Full Tank, Empty Heart

During Jasmines summer break, we road-tripped north, only to be stranded on a desolate highway with an empty tank. It made no sense; I had just filled the brand-new SUV. How could it burn a full tank in twelve miles?

With zero cell service, a pack of massive, starving wolves circled the freezing car. Sarah shivered violently. "Dean, we just put eighty bucks in. We can't be empty."

"Leak? Mechanical failure?" Risking my life, I stepped out. Wolves lunged. I lit a spare jacket, swinging flames to drive them back as I checked the chassis. Everything was intact, but the tank was bone dry. No punctures. No leaks. Where did the gas go?

Forced back inside by snapping jaws, we locked the doors and prayed for a passing car. No one came. Helpless, I watched Sarah and Jasmine slowly starve to death before my eyes. Holding their lifeless bodies, I closed my eyes in suffocating despair, dying without answers.

Then, my eyes snapped open. I was back at the gas pump, nozzle still in hand.

...

The station attendant reached out to grab the pump. I practically shoved him out of the way.

"Hold on!"

"Did you siphon my gas?"

The horrific memories of my previous life were still burning in my brain.

Because we ran out of gas, we had been trapped in that frozen wasteland.

I could still hear Sarahs dying sobs. You said this route was safe! You said there was no danger! Dean, she is only fourteen...

The crushing guilt and agony made it hard to breathe.

But beneath the grief was a boiling rage. How did my fuel vanish?

My car was fine. The tank had no leaks. The only logical explanation was that the guy working the pump had tampered with it.

The attendant glared at me, wiping his greasy hands on his overalls.

"You stood right here watching me the whole time, buddy. How exactly would I steal your gas?"

"Sounds to me like you cannot pay the bill and you are looking for an excuse."

His loud voice drew the attention of everyone at the station.

Jasmine, always easily embarrassed, flushed bright red and tugged at my sleeve. "Dad, please do not accuse him like that."

"Look, the gauge says it is full. It is practically overflowing."

I followed her pointing finger and saw the fuel pooling right at the lip of the tank.

Was it really full? Was there actually no problem here?

Impossible.

I had been driving this SUV for six months. I knew its exact mileage. Twelve miles would not even burn a tenth of this tank, let alone drain it dry.

This was the last service station before a hundred-mile stretch of absolute nothingness. To avoid the nightmare I just woke up from, I had to be absolutely sure.

I grabbed a clean dipstick from my trunk and shoved it down the fuel pipe, checking to see if there was some sort of blockage or trick.

The guy in the pickup truck behind me laid on his horn.

"Are you going to take all day?"

"I have been coming to this station for years. They do not rip people off. If you are trying to scam free gas, you picked the wrong town!"

The honking made Sarah and Jasmine even more anxious. They begged me to get in the car and stop making a scene.

But this was a matter of life and death. I ignored them all.

I pulled the stick out and inspected it closely. The depth was correct. The liquid was pure gasoline, not water or cheap filler.

My confusion only deepened.

If the gas station was clean, how did a full tank disappear into thin air?

Unable to find a single flaw, I handed over my credit card, paid the bill, and drove off the lot.

Jasmine muttered quietly from the backseat.

"Dad, what is going on with you?"

"You are never this paranoid. Why did you make such a huge scene over eighty bucks?"

There was a hint of resentment in her voice, but I could not bring myself to be angry.

In my previous life, when we were starving to death in the wilderness, Sarah and Jasmine had tried to force me to eat their last scraps of food.

They loved me. To them, I was the most important person in the world.

And yet, because I was always traveling for work, I barely spent any time with them. I had finally taken a vacation to bring them on this road trip, only to lead them straight into a death trap.

This time, I swore to God, I would get them out of this wilderness alive.

"This next stretch is a hundred and twenty miles of empty road. No towns, no stations," I explained softly. "I just wanted to be absolutely certain we would not break down."

Sarah sighed, rubbing her temples. "Well, you checked the gas. It is fine. Can we please just get moving?"

"Jasmine already had one episode with her heart condition. Every day we delay is a risk. We need to get her back home to her doctors."

My grip on the steering wheel tightened until my knuckles turned white.

This was supposed to be a month-long vacation. But Jasmines heart condition had flared up out of nowhere, forcing us to cut the trip short.

I had chosen this remote mountain pass because it was the fastest route home. I thought I was saving time, but I ended up killing the two people I loved most.

The dashboard showed a full tank, but the phantom memories of starving in the cold kept gnawing at me.

"It is a long drive ahead," I said, keeping my voice level. "Just to be safe, I want to pull into that mechanic down the road and have the car looked over."

The gas was fine. The station was clean.

The only remaining possibility was a hidden mechanical failure.

To eliminate every single risk, I pulled into the local auto shop. I handed the head mechanic ten times his usual diagnostic fee and told him to tear the car apart and check everything.

Three hours later, I got the verdict.

The car was flawless.

"That cannot be right," I argued.

"Did you miss something? A loose valve? A faulty sensor?"

The mechanics face darkened. "I ran the diagnostics ten times. There is nothing wrong with this vehicle."

"You stood over my shoulder the entire time. We checked every hose, every line, every electronic module. It is a brand new car, buddy. It is fine."

