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#One Road Forward
//Andrew Klobucar//
(button:)[[Start Here->One Road Forward]]###Where it all began
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Virgil had barely turned 26 that year, that month when it all happened
But here he was: a pretty successful financial analyst from Philadelphia, gripping the steering wheel of his old Toyata speeding with his four best friends, Phillie in the rearview mirror, just slipping into the bottom of Jersey to try and make the Holland Tunnel by sunrise.
When did he get the damned car? Must have been in 2026, giving it a full decade of the same drive he was making now. Only this time, he'd managed to get his four best friends to try it out with him. He made a quick decision then and there. It was time to get something that said it was 2035, not the 20s, at least. And life had changed pretty quickly for him.
He had picked them up Philly and after a pretty wild night with probably a few too many Manhattan martinis of his own to manage, he sped along the highway to the city.
He figured they'd get there soon enough. 3am gave them little traffic to deal with. Probably two hours and Manhattan would start to appear just as the sun was coming up. He looked forward to the view being promised. He wanted to make it look like he had planned the whole drive to get the view.
He pushed the accelerator down and sped the pace up. The highway was still rain-slick from a recent storm, he guess, and the Toyota swerved a bit. [[Chuck laughed and shouted.]]
<audio src="audio/sound_fx_Car_Skid_Tire_Squeal.mp3" autoplay>"Whoah Mr. Brooklyn - take it easy there!"
Yeah... take it easy. Not him.
Chuck laughed again but this time he was shouting at Wardy. Everyone was still ribbing him about his failed attempt to pick up that married woman. Her husband had been pretty close to punching his teeth out. [[Virgil lightly pressed his foot on the brakes->reduced speed]], the slowing pace of the car contrasting the rowdiness of his passengers.The neon lights of Philly faded in his rearview mirror, a technicolor blur against the night sky. His mind raced faster than his car, replaying the argument with his boss, the looming deadline, the suffocating pressure of his high-stakes career.
He barely registered the "Reduce Speed Ahead" sign as he merged onto the winding road leading upstate. The rhythmic swish of windshield wipers kept time with his racing heart.
Virgil reached for his phone, desperate for a distraction, when [[suddenly—->time slows]]
<audio src="audio/sound_fx_Car_Approach_LongSkid_Big_Crash.mp3" autoplay>Time slowed to a crawl, conected in a moment of mutual terror. Virgil jerked the wheel, tires screeching in protest. The world spun, a kaleidoscope of headlights and rain and fear.
The impact was deafening. Metal crumpled like paper. The airbag exploded in Virgil's face, filling his nostrils with the acrid smell of burning plastic. Glass shattered, raining down on him like diamond shards. Pain erupted everywhere at once—his legs crushed against the mangled dashboard, ribs screaming in agony, warm blood trickling down his face.
As the car came to rest on its side, Virgil hung suspended by his seatbelt, the world tilted at an impossible angle. Through the shattered windshield, he could see the crumpled form of the deer lying motionless on the asphalt. Its eyes, once so alive with fear, now stared blankly at the starless sky.
[[An emptiness fell around him, a sense of solemness.->crash]]Virgil opened his eyes.
Harsh fluorescent lights assaulted his senses. A strange smell of disinfectant replaced the earthy scent of rain and crushed vegetation. A steady beeping kept time with his heart. He was alive.
As the fog of unconsciousness lifted, the memory of that moment of connection lingered. Something had shifted within him. in how he perceived his place in the world. But what did it mean? And how would it shape his life moving forward?
Virgil was afraid of closing his eyes again, took a deep breath, and realized he stood at a crossroads. The path ahead was unclear, but he knew with certainty that he could never return to the life he had led before.
Virgil chose to remain silent about his experience, deciding to meditate. (click-append: "meditate")[. He was actually trying not black out completely from panic, but somewhere in his mind, as the panic subsided, he began to imagine] and further explore this new connection to nature before making any decisions.
Later, as the days passed in the hospital (replace: "hospital")[driver's seat of what was left of his car, or at least what seemed to be days, minutes after the car crash! He was sure in his delerium that he was somehow going to survive via an imaginary hospital.] Virgil's memories began to blur.
He looked outside the room's window. (click-append:"window.")[ The head-splitting scraped glass torn up, shattered over his car.]
In his mind, recalled the doctor's visits beginning to seem less frequent, and the pain medication was wearing off. Virgil retreated into himself.
What had felt like long and quiet hours of night, when the hospital corridors he remained convinced were behind his own car door fell silent, Virgil closed his eyes and focused on his (link:"breathing.")[breathing, a strange, almost profound sense of unity he'd experienced in those fleeting moments before losing consciousness. With each measured inhale and exhale, he sought to recapture that feeling.]
The hospital around him finally disappeared. New sounds began to wash over him, forming, shaping distinctly into moaning and muffled screams of his friends incorporating them into his expanding awareness rather than fighting against them. [Do you want to hear them?] (link-rerun:"Hear the sounds now.")[ They are right below you at the bottom of the page and then you're going to have to make a very important decision concerning how this story continues...]
