I’ve been driving for four hours to be alone, but the man in my backseat won’t stop clicking his pen.

I’ve been driving for four long hours and haven’t seen a single pair of headlights. I should be happy, but a sinking part of me knows something’s wrong.

That’s what I wanted when I quit my job and deleted my socials—to finally be alone. Alone in a world that refused to allow it. But when I peered into the rearview mirror, a man with a clipboard was sitting in my backseat.

I slammed the brakes, bringing the car to a grinding halt. Nausea washed over me as I crashed forward in my seat. But in that split second— before everything went dark—the man in the car didn’t move. It was as if some ungodly force held him in place.

When I came to, the world was a vibrating mess of doubles. Two steering wheels. Two flickering dashboards. I tried to swallow the metallic sting of blood in my throat. And my tongue tasted of copper pennies. Then the world came into focus.

“Have you ever heard of Christopher McCandless?”

Came a voice from the back. It sounded clipped, professional, and didn’t wait for an answer.

“He thought he could escape the scourge, too. Drove further than you did. All the way to the Alaskan brush, in fact.”

I heard the scritch of his pen—a dry, rhythmic sound that cut through the ringing in my ears.

“You see, he didn’t die of starvation, George. That was the official story. In fact, he never died. You are welcome to go see him. With my permission, of course.”

“Look, Mr…” I choked.

“The name is Davenport,” he interrupted. The voice was flat, completely devoid of warmth. “Names are just labels for assets, George. Assets, which mean something to someone, somewhere. You gave yours no meaning. But don’t worry, I’m here to give it a new meaning. By taking it for myself.”

A week ago, I wasn’t some “unclaimed asset.” I was just a ghost in a polyester vest. I spent my days navigating the university—a concrete hive of twenty thousand students whose voices blurred into a constant, sickening drone.

Outside of college, I was a pair of hands for a retail giant. An in-store shopper, a human cursor moving through aisles of fluorescent hum and floor-wax, picking out items for people too lazy to fetch them for themselves. I didn’t see people anymore; I only saw a maze of unpredictable variables, beings that, by their very nature, could disrupt my peace in a moment’s notice.

My worst fears were confirmed on a Tuesday. I was scanning a third-choice substitute for a brand of organic milk when a man cornered me. He didn’t ask for help; he just barked at me, his face a mottled, angry purple, screaming about a missing coupon as if I had personally stolen it from his pocket. I stood there, watching globs of spit fly from his lips like meteors, and I realized I didn’t hate him—I hated the fact that he was allowed to exist in my space at all. Period.

I didn’t argue. I didn’t even put the milk down. I simply walked toward the automatic doors, left my scanner on a shelf of discounted cereal, and stepped out into the rain.

I was tired of being a witness in a blind world. A passenger in my own life. I was just done.

“So, you want to be alone, right?” Mr. Davenport said in the back of my car.

I gripped the wheel, my hands trembling. “I just wanted peace. I just wanted them to go away.”

“They never went away, George,” Davenport whispered. I heard the scritch of his pen, louder now, like it was writing directly onto the back of my skull. “You just stopped paying attention.”

He leaned forward, his grey sleeve brushing my shoulder. “But don’t worry. I’m here to wake you up!”

He reached over and flipped the high beams on.

The blackness didn’t just break; it shattered like glass. The highway was gone. The trees were gone. I was sitting in my stationary car in the middle of a crowded, sun-drenched terminal. Thousands of people—the scourge of the Earth—swarmed around my vehicle, faces pressed against the glass, voices muffled in a deafening roar of raw, unpredictable life.

“You’ve been truant from the human race for too long, George,” Davenport said, clicking his pen with a final, metallic snap. “Your private life has been seized. From now on, you are public property.”

I started to scream, to hide my face, but I realized my hands weren’t moving. Nothing was moving. I wasn’t a man anymore. I was a statue. A permanent fixture in the middle of the crowd I hated, forced to watch every face, hear every breath, and feel every brush of skin I avoided for so long, against the cold metal of my cage until the end of time.

I used to fear the end; now I realize the true horror isn’t that life stops, but that the paperwork never does. I write this because he commands it. I move because he commands it. Find your purpose— or he’ll find you.