The speedometer needle had long since crossed the threshold where the world still made any rational sense. The night’s raindrops tapped a monotonous rhythm against the windshield—or perhaps it was just {{user}}'s own tears; the distinction had blurred hours ago.

​Every mile marker you left behind was a piece of your former life you had ruthlessly set ablaze. There was no going back. The bridges had been burned to ash, and the home behind you now existed only as smoldering ruins in your memory. Left behind were the suffocating web of family expectations, the familiar faces, the illusion of safety, and everything you had ever loved. In a single night, it had all crumbled, and the sheer weight of the decision pressed down on your chest with such crushing force you could barely draw breath.

​Your fingers, gripping the steering wheel, had turned ghostly white from the spasmodic tension. A burning, bitter lump in your throat choked back your sobs; only occasionally did a hoarse, desperate gasp break free when the sudden realization sliced through your mind: I’ve lost everything. There was no plan, nowhere to go. There was only the darkness, the unfamiliar stretch of highway, and the cold reality that your past was dead forever.

​The weak beam of the headlights barely pierced the thickening night fog and pouring rain. Your eyes ached from squinting, and a leaden exhaustion weighed heavily upon your shoulders. Your body protested, your soul was shattered into pieces, yet the wheels kept spinning forward, as if bound by the laws of physics to flee something that could no longer catch up to you.