Uncharted Territory

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash 

Almost There 

“Are we almost there?”  Melissa said in a hoarse whisper.  I could almost feel her body shaking through my seat. 

“If you ask me one more time, I will stop this car and we will walk.  You will walk.  I don’t know what else I can say for you to stop talking.”   

My father was practically growling from the front seat and I had never heard or seen him so angry.  Melissa had been irritating and whiny for the majority of the car ride and for once, I didn’t entirely blame her.  We had been riddled with anxiety since the moment we left the house.  Anxiety and horror stories about what was to come.  It was nearing midnight and we were driving farther into the woods than we had ever been.  Into the woods and toward a cabin we were supposedly moving into. 

My father had lost his job – the third one this year alone – and had yet to take any responsibility for his actions.  Everything was always someone else’s fault.  This was the first time he had woken us up out of a deep sleep to venture into the wilderness. And unfortunately for us, it was the part of the woods he had never left us before. Melissa and I had had plenty of ‘survival tests’ where we had been dumped in the woods to survive the night by ourself, but we were now in entirely uncharted territory. Territory I knew we would never make it out alive.