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Speaker 1: Come on, I muttered, tapping the steering wheel nervously. I

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couldn't miss this. This deal was too important. My boss

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had claimed this was a make or break for my employment.

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If I was late to this meeting, I was doomed.

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I pulled out the pocket watch that had been gifted

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to me just this morning, three fifteen p m. The

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meeting was supposed to start in fifteen minutes, and I

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was an entire thirty minutes away. Traffic had been at

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a standstill for what felt like an eternity. The cars

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in front of me hadn't so much as budged in

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the last ten minutes. I gripped the pocket watch tightly,

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subconsciously praying that I'd make it to this meeting. I

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put the watch back in my pocket and pulled out

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my phone, checking the GPS for an alternate route just

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in case. The screen flickered oddly, then refreshed with a

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new found route, a series of some back streets that

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looked like they cut through the city and would get

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me there just on time. It looked tight, but it

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was my only chance by a long shot. However, based

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on the city's layout, it still seemed impossible to make

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on time myy eyed the gridlock ahead of me, my

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stomach clenched with frustration. I had to take the risk.

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I turned off the highway, and as soon as I did,

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the drivers behind me started honking their horns angrily. Honestly,

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I felt a little stupid, hoping that making it on

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time was possible. I drove down the suggested exit and

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saw that I was the only one doing so. The

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exit led me towards a section of the city I

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had never been to. I went through a narrow street

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lined with old brick buildings, looking much older than the

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modern infrastructure that made up most of the city. The

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road was oddly quiet. It was the middle of the day,

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and as far as I was aware, this part of

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town wasn't known for being busy. I was making good time,

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but I couldn't get the nagging question of why no

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other drivers were taking this route. The streets around me

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were entirely desolate. The road ahead of me looked endless,

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an empty street littered with trash and moss. It looked

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entirely abandoned. It felt like I was all alone. The

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five minutes I drove felt excruciating, every second passing making

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me more and more nervous. My phone buzzed something about

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losing the GPS signal. I looked down, frowning. The blue

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dot was frozen on the map. I smacked my phone

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in a cartoonish attempt to make it work again, and

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glenns that the buildings at either side of me had

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the road been getting narrower. These back streets were like

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a maze, one narrow alley stretching for miles, and branching

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paths that looked almost too tight for even a person

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to squeeze through, let alone a car. I drove a

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little farther until I realized that my suspicion was correct.

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The road was getting narrower, so narrow that it was

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getting almost too tight for my car. I cursed under

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my breath. The alley continued, stretching into the distance between towering,

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dirty brown and gray buildings. I still couldn't see where

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they ended. The pure vastness of this abandoned section of

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the town made me wonder how I'd never heard of

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it before. At this point, I had already given up

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and making it to the meeting in time. The alley

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was getting so narrow that I could hear a slight

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graping noise as my wing mirror clashed with the rough

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surface of the buildings to my sides. I reversed ever

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so slightly, just enough to be able to get out

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of the car and planned on surveying the road ahead

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of me. I turned the engine off, let out a

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heavy sigh, and stepped out of my car. The moment

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my shoes hid the ground below me, I regretted it.

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The entire alley felt wrong. The air was heavy and moist.

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It smelt like rust, mildew, and something I couldn't recognize.

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The light above me seemed to dim ever so slightly.

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There were no clouds in the sky, just the suffocating

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weight of the buildings crowding in on me on either side.

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The road ahead did indeed get significantly narrower, so I

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trudged forward. My car clearly could not pass any further,

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so I planned on finding the nearest business or anything helpful.

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I pulled my phone out to try to check the signal. Nothing.

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My phone was useless and the GPS app was still

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in the exact location where it had lost service. I

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stuffed it back in my pocket and decided to keep walking.

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I could now see more details of the roads themselves.

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The walls of the buildings were stained with aged graffiti,

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and trash piled up in every corner. The strange thing

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was that all the packaging was faded, as if it

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had been there for quite some time. All the windows

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were either boarded up or cracked. Rats scurried between the

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heaps of trash, and the air took in an oppressive

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smell of decay, increasing in intensity the further I walked.

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Each footstep I made created a sickening echo through the streets.

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The weight of my situation was finally sinking in. I

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was going to lose my job, which made every single

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step I took heavier than the last. I would be

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lying if I said I wasn't already getting concerned. The

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frustration of the roadblock was fading away, and he was

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getting replaced with my fear for my future. This was

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my best paying job ever, and I was unsure where

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to go. I pulled the old pocket watch out again,

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the one my wife Alexis had given me for good luck.