####(text-colour:cyan)[Choose a number to continue the story]
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(button:)[[Choose 1->The Hospital Vision]]
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(text-colour:cyan)[Find out how his imaginary hospital really affected him. researching ways to align his life and career with his new ecological awareness.]
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(button:)[[Choose 2->His panic returns]]
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(text-colour:cyan)[He can't help but jump out of his car to find more help, even if it means the death of his friends.
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[[<img src="assets/images/entanglement.jpg" width="450" height="450"->Vision]]
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Virgil could not help but feel that the hospital vision had a purpose.
Somewhere off in the distance he thought he could hear the approach of an ambulance yet it seemed to pass quickly. Was help coming? Would the other cars see the damage?
He had survived
This realization brought more than relief. A new sense of life as its own force coursed through his own healing body—cells regenerating, bones knitting, tissues mending. He could feel it.
He could feel all of it.
And then there were is friends as well. Their pain. Shock. Their very lives transformed with immense suffering because of his own actions; he breathed in, focused on the moments. He began to imagine their hearts beating in time with his own rhythm.
Tears streamed down Virgil's face as the magnitude of this realization washed over him. He understood now that his actions—every choice, every word, every thought—would affect how this chaos must end. Even simply calling 911 seemed hollow and misguided. His phone was probably lost in the fire. That must have been the purpose of the ambulance sound.
Could this energy of his nodal place help him save and transform the lives of everyone he knew?
If he was a source of suffering, he was also the source of healing, a single a node in a small, pulsating network of life. He had role. Every node in every network worked only to sustain it. All of it connected somehow, all of it, a vital part of a greater whole.
<audio src="audio/NLF5_Keys_Long_Dbm.wav" autoplay>As Virgil's footsteps echo in the night, his mind wanders back to the events that led him to this lonely stretch of New Jersey highway at 3 AM.
He had been driving home from a friend's wedding in Atlantic City. The celebration had been joyous, but for Virgil, it stirred up complex emotions. At 35, he was the last in his circle of friends to remain single. The bouquet toss, the clinking glasses, the first dance - each moment had been a bittersweet reminder of his own solitude.
Virgil had left the reception early, unable to shake a growing sense of unease. He wasn't just driving away from a party; he was fleeing from the growing pressure of societal expectations and his own unfulfilled dreams.
As he walks, Virgil realizes that his crash wasn't just an accident - it was the culmination of years of pent-up frustration and fear. He had been speeding, his mind clouded by a cocktail of emotions and one too many glasses of champagne. The crash, in a way, was a physical manifestation of the collision between his current reality and his long-held aspirations.
Now, as the cool night air sobers his thoughts, Virgil begins his solitary walk, he thinks about the issues that had been bothering him:
1. [[His stagnating career]] - a job he once loved but now feels trapped in.
2. [[His fear of commitment]], which has sabotaged every promising relationship he's had.
3. [[The novel he's been "writing"]] for the past decade but hasn't progressed beyond the first chapter.
4. [[His strained relationship with his parents]], who struggle to understand his life choices.
Each step on the dark highway becomes a step through the landscape of his life. Virgil realizes that finding help for his car is just the beginning. The real journey - the one he's been avoiding - is finding a way to reconcile his dreams with his reality.
As he spots a glimmer of light in the distance, possibly a service station, Virgil feels a mix of relief and apprehension. He's about to reenter the world, but will he do so as the same person who left the wedding, or as someone ready to guide himself through the next phase of his life?
[[A new beginning]]
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<script src="libraries/tree.js" defer></script>Trying to explain this feeling even to himself about being a source of healing was strangely difficult. Something was blocking it from being sensible, describable.
He closed his eyes. The same image appeared.
look here: [[Immediate Sharing]] for anyone.
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<audio src="audio/NLF5_Keys_Long_Dbm.wav" autoplay>Virgil knew that his passion laid in numbers, enthralled with the way they formed patterns and provided reason throughout the world. He knew that he wanted to be a mathematician and stand among the greats he admired as soon as he picked up his first exam. Later, he realized that with his passion, he could become rich using his talents in finance..
Studying finance in college only amplified his desire for more. The thrill of acing exams, presenting models, and the compliments from professors only encouraged him to do more.
More modules.
More solutions.
More success.
Fresh after college, Virgil's fire was still burning strong. He found a job at a respected firm and he thought his dreams were within reach. As a low level financial analyst , he knew that his work wouldn't be groundbreaking, but he had hope that he would one day climb the corporate ladder to be the innovator he desired.
Nearly a decade later however, the flame resembled a candle, flickering dimly with each gust of wind sent his way. He had barely climbed up the ladder, the achievement he so greatly desired just out of his grasp. The work he was doing felt trivial, stuck making the same forecasts, same reports, and menial tasks. He felt invisible in the company, another cog in the machine that would ultimately amount to nothing.
It was almost as if he was staring at a insurmountable brick wall.
Above all, he missed the thrill of his passion, not just through having it but living through it. His heart yearned for the days where his passion enthralled him, guided him, and loved him the way he once loved it.
[[Return |His panic returns]]Virgil couldn't help but think back to the stack of papers that littered his desk. His novel was a constant presence, something that he had started nearly a decade ago to capture and channel his passion into words.
