r/RoanokeCity

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXzrrJykdtr/?igsh=eDQ2eHBkYXNyNDc3

So the Gleest is a Sleestak now??

from @the.gleest on Instagram

they say there’s a second roanoke under the first one / not tunnels like cities have / not tourist caves with helmets and gift shops

i mean the real ones / wet rock lungs breathing slow under your feet

you don’t find them on purpose

they open up behind things / a busted fence off orange / a slit in the woods past a half-dead trail / a place where the ground just gives up pretending

and inside / it’s colder than it should be / even in july

sound works different / drips echo like footsteps / your own breathing sounds like someone else is there

people go down there / not hikers / not families

kids with flashlights that barely work / someone’s older brother who swears he knows the way / someone who said they needed to get out for a minute and didn’t say from what

there’s always marks on the walls / names half scratched in / dates that don’t make sense / symbols nobody admits to drawing

and deeper in / stuff gets left behind

a hoodie / empty bottles / a single shoe / once, a shopping cart that definitely didn’t get there by accident

you stay long enough / you start thinking about how close the town is above you

cars passing / people arguing in parking lots / someone ordering fries / someone falling asleep with the tv on

all of it just… / right there

but down here it doesn’t reach

no signal / no time / just rock and water and whatever you brought in with you

some people say there are exits miles away / like you could walk under the whole valley if you knew how

nobody ever proves it

mostly / you come back the same way you went in

mud on your hands / that cave smell stuck in your clothes / a little quieter than before

and if you listen later / back in your room / windows closed / lights off

you can still hear it

drip / drip / drip

i swear it changes after midnight

not the road itself / the road remembers exactly what it is

it’s the space around it that shifts

the mountains pull closer / the fog settles in the valleys like something breathing in its sleep / tractor trailers drift past like steel ghosts / carrying things nobody asks about

if you’ve driven it long enough you know the feeling

that stretch where your radio turns to static for no reason the exit you don’t remember passing before / the headlights behind you that disappear the second you look directly at them

there are towns along 81 that feel borrowed / little pockets of light clinging to the dark / gas stations humming under flickering signs / diners full of people who stop talking when you walk in

i stopped once around 3am / somewhere between nowhere and somewhere worse

the clerk looked exhausted in the ancient kind of way / like he’d been standing behind that counter since the highway was dirt

he told me not to drive sleepy through the mountains

then quieter

“some things use the road too.”

outside / the fog had crossed all four lanes

and for one second / i could see a shape walking inside it / keeping pace with traffic

too tall / too thin / not trying to cross

just traveling