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She told me with a smile. It had been her grandfather's.

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She claimed her family heirloom of swords. Her grandfather told

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us stories of it, granting wishes and attributing it to

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his success in life, passed down through generations for god

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knows how long, and she had insisted that I'd take

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it with me to this meeting. She said her father

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gave it to her after he heard his leg in

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an accident, saying he can't run like he used to before,

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which she always thought was an odd reason, maybe an

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inside joke. I left it off initially and pocketed it,

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mostly out of respect. I didn't have much belief in

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things like wishes. I mean, just a few moments prior

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I had wished to arrive at the meeting, and now

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here I was. But now I felt the weight of

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the watch in my hand, a little heavier than I

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remember it being. I flipped the watch open. Its face

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cracked and the hands were frozen. Three twenty six p m.

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It had been working earlier, I was sure of it.

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With a heavy sigh, I slipped the watch back into

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my pocket and continued walking. I glanced back and noticed

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that my car was now entirely out of sight. Given

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the road straight nature, that was impossible. I could only

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imagine that the road had a slight curve to it,

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so slight that it was barely noticeable on foot. I

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turned around and started walking back the way I came,

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determined to check if my suspicions were correct. What I

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did not expect was that I would end up walking

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for what felt like another while with no car in sight.

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Then I came to a fork in the road. The

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alley twisted into two paths. I was sure I hadn't

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seen a split in the road on my journey. I

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might have been too lost in my own thoughts about

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how screwed I was now that I wasn't making it

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to the meeting, so I assumed I just walked forward

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without looking at my surroundings. I went left, choosing what

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I felt was right and hoped I was correct. As

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I continued walking, my sense of time was getting distorted,

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so it wasn't sure how long I walked. The alley

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wasn't as straight as I thought it was looking in

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the distance. It winded and curved without any real sense

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of direction. The buildings looked decrepid, dirty walls, cracked pavement.

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All the buildings blended together so much that I started

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to feel like I was walking in circles. Yeah, I

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kept going, telling myself the road would lead somewhere. Eventually

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I glanced over at the countless buildings that surrounded me.

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I hadn't seen any sign or markings of a business,

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not even a restaurant or a bar. The buildings looked

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entirely deserted, and if they did, for some reason, house someone,

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I did not want to take my chances and the

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kind of company they'd hold. I continued on, but the

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road just stretched, the shadows grew darker, and the alley

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ever narrower. A while longer, I stopped to catch my breath.

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I wasn't the most athletic person, but surely I covered

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quite some distance during this time. This wasn't right at all.

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Nothing was by now. I should have made it to

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my car, or at this point, to the other side

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of the damned city. At least the sun should have

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been high up in the sky, But instead it was

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getting darker, as if twilight came early. The buildings overhead

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pressed ever so slightly closer. It felt like I was

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in a dream, another world, one that was shrinking and

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closing in around me. I rechecked my phone out of desperation,

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dead I couldn't even make a call. I took a

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deep breath in an attempt to keep calm. I had

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gotten near of my mine, my own accord, so there

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had to be a way out. I'd crossed so much

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distance that this couldn't just be an abandoned street or block.

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It felt like I was in an abandoned city that

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geologically shouldn't exist. I knew roughly where I was turning

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off when I took that exit. This place shouldn't be here.

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I decided to make the Ardus trip to retrace my steps.

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I planned to go back to the first fork in

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the road and turn right this time, and hope it

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led me to my car. I begrudgingly headed back the

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way I came, and again the path was not the same.

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I was sure there had been no other forks or

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turns on the main road I was on, But instead

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of the curving alley I'd walked so long gone, there

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were now three different directions ahead of me, none of

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which wh looked even remotely familiar. My heart started raising.

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I turned in a slow circle as panic set in.

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I picked a direction at random and started walking faster,

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almost running. My shoes hid the concrete with a sound

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that reverberated all around me. But the alley stretched on

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longer than before. Each step I made seemed to make

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my surroundings more clauslophobic, and everything twisted and turned in

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ways that made no sense. I had no idea how

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long I moved like this, minutes, maybe hours. My legs

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ached and my throat was dry. I stopped checking my

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watch on my phone. The time was always frozen at

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three twenty six. Anyway, my head was pounding, and a

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sense of dread gnawed at me from the inside. The

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dark alley around me felt alive. That is the only

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way I can possibly describe it. The walls seemed to

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shift on I wasn't looking. The turns multiplied and appeared

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more frequently. The road was now diverging in paths. Unlike before,

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I no longer had a straight and narrow road ahead

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of me, but a path that criss crossed and intersected

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within itself, leading me deeper and deeper into whatever I

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had been led toward. I could feel it in the air,

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a primal instinct. This wasn't just some maze of back streets.

