Rod, as he was known by his colleagues, had been stuck in the bathroom of his school after a prank by some of them. So he ended up missing the bus that would take him back home. Now with no money in his pocket and the approaching sunset, he started his long walk back home. On foot and worried, for he had never been on such a journey, and mostly for being alone, he realized that he had no choice.
The highway SP199 was the longest route on his way, a long dark highway with a long forest through the entire roadside. The traffic was intense and the darkness was now beginning to increase, being illuminated only when the cars passed with their headlights on.
While no cars were passing, Rod guided himself through the low-light lanes of the track, as his eyes were still getting used to the growing darkness.
In the stretch of kilometer 81, Rod thought of crossing to the other side of the highway towards the fields. He looked around and was sure he could cross. But when the crossing began, halfway through all he heard was a screeching tire skidding due to a sudden stop. A strong impact hit him, knocking him unconscious for a few seconds. Confused without understanding anything in the following moments, he began to recover his senses little by little. He understood nothing of what had happened and wondered in his own thoughts if he had died. But then there was the reminder of what happened, and in his last memory now was the moment of the accident.
Still on the floor, terrified, he looked at his body searching for evidence of bruises and fractures, but realized that there were at most a few scratches on his elbow and knee.
After this quick analysis that lasted only a few seconds he decided to get up and look around. His first vision was the highway where some cars and mainly the car involved had stopped and people were running towards him to provide first aid. The first adult to arrive looked at him with a face of panic and shouted:
- Demon!!!!
Rod instantly looked back and saw a terrified-looking and frightened creature who started running and heading across the road, causing a major traffic accident and disappearing into the woods.
Rod was terrified shocked, as people came from everywhere with pieces of wood in hand and the ambulance siren was pulling over to take him to the nearest hospital.
The next day, without further complications, Rod was already home explaining to his parents the whole story and reasons why he was there in the middle of the highway.
But when he spoke of the part where he saw a hideous creature, and how people called it a demon, his parents didn't seem to care. They were even worried, thinking that their son was confused, and decided to let the "conversation" about the behavior at school for later.
It was 8:00 am and Ronaldo, Rod's father received a message telling him to turn on the television and see the Morning News, where they were telling the story of the accident experienced by his son.
The reporter presenting the story: “Highway accident involves an incident with a child, victim of a car with headlights off during sunset, followed by other accidents involving some cars. Witnesses report that they tried to dodge a creature that was crossing the highway. ”
Then there was an interview with the driver who almost ran over Rod, reporting what he had seen. Almost like a madman, he described what he had seen after stopping the car to provide his first aid: "It was a reddish-skinned creature, deformed face and with the appearance of a demon."
While Rod's family was at home in the morning, a group of people were preparing to enter the forest with bladed weapons to search for that creature.
After an hour of searching through that forest, the group heard a warning cry: “I found it!!! Found it!!! Run over here!!!”. It was a makeshift wooden house. It looked like a temple, with crosses, books and bibles.
The creature was inside, motionless, and in apparent uncontrollable fear without knowing what to do.
Now, the group of hunters, who had surrounded the house, invaded it quickly, and brutally with wood bats and knife stabs, killed their victim in a few minutes.
10 minutes after that, what remained was a huge bonfire burning amid the large trees that surrounded it. The ashes would be the only traces of that life that was now history. And so, happy for their revenge, those people who felt victorious, returned home with a clear conscience.
Rod didn’t go to school on the day after the accident, so he took the time to research the mysterious creature on the internet and surprisingly, he soon found out that other people had already researched similar cases, and apparently about the same creature. He quickly discovered that in reality "that" was a person with severe deformities, which made him look like a demon.
This person, as he has now been acknowledged by Rod, according to his research, was a good person, but he was persecuted wherever he went, and so he decided to live alone in the middle of the forest. But to give his life a meaning, he was always on the lookout for highways, saving animals from being run over and even other people. He was a hero, but he was never recognized. Now, this person, dedicated to God and doing good, was in another life, with an agonizing death as his reward for saving lives anonymously.
Rod never knew the fate of the one who had saved his life. But he thanks the anonymous hero every day for having a second chance with his life.
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