Jack woke with his forehead pressed against the steering wheel and the taste of copper in his mouth.

  “Ugh,” he groaned, lifting his head slowly. “Hell of a crash… where am I?”

  The first thing he noticed was the silence.

  No passing cars. No distant traffic hum. No wind pushing against nearby houses. Just a low, empty quiet that pressed in on his ears. He blinked, trying to get his bearings, and frowned.

  He lived in suburbia. Even the back roads near his place had mailboxes, fences, *something*. This, though - this was nothing but trees, thick and unbroken, stretching out in almost every direction. He seemed to be parked on the edge of a field, tall grass brushing the sides of his custom Dodge Charger.

  That didn’t make any sense. There had been a road. He remembered the road clearly - the curve, the headlights catching something just at the edge of the beam, the instinctive jerk of the wheel.

  *What did I run into?*

  He pushed the door open and stepped out, already bracing himself for the damage. A hit like that should’ve crumpled the front end, cracked something important. He crouched, ran a hand along the bumper.

  Nothing. No dents. No scratches. The paint gleamed back at him, immaculate.

  “…Wait,” he muttered. “My car’s fine. I *know* I hit something.”

  He straightened and turned in a slow circle. Trees. Field. Sky. No road.

  A tight knot formed in his stomach. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked it out of habit, thumb flicking the screen awake. No bars.

  "No bars. Of course." Middle of nowhere, bad reception. He could’ve bought that explanation - if not for everything else. He looked again at the trees.

  They were wrong.

  Not sick or twisted or monstrous - just… too natural in all the wrong ways. The leaves were the wrong shape. The bark grew in a strange way, like overlapping vines. And then there was the sky - too blue, too empty, no jets, no contrails, nothing cutting through it.

  “No,” he said quietly. “That’s not…”

  He took a step back, then another, eyes darting from the field to the treeline to the horizon beyond. The realization crept in slowly, reluctantly, like his brain was trying to protect him from it.

  This wasn’t just the wrong place. It was the wrong world.

  He let out a short, humorless laugh and shook his head.

  “…Well, Toto," he said, to no one in particular. "Guess we ain’t in Kansas anymore.”

  He stood there for a long moment, listening to his own breathing.

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  Then he smelled it.

  It was faint at first. Not gasoline. Not oil. Something older. Something organic - sharp, metallic, but not quite blood. Something older, fouler, like meat left too long in the sun. His stomach tightened.

  “Great,” he muttered. “Of course.”

  He followed the smell toward the edge of the field, pushing through the tall grass. A few yards in, he noticed the ground was torn up - flattened in places, churned in others, like something had been dragged. He slowed. The grass parted, and he saw it.

  At first, his brain tried to make it into an animal. A raccoon. A mangy dog. Anything familiar.

  Then he saw the hands.

  Too long. Too many joints. Fingers curled stiffly into the dirt, tipped with cracked, yellowed claws. The body was small - child-sized - but twisted wrong, limbs bent at angles that made his chest tighten just looking at them. Its skin was greenish-gray, leathery, and split open across the torso.

  “Oh,” he breathed.

  The face - if you could call it that - was frozen in a snarl, sharp teeth bared beneath a flat, flattened nose. One glassy eye stared past him into nothing.

  A goblin. The word just… appeared, calm as if he'd always known it. He almost laughed at how ridiculous it sounded. Almost.

  Forcing himself to look closer, he was able to see how it shed its mortal coil. There were no bullet holes. No knife wounds he could recognize. Just deep, ragged tears - like something with too much strength and zero patience had torn it open.

  Something big.

  Something that *won*.

  He straightened slowly, suddenly very aware of how exposed he was standing out in the open.

  “…Okay,” he said quietly. “So that’s the baseline now.” He looked back toward his car, then toward the treeline beyond the body.

  Kansas was officially off the table.

  He backed away from the body slowly, eyes never leaving the treeline. Nothing moved.

  That didn’t help.

  He turned and walked - quick, controlled - back toward the Charger. His hand went to the trunk latch before he consciously thought about it. Muscle memory took over.

  The trunk popped open.

  Inside, nestled between a tool kit and a folded tarp, was the double-barrel shotgun. Walnut stock. Clean steel. Simple. Honest.

  “Good,” he murmured.

  He grabbed it, snapped it open, and slid two shells into the chambers. The sound was loud in the quiet field - *click, click* - final in a way that made his pulse spike. He closed the barrels and exhaled slowly through his nose.

  Then he shut the trunk.

  Hard.

  He didn’t linger. He circled back to the driver’s side, opened the door, and got in, keeping the shotgun low across his lap. The interior suddenly felt very small.

  *Click.*

  He locked the doors. The silence returned, thicker than before.

  Through the windshield, the trees stood unmoving. Watching. Or waiting. He rested his forehead briefly against the steering wheel, breathing slow, controlled. The steering wheel felt warm under his forehead, almost comforting, like the Charger was holding him steady.

  “Okay,” he said quietly to himself. “You wanna play it like that, world, I'm ready.” Jack set the shotgun carefully against the seat and turned the key.

  The engine coughed.

  “Come on,” he muttered, trying again.

  The starter whined, the engine turning over - strong, healthy - but it never caught. No roar. No idle. Just that hollow, almost-there sound that made his skin crawl. “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me,” he said calmly, more annoyed than afraid.

  He tried again.

  Nothing.

  Again.

  Still nothing.

  “Don’t do this,” he warned the dashboard, as if the Charger might take the hint. The engine turned, then faltered, then died once more. He smacked the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

  “Great...”

  That meant getting out. Popping the hood. Getting his hands dirty while standing in an open field next to a forest full of *whatever the hell that was*. He really didn’t want to do that.

  He reached for the door latch...

  And froze.

  Something growled.

  It was low. Wet. Not loud enough to pinpoint, but close enough that his pulse spiked instantly. It rolled through the quiet like a vibration more than a sound, felt in his chest before his ears.

  He didn’t move.

  The growl came again, longer this time, edged with hunger. Slowly, deliberately, he reached for the shotgun.

  A/n: Welcome to Hellride V8.

  New chapter every Monday.

  No senseless harem, no status screens, no truck-kun - just a pissed-off Arkansan, his Charger, and a world that wants both of them dead.

  Buckle up. The road’s long and the engine never quits.

  Feedback / typos / thoughts always welcome in the comments. Thanks for reading!