Highway II

By the seventeenth hour they were impatient, agitated, and on the verge of collapsing. The city's buildings didn't increase in size at all, and the sun didn't either. The clouds stayed in the same relative position, and we had passed the same patch of cacti formations at least twenty times.

 "Goddammit. Goddammit. I have to stop. I have to stop. Hold on, let me rest. Goddammit."

The professor dropped to the pavement. The pavement began to burn him. He screamed and rolled onto the sand. He was crying in pain. We picked him up and held him up.

Our feet were no longer on the path. The path disappeared, and so did the city. The journalist yelled and kicked sand. I helped the professor up.

"This isn't good." I said simply.

"Oh no, it's grand! We're lost in an eldritch sandlot with nowhere to go- seems great to me!"

The journalist wandered off behind the cacti formation to take a piss. I dusted off the hot bits of sand on the professor. He muttered a thank you. He asked for water. I told him we didn't have any.

The journalist came back. He looked panicked.

"There's something stuck inside of the cacti."

I left the professor so he can rest, and I followed the journalist to the cacti. He pointed to the center of the mounds of it. I saw nothing.

"It's still... moving..." He whispered.

"What are you pointing at?"

"There! Don't you see it!? It's so ugly! The blood alone... fuck! Christ, look!"

"I see nothing."

He grabbed me.

"You're lying."

"No I'm not. There's nothing there."

"Im...impossible..."

His grip loosened. I removed his hands from my shirt.

"I don't disbelieve you. I just don't see the creature. There very well might be something there. No matter what, the realm is playing us. We need to keep moving. Sitting still solves nothing."

"But it's... right there, it's-"

He looked back over to the cacti. He seemed confused.

"Not there anymore?"

"Not there anymore."

We grabbed the professor and prepared to venture into the open desert. However, the highway appeared once again, as if it never disappeared in the first place. The city was once again in the horizon, and we continued towards it.