He used to write nearly every single day, scribbling notes on any spare sheet of paper he had available. He gathered opinions of friends who enthusiastically praised his work. This novel excited him, a cleawr improvement to his mental health.
Months later, his progress on the novel had effectively halted. His novel was an afterthought as he was swamped with continuous work. What had once been a channel for his passion became a pit.
With every passing day, he thought about coninuing his writing but his work dragged him back.
|nametag1>[The novel called for him.]
(mouseover:?nametag1)[ But something would always come up, stealing his time from ever adding more.]
Eventually, the novel became a poison, a reminder of his constantly busy but stagnating career and a glimpse into a time where he enjoyed where he was. Every empty page was a reminder of his career struggles and failure to follow through. This source of guilt was crushing, each day adding more layers of expectation without the love that it once inspired.
[[Return |His panic returns]]Virgil's relationship with his parents was always complicated. His parents always provided for him, paid for his education, and were a helping hand throughout his life. However, hhe knew that there was an unseen chasm between them that seemed insurmountable.
His father was an electrician that despised the financial sector. To him, honest work was done with the hands rather than mindless remote work that made little to no noticeable difference. His promise to support Virgil no matter his career plan in college had managed to stay strong, but it wasn't without its ups and downs.
He'd sometimes make comments to Virgil's work that would occasionally sting him. His voice was inside his head every time Virgil encountered adversity, telling him to give up and switch to a "meaningful field". This voice was constant, increasing in intensity the moment Virgil had the slightest doubt in his career.
His voice became the sound of criticism and judgement.
His mother was different however. Her pressure wasn't in the form of his career but rather his personal life. Every time she talked to Virgil, she would always ask when he would be getting married or having children. Virgil honestly felt that she was more focused on her potential grandchildren than Virgil himself. It was almost as if his opinion did not matter to her, feeling as if he was obligated to give her grandchildren.
Her voice became a nagging sensation everytime he had a relationship.
[[Return |His panic returns]]As Virgil walks towards the service station, he can't help but reevaluate his life.
[[a new ending]]Virgil looked back at all of his relationships. It wasn't something he was fond of talking about, his reluctance to fully commit to a relationship was like a python, squeezing the air of him. He could never truly let his relationships flourish while being suffocated by his fears.
[His first relationship was a tumultuous one... ]<nametag1|
(click-replace: ?nametag1)[He met his first girlfriend in college, an aspiring writer that had big dreams. She was radiant and supportive of his projects. However, once she started talking about potential long term plans, Virgil grew scared.
He didn't know what to say when she asked to move in together
He didn't know what to say when she asked why he was being so distant
He didn't know what to say when she slammed his door, running out with tears in her eyes.]
[His second relationship wasn't much better]<nametag2|
(click-replace:?nametag2)[Virgil met another girl who had a similar spark for the arts. She was a coworker who had a similar story to him. They worked well together at the office and had several memorable nights spent drinking together. However, the longer they spent together, the more he felt inadequate.
He thought the calm atmosphere was removing the fuel for their inner fires.
Inevitablely, they pushed each other apart and Virgil hasn't seen her in years after she transferred to another location.]
[He couldn't help but think about his current relationship, or rather lack of one]<nametag3|
(click-replace:?nametag3)[He hadn't found a meaning relationship ever since. Sometimes, he would find a girl and they would dance around each other, like moths to a flame. However, once long-term plans were discussed, he would shy away from the fire, scared of being burned. His fear has twisted every relationship he has ever had but he knows the truth.
He doesn't know how to make that long-term committment people are asking for]
[[Return |His panic returns]]If you choose this passage.
<script>bubble()</script>(t8n:'dissolve')+(t8n-time:3s)[<img src="assets/images/crash_car.jpg" width="700" height="500">]
(t8n:'dissolve')+(t8n-delay:3s)+(text-colour:green)[Virgil's vision blurred, consciousness slipping away like water through cupped hands.]
(t8n:'dissolve')+(t8n-delay:6s)[As darkness encroached, a strange sensation washed over him.]
(t8n:'dissolve')+(t8n-delay:10s)+(t8n-time:3s)[The boundaries of his body seemed to dissolve, melting into the twisted metal of the car, the rain-soaked earth beneath, the very air around him.]
(t8n:'dissolve')+(t8n-delay:13s)+(t8n-time:4s)[For a fleeting moment, he felt connected to everything—his friends, whose previous laughter, now turned into a mix of silence, curses, and clearly moans of pain. It seemed Chuck was hurt the most, given the loud pitch of his own moaning.]
(t8n:'dissolve')+(t8n-delay:17s)[The trees lining the road, the insects in the soil, the clouds heavy with rain.]
(t8n:'dissolve')+(t8n-delay:20s)[It was as if he could feel the pulse of the planet itself, a vast, interconnected web of life.]
(t8n:'dissolve')+(t8n-delay:23s)[And he was not separate from it, but an integral part of this cosmic dance.]
(t8n-depart:'instant')+(t8n-time:26s)[Then, [[blackness.]]]
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