HOST # 1 - Madrona


Maddy was starting college in a few weeks, and decided that--en route to her college's town on the east coast--she would go on a road trip. She had never been outside her hometown back in California, and was eager to see a bit more of the country.

She also hated planes, so leaving then and there was probably the only way she would make it in time for fall semester.

At some point, Maddy was driving through Nebraska, and was starting to nod off. It was a long stretch of road with very little in-between and, frankly, she didn't have the money for a motel room. Not even the two-star ones with bed-bugs and questionable stains on the walls.

She pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the ignition, and promptly fell asleep in the driver's seat.

Her phone's clock glowed 3:03AM when cycling lights somewhere behind her car roused her to consciousness. She immediately stiffened, believing a police officer had pulled over, keen on telling her she was sleeping in the wrong spot. In a panicked, half-awake state, Maddy felt around for her purse on the floor of the back seat. Finding it, she pulled out her wallet and removed her driver's license.
Sure enough, the shadow of a figure approached the car from behind, footsteps crunching in the gravel just off the shoulder. The lights continued cycling soundlessly.

Maddy rolled down her window. The footsteps came closer, walking on pavement now, the owner of the shadow now nearly in her eyeshot.

When she leaned her head out and turned to look, all she could remember was a feeling of deep dread.

The rest was blank. A seemingly endless blur of blinding white light, strange electronic noises, incoherent voices, and occasional jolts of seering pain.
When Maddy came to, she had no idea where she was. She was terrified, in pain, and alone. She was also completely naked in a massive field of grass. Her wrists, legs and hips were marred by bone-deep wounds, and her lower abdomen had been opened...then stitched shut. She was boiling with fever.

To her luck, a farmer would find her while checking to see what the 'commotion in the sky' was all about at the edge of his property. He would call 9-11, and police and paramedics would come to the farmhouse to take her to the nearest hospital.

Maddy wasn't ready for the truth of what happened to her, and neither was the rest of the world.

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Art, writing and narrative © LEXI-Ero

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