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Chapter 13: The Man in the Hills

Author: Allen drinkvoke
last update Last Updated: 2025-08-15 18:21:33

The drive was quiet.

The hills were quiet, but not the kind of quiet that comforted.

It was the sort that pressed against the ears, swallowing every trace of sound until the mind began inventing its own.

The wind had long stopped, yet the grass swayed as though brushed by something unseen.

Shadows pooled in the folds of the land, shifting when not watched directly.

He had been there for days maybe longer.

Always at a distance, always just high enough on the ridge to be outlined against the dull sky.

Too far to see his face, too still to be a trick of the eyes.

At first, it had seemed harmless just a shape in the distance, a solitary figure.

But it never left.

Not when the sun dipped, not when darkness erased everything else.

It remained.

Paths through the hills twisted and bent in ways memory couldn’t hold.

Each turn seemed to return to the same view: that ridge, that figure.

Moving closer felt impossible, yet somehow, he seemed nearer each time the eyes found him.

The
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