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I started jogging, then running. I figured I couldn't go

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on forever and wanted to be out as soon as possible.

200
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But the quicker I moved, the more disoriented I became.

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The alley bent in such strange ways that it sent

202
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me spiraling. I tumbled to the ground as everything became

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perfectly quiet, devoid of my echoing footsteps. I kept telling

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myself I should have been now by now, but every

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turn led me to a dead end or another unfamiliar

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stretch of streets. My breath became ragged, quick gasps, and

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I had to stop for a moment. I stood up

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and pressed my hands to my knees in an attempt

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to recompose. That's when I heard it, the faintest of

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sounds somewhere behind me, a soft shuffle amidst the silence.

211
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I stood up straight, and my heart thrumbed in my chest.

212
00:14:36,679 --> 00:14:40,679
I looked behind me. There was nothing but an empty path.

213
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My mind raised, but then it came again, from somewhere closer.

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00:14:46,200 --> 00:14:50,480
This time I worked out that the sound had to

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be coming from the turn ahead of me. Deep down,

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I hope some other person had gotten lost there too,

217
00:14:57,080 --> 00:15:00,279
possibly led astray by their GPS, and was now in

218
00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:03,799
the same situation I was in. I know it sounds

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00:15:03,799 --> 00:15:07,399
malicious to wish someone into my dire circumstance, but at

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least it meant I wouldn't be alone in this I

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slowly made my way forward, hoping not to scare whoever

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00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:20,240
was approaching. God knows I had hated if someone sped

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towards me or riddled with anxiety from this place. The

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shuffling persisted, undeterred by my approach. It sounded like whoever

225
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was around the corner was so exhausted that they were

226
00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:37,600
dragging their feet on the ground. I called out to them,

227
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telling them that I was friendly and asking if they

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were also lost like me, and that we should look

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for a way out together. I received no response. In fact,

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as soon as I spoke, the sound of shufflings ceased entirely.

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They must have been hesitant, understandably so, so I hoped

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that approaching in a calm manner would settle them. So

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I gently neared the turn. Just as I was about

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to reach the corner, they seemed to have beaten me

235
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to it, for what came round spiked my adrenaline so

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hard that I span in the spot and sprinted away

237
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so fast I thought I was leaving burn marks on

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the floor. All I saw was its hand, a gaunt,

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elongated for simile of a human hand. The proportions exaggerated

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in away that told me that whatever was about to

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turn the corner was dangerous. Just seeing the hand was

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enough for a primal part of my brain to tell

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me a predator was about to turn the corner, and

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I was its natural prey. The echoing of my footsteps

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was no longer the only noise in this decrepit place.

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The air was thick and heavy, as if I were

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running through water. I could hear the shuffling behind me

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faster and irrationally persistent. I didn't dare look back. I

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just ran. My lungs burned and my legs screamed in protest.

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Each turn I made, the shuffling behind me stayed ever close.

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The echoing surroundings made it hard to determine how close

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it was, which pushed me to keep up a pace

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that was too much for me. I knew I would

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slow soon, but I forced myself to delay that as

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much as my body would allow. I took turns at random,

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having no time to deduce her choice and knowing that

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the alleys layout had no logic, But somehow I still

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managed to make the wrong choice. I took a blind

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turn and hit a dead end. The light from the

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gaps between the buildings highlighted my doom. I heard the

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shuffling behind me near the turn. It was too close

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to back track. In a matter of seconds it would

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be upon me, and even thinking about what that meant

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was painful enough. I ran to one of the gaps

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between the buildings. I had stuck to the streets and

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the lovecraftying logic, so God knows what squeezing between the

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buildings would lead to. And squeeze it was. I doubted

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I could even fit in, but I pushed myself in

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and force my way through. The shuffling went straight for

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the gap, but luckily it had the same issue as me,

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and it slid into the gap to shuffle towards me.

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The gap narrowed the further I got in. I moved

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my head, but soon had to commit to a direction.

