>>6121219>>6121232>>6121237>>6121246>>6121256>>6121261>>6121265>>6121274Damages be damned, you're not going to pull over in the middle of nowhere over what MIGHT be. Especially not when the creeping darkness of the night seems to practically absorb your headlights - the atmosphere of the road alone is to put you on edge. Besides, anyone with half a brain knows that you could easily get mauled by a bear out here in the sticks. The risk simply isn't worth it.
You're pretty close to your turning point, and you spot it about ten minutes down the road. It'd be easy to miss if you weren't paying attention, just a dirt path curving off into the woods with a wooden sign to point it out - cheap bastards didn't even give it a reflective background. Or a name, for that matter, as the sign itself simply says <span class="mu-i">O'Niel Cabin</span>. Did the county put it up, or did your Grandfather do it himself?
You push those pointless thoughts aside for now, as your truck starts to rattle something fierce as your tires hit the dirt and gravel road. You have to lower your speed to a crawl at first, unused to driving on such roads to begin with, let alone in the dark. The branches of the trees around you almost look like they're reaching out to scrape at your truck, dark claws grasping and failing to touch you as you drive past them.
Your nerves are getting to you. You press down onto the gas pedal a bit more, urging the truck to drive faster with a white-knuckle grip on the wheel. The next fourty-five minutes are spent in a state of tension, with nothing but you and the woods closing in around you, no music other than the uncomfortable rattling of your truck. You're certain that it would have been a much more pleasant trip in had you reached this point during daylight hours, but you just <span class="mu-s">had</span> to 'save time' and do the entire trip all in one day!
When your headlights finally shine on the cabin itself, you release all of the tension in your muscles with a sigh of relief. Pulling in to park, you take a moment to grab your trusty <span class="mu-s">flashlight</span> out from the dashboard and click it on. It briefly illuminates the interior of the truck, before you swing it out towards the woods for a brief inspection to make sure there's nothing out there waiting to eat you.
A few eyes, glowing with reflected light and likely belonging to racoons, seem to get startled and immediately scamper off. Nothing big, too low to the ground for that thankfully. You hop out of the truck and shine the light towards the cabin itself, stepping closer to get a better look.
It's definitely seen better days. A tree seems to have partially collapsed, now held up by the cabin's badly-dented rooftop. Shrubbery around it is overgrown and untended-to, and a thick layer of leaves coat both the ground and the cabin itself. Thankfully, that seems to be the limit of the damage. Speaking of damage...
