Objects in the Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are

He hadn’t driven in years. Not since the accident. Not since the road outside Tallahassee took something from him he could never get back. But here he was, behind the wheel of his father’s old Monte Carlo, gripping cracked leather and staring down a dashboard soaked in the ghosts of ash and sweat.

The engine turned over like it had been waiting.

The rearview mirror shook. Probably just loose. Probably.

He drove west into the sunset. The sky was loud with color, but the road stayed quiet. Too quiet. He passed the same Shell station again. And again, a few minutes later.

“Great,” he muttered. “Here we go.”

Looping. Or dreaming. Or slipping. He hadn't slept much. Not since Lisa disappeared.

Not died. Disappeared. That’s what he always said. The cops found him in the wreck, bloodied but alive. No Lisa. Just a red hairclip and his own screaming. They said she’d been thrown clear. Probably wandered off. Probably dead.

But she’d been whispering to him lately. Late at night, near his left ear. That familiar voice. “Daddy.” Soft and small and wrong.

Now this road.

He glanced in the mirror.

Nothing.

Then, a shape.

Far off, walking. Limping. No face he could make out, just a figure, steady and slow.

He blinked. Gone.

The mirror read:
OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.

He pressed the gas. The car responded like it remembered what it was. He sped past trees and empty mile markers, but nothing changed. The world stayed still. Like he was driving through a photograph.

The figure was back. Closer now. Still walking.

No face. Just folds where a mouth might be. Moving.

He adjusted the mirror.

Lisa.

Pale skin. Blood-caked hair. Her eyes were wrong. Flat. Empty.

“You left me,” she said.

He turned. No one in the back seat. No car seat. No toys. No voice.

Back to the mirror. Not Lisa now. Just a shape. Like a hole punched in the air.

The car stalled.

Silence.

Then static.

The radio came alive, though he hadn’t touched it.
“Turn around, Daddy.”

He opened the door. His breath came sharp and quick. He wasn’t going to die in this loop, hunted by memory and something worse.

But the road behind him was gone.

In its place: a corridor. Too bright. White walls. Flickering lights. A hospital, maybe. Or something that remembered one.

He backed into the car.

The keys were missing.

The mirror was cracked.

Through the fractured glass, he saw her.

Lisa. Not as he remembered. Older. Wrong.

She stared at him through the mirror.

“You keep looking forward, Daddy. But some things only live in the rearview.”

She reached through the glass. Not a trick of reflection. Not a dream.

He screamed.

The Monte Carlo didn’t move. The road didn’t change. And the mirror kept flashing the same warning:

Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.

But this one wasn’t just close.

This one was already here.

Not everything stays behind you. Some things wait. Some things follow. And some—never really left.