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A wash of more pid curiosity came over me, and

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I took a quick glimpse back. That was enough for

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me to keep my head looking forward for the remainder

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of the way. It had all the limbs of a human,

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but the proportions were all wrong. Its arms were almost

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the entire length of its height, which must have been

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nearly seven foot tall. Despite being further back, its closest

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arm reached out towards me, not helping it move, just

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hovering in my direction, its fingers twitching like it was

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ready to grab me the moment I was within range.

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Its other hand dragged on the floor behind it, creating

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a familiar shuffling sound. Its skin looked like it had

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a rough texture and was pale in color. It sounded

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abrasive on the walls pressing on us, resistant to any

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of the pointy defects of the cheap bricks that made

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up these buildings. A luxury, I did not have even

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the smallest bumps in the walls dug into me, cutting

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into my suit and sometimes my skin. But I could

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not dwell on the mind panes when a major threat

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was slowly closing in on me. The pursuit continued. As

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I finally wiggled my way to the other side. I

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had to get back to safety, but I was completely

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and utterly lost. Using the gaps of the buildings was

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a new idea, so I tried to keep up that

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creative pattern. I had not tried entering any of the

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buildings yet. I boked it for the building nearest to

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me and attempted to force the door open. I could

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hear the rabid thing behind me squeezing itself between the

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same path I had just come from, putting solid concrete

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between us. Sounded like a bastion of safety, but the

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door refused the budge. The humanoid figure finally exited the

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tight space with a sickening pop. Adrenaline kicked back in,

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and I was already in a full sprint. Above my

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thumping footsteps and the shuffling in pursuit, I realized there

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was another sound, a ticking sound. It was faint, barely audible,

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but it was there, arrhythmic, soft ticking. I yanked the

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watch once more and stared at the cracked face. The

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clock hands were moving in a strange way. It read

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two eleven, all hands pointing in the same direction. I

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turned the watch, thinking it might have been broken in

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the tight squeeze, and the hands all turned in unison.

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It wasn't telling me the time. It was telling me

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a direction akin to that of a compass. I continued running,

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and the watch adjusted as I made my movements. It

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was guiding me, trying to tell me something As I

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ran in a single direction, the ticking of the watch

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started getting more frantic, and the sound of the shuffling

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returned to reach a crescendo. I hurried my pace with

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a last of my strength, but was no longer running blindly.

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I let the soft, steady rhythm guide me through the

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maze of the alleyways, a sick game of hot and cold.

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The creature was still behind me, its shuffling echoed in

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the darkness, but I didn't stop. I couldn't. Eventually I

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saw it, a faint red car in the distance, my car.

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It was still parked in the same spot where I

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had left it, as if nothing had happened. The moment

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I saw it, the pocket watch's rhythmic ticks turned wild,

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and the creature's pace quickened all over. The senses seemed

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to flee my mind, and my sole focus was on

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running as fast as I could. I reached the car,

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fumbling with the keys with shaking hands. The thing was

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so close now that I could almost feel its damp

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breath on the back of my neck. I shoved the

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key to the lock, through the door open and chumped inside.

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I slammed the door shut as the creature reached me.

339
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The vehicle shook as the beast collided with it, and

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I closed my eyes in an attempt to at least

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grant myself the privilege of not looking at that thing again.

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For a moment, everything went perfectly silent. I sat there

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in disbelief, my breathing still rapid from the long sprint

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I had to maintain. The heavy breathing must have been

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too much for me, or the panic finally set in

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because I passed out. When I woke up, I was

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parked in my spot at the office building's parking space.

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I checked my phone out of habit and saw the

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time three twenty eight p m. Two minutes before my meeting.

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Seeing I was on time for the meeting overtook the

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shock of remembering my phone had died. I cried to

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my posture. As I raised myself up, I didn't waste

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any time. I pushed the car door open and headed

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towards the meeting room. I still don't quite know what

355
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happened or how I got out, but I knew the

356
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:27,839
watch was connected to it. I distinctly remember holding it

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while stuck in traffic and wishing I could make it

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to the meeting in time, and lo and behold, I did.

359
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I've been back on the same freeway I was stuck

360
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on before the meeting, and there isn't an exit where

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I remembered turning off the road. I pulled over in

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a lay by, and no matter how many times I checked,

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there was no alternative roots from that spot. It seemed

364
00:24:55,599 --> 00:24:59,200
my wish had come true, as my grandfather in law

365
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,799
had told my wife, but it came at the cost

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of this chase. And now it finally made sense why

367
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:14,720
it was passed unto her when her father hurt his

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leg