TRAPPED - NEED ADVICE - URGENT

REWORK THE TIME STAMPS

return-eternal 05/0X/20 (Wed) 20:33:59 #83820910

Hey. I need some help with a weird building I'm kinda trapped at. I'm not really trapped. I can leave, but it feels like I can't escape. I don't know how to put it into words. It's going to sound really silly when I actually say it, but I'm fucking terrified by what is currently happening to me, so I'd really like some advice. Here it goes:

I'm currently on a long haul road trip across the United States. I'm going coast to coast and due to a medical condition that makes me immunocompromised, so I'm stuck driving by myself (nobody in my tiny bubble could do this with me). That same medical condition means that I have to make frequent stops — at just about every rest stop I see.

So I stopped at four different rest stops today. I'm in the parking lot of the fifth right now. I haven't gotten out of my car. I don't want to go in. They've all been the same rest stop. Every single time.

A photo I got on the fourth visit.

I didn't notice anything for the first two visits. Well, I did on the second, but I just figured that there was a redesign of some kind and that all the rest stops had been given the same new architecture. It wasn't until the third that I began to think something was strange, and the fourth confirmed it for me. I'm almost certain that something weird is happening. But what? I'm scared.

The rest stop is nice, clean and modern. It's unusual from most others I've seen in that it doesn't sit on one side of the road but right in the middle. Traffic from both sides goes in. Although, I have to say that it's weirdly empty for a rest stop. None of my visits had a lot of other people there, but there've been other cars in the lot. Not nearly as many people inside, it would feel.

Also from the fourth visit.

The building is simple on the inside. It's got a row of vending machines, a visitor center, a sitting area and bathrooms. Everything is functional, but there's not a lot to speak of once you get inside. Not that it needs much more. If it wasn't for everything going on, I'd rate it as one of the top rest stops I've ever been to.

There's always been a staff member of some sort — somebody boredly standing around. Maybe a janitor or a greeter? I spoke to them on my second visit, and they seemed like just your average bored and unenthusiastic worker. They answered my questions with a bit of a grumble and without eye contact, but nothing weirder than that. I didn't engage on the third visit, and when I came back on the fourth visit and started asking more unusual questions — like "Is this rest stop part of a series? I've seen others like it." — they abruptly dismissed me, told me to get lost. I didn't push the matter further.

It was a different person, at least. I don't know what that means, if anything.

I'm in the car right now, trying to decide if I should go in.

so-many-lost-throwaways 07/08/20 (Wed) 20:35:04 #83820954

dude, it's just a fucking rest stop. this is one of the most mediocre paranormal stories i've ever heard. doesn't sound like anything bad is happening to you on your visits so just plow on ahead to SanFran — it'll probably just pass on by pretty quickly. don't worry about this; i doubt it's anything.

USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST

🗿 bones 07/08/20 (Wed) 20:35:14 #83820955

Although this comment does contain some advice, the tone is a bit too flippant. We ask that all users treat advice request threads that are not obviously spurious as though they were legitimate and that the phenomenon described are genuinely occurring. This section of the forum is set up in order to help users with any potential problems, regardless of their severity.

Moreover, this is a repeated offense for you. As such, we are issuing you a one week ban from the forums.

woozy-ambler 07/08/20 (Wed) 20:40:08 #82890201

Interesting that you are able to leave at night but keep returning to this place. You're not currently at the rest stop, so it isn't that you are completely unable to avoid it, which makes it all the stranger. That's pretty unusual for this sort of thing — normally you aren't able to leave. What did the road look like when you were out? Have you actually been travelling anywhere? Anywhere else you've been able to stop?

There are two possibilities here: The first is that the rest stop is somehow somewhat benevolent. It wants you to stay or do so something there but isn't going to force you. It's not making it easy, but it's giving you a way out. This is dependant on you actually been able to escape the path that leads to these rest stops — if you haven't been going anywhere, that might not be the case.

The other option: it is patient. It is willing to let you go, because it will eventually be able to take you captive. It isn't trying to capture you immediately, but instead wear you down until you don't choose to escape. I hope that this isn't the case — I don't know how This is a fell omen, and I don't think there is much in the way of hope for you if it holds true. My condolences.

I recommend that you go in, but take precautions. Film everything, if you have to, and be on the look out for anything that is off or strange. Look through the brochures or for any writing to see if it is accurate. I wouldn't buy anything from the vending machines (I hope you haven't already).

eckleberg 07/08/20 (Wed) 20:38:12 #83820976

I did some digging. I've got one question for you before I can really get into everything. Is this your rest stop?

I've got some ideas about what's happening, but I need you to confirm that first.

return-eternal 07/08/20 (Wed) 20:33:59 #83820988

... Yeah. That's it. The same.

How'd you get that picture?

eckleberg 07/08/20 (Wed) 20:38:12 #83820994

I'm a fellow tar heel. I recognized the pictures you sent as looking somewhat similar. That's the Iredel County Rest Area on I-77, which you would have crossed in Statesville but never travelled on. The closest you would have ever gotten was about ten miles away (which is pretty close to, be fair).

Here's the part where it gets fucky: I downloaded your pictures and checked the metadata on them. You took them on your phone and it was connected to a cell network, so the Lat/Long was kept on them. You were not in Iredell County when you took those photos. The location is much further west than Iredell, and looks like it should be on I-40.

So. You somehow managed to take photographs of a rest stop from miles away. Of course, you could have modified the metadata, but it looks like you've found something strange. Whatever that building is, I don't think it was ever actually built. It's taking the form of something else.

Which to me, implies it is a trap. Something is trying to get you.

CERNNUNOS 07/08/20 (Wed) 20:38:12 #83820976

An unusual form for a soul trap to take… I do not doubt your concerns, but I struggle to see the explanation of these occurrences. Most mysterious.

As I have discovered in my readings, most typically the soul trap seems to ensare the victim, to root deep inside of them so that they may never leave. In the Den of the Lotus Eater, the victim consumes the lotus and only desires nothing more than gambling and gaming. Were it not for your ailments, you would not have consistently returned to this particular trap. Perhaps it is simply patient, and you ran upon it more frequently? Perhaps it is looking for a certain victim, which you are not? You nothing odd about it when you first stopped?

I must note the proximity of your travels to the domain of the Dionaea muscipula (the Venus Fly Trap, for those of you unfamiliar with Latin). There are few plants of that nature, and there are strong links between the soul trap and the trap plant, metaphorical and spiritual. Perhaps the leylines converged and curdled into this?