Driving along a lonely stretch of road somewhere in Eastern Europe, a woman behind the wheel of a rental, in her worn eyes was a flicker of hope that her besieged mind will rest finally, after battling nightmares that became too real that she kept questioning if she was in the waking world.
In all her nightmares, she kept seeing the same layout of an unknown area, one of them was a bunker, she remembered a nightmare where she saw two strangers huddled inside, their wary eyes fixated on the door to the room they were in.
Something happened and one of them turned their heads towards her, as if they sensed her presence, but she was gone before she got a good look.
Awoke in her bed for the umpteenth time in a pool of sweat, at her wits end, no one to talk about the nightmares without looking like a madwoman.
Anya had no choice but to finally abandon caution in the wind and take a rental through here, hoping to find reason for this madness.
It had to been just nightmares, she originally thought, but they kept assaulting her, that she had to look for a MapQuest.
It took digging until she found an unaltered MapQuest of a general area that fit the bill of the place in her dreams.
Never was she in this area.
Never did she hear of it.
Somehow, her mind knew where it was.
It was there, as if waiting for her to finally arrive.
Whatever inexplicable reason, Anya wanted these nightmares to end, and if going to the location in her nightmares meant it would, she had no other choice, but to try.
Rubbing her tired eyes with her free hand, Anya exhaled sharply as she kept focus on her goal reaching this unknown area.
It would be impossible to imagine an area so intimately as Anya could, she never saw it on television, read it in books, anything that could explain why she knew about it, despite the contrary.
Those people, especially the human mind cannot generate faces it didn't already have references from prior exposure, that she shouldn't give this much stock, but here she was, desperate for any explanation.
Anya was displeased with the lengths it forced her to get this far, she went through a military barricade getting to this lonely stretch of road that traffic hadn't seen in, probably decades at this point.
No military bases, no signs, just one road, and no other vehicle except hers, and the radio stopped working the moment she went through the blockade.
Could've been military-graded blockers left behind from the wars, but there were no radio towers or anything that was able to be house the devices that Anya saw.
In the back of her mind, Anya questioned her reality, if what she was doing was the right thing to do, if it's even happening, at all, and not another dream.
No, if it were another dream, she'd be somewhere in the area she's supposed to be in, she's awake, her mind screwy from waking up from the nightmares.
Focus, Anya, you're almost there, your mind is sure of it!
Her journey into the unknown continued until Anya started feeling ripples in her mind.
Like miniature waves.
Fast as it appeared, the rippling ceases, and she felt a force take over her hands and feet, driving her past the rotted munitions factory with a defunct train line towards a tall fenced off area with large Cyrillic scrawled across an equally large sign.
'NO TRESPASSING!'
Underneath was vandalism made with red spray paint.
'BEYOND THIS FENCE — A WHOLE NEW WORLD AWAITS!'
From the outside it didn't appear there was a way beyond the tall fencing, Anya didn't know how far it spanned, but her possessed limbs forced the rental to move forward.
The closer she got to the fencing; Anya sees there's a discrepancy with part of the mesh.
She's compelled to step out of her rental, her janes softly clanking against the craggy road towards the mesh.
Hands reaching out, they began peeling back the fencing, revealing a pathway big enough for her rental to safely drive through.
The journey resumed through the uneven road ahead, the rental rattled from the constant potholes it drove over, the deep cracks snagging the tires, as the rental lurched forward.
Peering through her windscreen, Anya noticed the sky becoming unusually different, she couldn't describe it if she wanted.
It was sunny when she started her adventure, as she went on it during the early morning to avoid the traffic, the weather report made no mention of rain today, but the clouds forming above looked something fierce.
Started off sparse, hastily coming together, turned the skies milky white, swiftly grey, forming lumps, then black as Indian ink.
In her ears, Anya heard a low droning noise, like a speaker being fed music that rattled the bass, almost indiscernible, but it was loud enough to penetrate the rental and rumble the glass.
The jolt from a loud boom nearly caused Anya to swerve as she gripped the wheel, her frightened eyes darting everywhere as her heart slammed against her chest, as lighting strikes whatever it wanted, sometimes too close for comfort.
Like a bomb going off, thunder so loud it popped her ears, in her haste trying to right the rental as it swerved, bright flashes of lighting tore through the darkness, revealing a red blotch.
Struggling to find somewhere to drive the rental, there was nothing out here except fields of wheat for Anya to brave off-roaring to find shelter.
As she struggles, Anya tries desperately to find shelter through the darkness, the headlights not bright enough to cut through it, overhead, something more frightening happened.
Silence.
No lighting.
No thunder.
No rain, yet.
In the distance, Anya sees something slowly coming that gave a red hue as it passes.
Bolts of lightning juts out of the red wave of light and Anya panics as she turned into a field of wheat, desperate to get away from the encroaching red wave.
Slamming into her windscreen, wheat flies upright as Anya drives into them at warp speed.
She could feel the red wave coming closer and lightheadedness started manifesting.
"No!" Anya mustered as she pushed her foot down on the pedal to the point it was into the floor, trying desperately to get away from the red wave.
The lightheadedness worsened as the red wave's coming closer to her.
Slammed into the side of an abandoned barn, the rental's bonnet crumbled and steam shot upright as the radiator overheated.
Desperately, Anya hoped for a miracle, but the rental could not reverse, the damage too great.
Cursing under her breath, Anya fled the rental, enveloped by the redness beaming from the red wave that's almost upon her.
Her legs like jelly, Anya forces herself to run, looking for somewhere safe, and managed to find a cellar door leading underground.
The adrenaline was potent enough for her to break through the rusted lock and chain, allowing her inside.
Upon closing the cellar doors behind her and rushing down to the bottom of the cellar, only the darkness her company, Anya could hear the red wave as it washed over where she crashed the rental.
As it went over, Anya's lightheadedness worsened to the point she didn't notice herself falling to the soft dirt ground, unconsciousness taking over.
When Anya finally regained consciousness, she pushes herself from the dirt ground, rubbing away the dirt with the sleeve of her jacket, as she struggled in the darkness.
How long was she out…?
Where did that storm come from…?
Ascending the wooden staircase, Anya braved opened the cellar doors, when she did, she was greeted with a sunny sky and no clouds.
The sun aided her getting a look at the damage.
As expected, the rental was done for, there was nothing she could have done if she tried, and there were no usable vehicles around her.
She's stuck on foot.
Retrieving her backpack and her printout, Anya glances at it, hoping to find a reference point, but it's sparse.
Oh well, at least she has her compass.
Digging it out, Anya hoped it would aid her finding where she is, but as she glanced at it, the needle spinning rapidly, that wasn't going to happen.
"Where… do I go…?" Anya whispers to herself.
