The Forgotten Stop

I was 16, driving cross-country with my mom and 20-year-old sister. It was late, but we were wide awake after hours on the road. Somewhere deep in the empty heart of the interstate, we needed gas and a bathroom break, so we pulled into the only rest stop for the next 200 miles—a lonely, dimly lit gas station surrounded by nothing but endless darkness.

A beat-up van full of rowdy teenagers was parked at one pump, and in front of us, a small, gray car sat silently. Two men stood outside it—still, rigid, and unnervingly silent. They didn’t talk, didn’t move—just...stood there.

The place felt wrong immediately. We’d stopped at plenty of remote rest stops before, but this one had a suffocating sense of unease, like we were trespassing somewhere we weren’t supposed to be.

While my mom and sister went inside, I stayed in the car, keeping an eye on the two men. They never spoke, never even shifted. Their stillness felt unnatural, like they were frozen in place. Suddenly, I heard the teenagers at the other pump arguing about something. Their voices were tense, sharp. Then, they piled back into their van, speeding off like they couldn’t leave fast enough.

Minutes crawled by. My eyes stayed fixed on the two men. They were statues—silent, expressionless, utterly still. Then, my mom and sister burst from the gas station, sprinting toward the car with panicked eyes.

“Drive. Now,” my mom hissed as they jumped in.

As I shifted into gear, the two men turned to face us. Not their bodies—just their heads, twisting in an unnatural, mechanical motion. We all saw it at once—their eyes.

Or the lack of them.

No pupils, no sclera—just hollow, endless voids, darker than night itself. Not reflective, not glowing—just... nothing. A complete absence of light and life.

My sister screamed as I floored the gas pedal, tires screeching as we sped into the night, leaving the gas station—and whatever those things were—far behind.

We didn’t stop driving until we reached the next city hours later. Shaking, we tried to make sense of it, convinced we’d find some logical explanation. We pulled up maps, traced every inch of the interstate...but the gas station wasn’t there. Not on Google Maps. Not on paper maps. Nowhere.

We even asked locals, describing the strange, isolated rest stop—but they just stared at us, confused. According to them, there had never been a gas station on that stretch of road.

To this day, we’ve driven that same interstate several times—and there’s still...nothing.

Whatever we saw that night... it wasn’t meant to be found again.