"Look, I will just give you your money back. Stop wasting my time."

Seeing him so absolutely certain made my anxiety spike.

The condition of the car was exactly the same as in my previous life.

If I could not find the problem, what happens when the gas vanishes again?

While I was arguing with the mechanic, Sarah marched over, dragging Jasmine by the hand. "The professional just told you the car is fine. Why are you dragging this out?"

"Are you waiting for Jasmine to have another heart attack before you finally start driving?"

I looked at Jasmine. She did look paler, her breathing shallow.

The car was a dead end. Stalling out here would not fix anything.

I gritted my teeth and climbed into the driver's seat. "Let's go."

But before hitting the highway, I pulled into the only general store in town. I planned to buy out their entire stock of water and non-perishables.

If we did break down, I was making damn sure we had enough supplies to wait out the wolves until rescue came.

I walked through the sliding glass doors and froze.

The shelves were completely bare.

No bread. No canned goods. No bottled water. Just two dusty bottles of soda sitting alone in the cooler.

The store owner shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, man."

"Supply truck broke down an hour out. Been delayed for days."

"Won't get a restock until tomorrow morning at the earliest."

I stared at the empty metal racks. I turned to Sarah. "We need to stay at a motel tonight. We will wait for the truck, stock up tomorrow, and then hit the road."

Sarah cut me off, her voice sharp and impatient. "It is barely a hundred miles. We can drive that in two hours. We already have some snacks in the trunk. Why on earth do we need to stockpile food like the apocalypse is coming?"

She was right about the trunk. We had enough snacks to last the three of us maybe two days.

But I remembered the wolves. They had been relentless, circling our car for ten straight days until we starved.

I grabbed Sarahs hand, squeezing it tight. "If something happens out there, we need enough food and water to survive the wait."

"It is just one extra night. Jasmine will be fine."

Seeing the pure intensity in my eyes, Sarah backed down and stayed quiet.

When night fell, Sarah and I slept in the car in the motel parking lot. We took turns keeping watch to make sure absolutely no one touched the vehicle.

During my shift to sleep, I drifted off.

A sudden, piercing scream jerked me awake.

"Dean! Wake up!"

"Jasmine is having an episode! She just took her very last emergency pill!"

"We cannot wait for tomorrow! If she has another attack without her meds, she is going to die!"

I jolted upright. Jasmine was slumped in the back seat, clutching her chest, gasping for air. Her skin was the color of ash.

It looked exactly like a severe angina attack that was barely being managed by medication.

I looked at the empty prescription bottle on the center console. We really could not wait anymore.

I had checked the fuel. I had checked the engine. I had eliminated all the variables from the gas station. Whatever caused the car to die in my last life had to happen on the road.

If I drove carefully, maybe I could avoid it.

But if we stayed here, Jasmine might actually die from a heart attack.

I stepped out into the freezing night air, checked the gas cap one last time. Still full.

I took Sarahs phone, securely taped it to the underside of the rear bumper, and turned on a live video feed to my own phone. I was going to watch the undercarriage the entire drive.

I took a deep breath, put the car in drive, and hit the highway.

For the next two hours, Sarah and I kept our eyes glued to the live feed and the road ahead. We hit no debris. We did not bottom out. I drove as smoothly as humanly possible.

We crossed the twenty-five-mile mark.

I glanced at the dashboard. The fuel gauge was perfectly stable. I let out a massive sigh of relief.

I had done it. I had bypassed the event that killed us.

I did not know exactly what caused it the first time, but we were going to survive.

The very second that thought crossed my mind, the digital fuel needle violently dropped to zero.

The engine sputtered, choked, and died.

The headlights flickered out.

And from the tree line just beyond the asphalt, glowing green eyes pierced the darkness. The wolves had arrived.

"What the hell is happening?"

I slammed my fists against the steering wheel, screaming into the dead quiet of the cabin.

I checked the tank! It was full!

The car hit nothing! Where did an entire tank of gasoline go?!

"Dean, what is wrong?"

"We are not at the hospital yet. Why did you stop?"

Sarah rubbed her eyes, waking up from a nap in the passenger seat.

I dug my nails into my palms, completely unable to form the words to tell her that we were trapped in the exact same nightmare.

Looking at the wolves emerging from the shadows, the horrific memories of our slow deaths crashed over me.

Did my rebirth mean absolutely nothing? Was I just doomed to watch them die again?

I gritted my teeth, grabbed my lighter, lit a spare shirt on fire, and kicked my door open.

Even if it killed me, I was going to find out where my fuel went.

I swung the flaming shirt like a torch, screaming at the wolves to keep them back. I dropped to my knees and checked the tank.

It was perfectly intact. Not a single scratch. But it was empty.

I crawled further under the bumper and checked the phone I had taped there.

The video feed was frozen. The signal had dropped. The last frame showed the undercarriage in pristine condition.

The physical reality matched the video. The car was fine.

A wave of suffocating anger and despair locked around my throat.

Was I really going to crawl back into that driver's seat and wait to die all over again?

Just as the thought entered my head, a shockwave of absolute clarity hit me. My entire body went cold.

I knew it.

I finally knew exactly where my gasoline went.

I knew exactly why it vanished into thin air.

I knew who did it.