That’s when I saw them: three fence posts, each leaning the same direction, each marked with a single red finger of paint. A local code, maybe. Or a warning.

The rain had turned the dirt road to soup by the time I realized my mistake.

That was the . Not a full hand’s worth of error, not a single missed road, but that deceptively small miscalculation—the kind you make when you’re sure you’ve counted correctly, when confidence outruns caution.

So I took what my gut said was the third left.

Three miles later, the trees closed in. The GPS spun its little wheel of futility. And the road, once gravel, then mud, then just two tire tracks through wet leaves, gave out entirely.

I killed the engine. Somewhere in the dark, an owl laughed.