed to be looking at. Nya watched Cole's prideful attempt to hide his confusion and rolled her eyes. She then willed her mind to asses the present situation, pushing away the ever-lasting stories from her previous night.

"Can you help us out?" She asked Jay with a sweet smile, which was perhaps leaning a bit on the flirty side.

"Me?" Jay stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest. "No. No. Sorry. I know basic stuff but. . .no hands on experience here. I'd probably just make things worse."

"I'm sure it can't be as bad as anything we'd do to the truck, if we tried." Nya pointed out.

"No. I don't- Wait. Wait!" Jay's eyes beamed with an idea. Cole and Nya exchanged quick, questioning glances. "There's a gas station! Duh. Not too far. Down the road! Yes. You could go there, call for someone to pick you up. Can you do that?"

Cole looked at Nya. Nya gave a nod. "Kai could probably swing by."

"Then it's a plan!" Jay clapped his hands together. "Just turn right when you get out of the grounds. Then keep going straight. You can't miss it!"

"Okay. . ." Cole and Nya said together, extremely unequipped to deal with Jay's sudden enthusiasm.

They walked the road in silence. Both dying to speak of their experiences, but neither quite willing to be the first. The moments inside the house had begun to feel more and more distant, coated in the fuzzy quality of a dream.

"Did something. . . weird happen to you in that house?" Nya finally gave in and asked, curiosity beating the possibility of embarrassment. "

"Like a weird dream, or something?"

"I think it was more than a dream." When Cole looked more intrigued than confused, Nya carried on. "We dozed off waiting for the owner. But then we woke up. And. . . we got separated."

"The endless loop of living rooms." Cole nodded, both eager and relieved. "Okay. I didn't want to say anything. I thought I'd. . . dreamed it all. It feels like I did. But it also feels like I didn't."

"When we got separated, I found this library. But the thing was. . . it had newspaper clippings in a book, right? But they were from a future date. And they were all about me." Nya began to move her hands as she spoke. "Doing all sorts of things! I can't remember the details of everything anymore, but Cole, it was amazing."

"I didn't have a good time at all." Cole shook his head. "I kept trying to get out. But the door never got any closer. I don't know how long I spent trying to reach it. The rest of the night, I suppose. I don't think we got any sleep."

"Well, now we know for sure that something isn't right. . ." Nya left the statement hanging, hinting that they should stay and unravel the mystery. Cole happily ignored said hint, and they walked the rest of the way in thoughtful silence.

The gas station was a disappointment. It looked run down, with rust and mold invading everything in sight. Within, a light glowed dimly, but it was the most unwelcoming sight either of them had ever seen.

"I'm not going to the bathroom here." Cole pouted, sure that the toilets inside would mirror the gross aesthetic of the place.

"Yeah. I'll pass too. There's probably some fancy bathroom back at the mansion anyway."

"Fancy haunted bathroom."

Nya wandered in, followed by a hesitant Cole. The inside was a bit more pleasant, although a bizarre smell hung around the place. Nya walked up to the counter, where an old woman was reading a book, looking extremely disinterested in her two new customers.

Nya cleared her throat, and the woman held up a finger. She then continued to read, letting a few minutes tick before closing the book. "Can I help you?"

"Do you have. . . a phone we could borrow, maybe? Our cell phones aren't working and-"

"I don't need a backstory." The woman rolled her eyes, before pointing at the back of the small shop. "Phone's back there. Don't steal anything."

Cole raised an eyebrow, eyeing the food and snacks that were probably aged beyond belief. As if anyone would want to steal.

Together, they headed to the back, where a phone hung on the wall. Nya stepped up to it, then dialed Kai's number. The line rang, and she bit her lip as she waited for it to connect.

"Kai!" Nya smiled. "Hey. We're. . .kind of stuck. Remember the place I told you me and Cole were heading to? Well his truck broke down and we need some back up."

Whatever answer Kai gave her, she couldn't understand. The words were broken with static, making them impossible to figure out. "Kai? Did you hear what I said?"

The line fizzled, then died. Nya frowned at the phone. She hung up and tried again, but this time, there was no sound at all. "Crap."

"What?"

"It's not working. I don't even know if he heard me."

"No way." Cole shook his head, taking the phone from her hand. The tell-tale silence coming from it made his hand drop. "Crap. Now what?"

"We go back?"

Cole frowned.

"It's not like we can walk home. I'm sure Kai will put two and two together eventually and come get us. The best thing for us to do is go and wait."

"I'm not going inside again!" Cole shook his head. "We got lucky, Nya. Whatever the heck is going on there, it's no good. Who knows what'll happen if we go back in? We could stay trapped in there forever!"

"That's ridiculous." Nya said, but the argument in her voice was weak. If Cole hadn't broken the window. . . she wasn't confident that she wouldn't still be there, reading newspaper clippings of a life she hadn't lived.

"It's not! It's . . ." Cole blinked, then frowned, his brain snapping connections between facts.

"Cole?"

"Trapped there forever. You don't think. . ?" Cole paced forward, and Nya followed. The old woman didn't watch them leave, once again more interested in her book. "The missing people. You don't think they're. . . in the house? Still trapped?"

Nya bit her lip. "That's a possibility."

Cole let out a slow breath. He did not want to go back into the mansion. But he couldn't walk away from it either, not if there were people that were possibly in need of help.

"We're going back?" Nya asked, trying to keep the eagerness from her tone.

"We're. . . going back." Cole nodded slowly. "But first. . . we should talk to Jay. He's got to have seen some of these people, right? And if he has, then he's got to know something isn't right."

"Which means he purposely hid that from us." Nya said.

"Or worse." Cole pointed out. "Maybe it means he's the one behind it all."