This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Howtoscream on 2025-01-30 06:06:53+00:00.

Do you know those crosses you sometimes see on the side of the road? The ones placed where someone tragically lost their life? There’s one like that on my way home. A simple wooden cross, nestled between two spiky cypress bushes, with three old, yellowed grave candles in front of it.

Every time I drive past that cross, I know I’m almost home. After the cross, it’s 800 meters straight ahead, then a bridge, and right after that, the exit I need to take.

Even though there’s undoubtedly a tragic story behind that memorial, the cross has become a positive symbol for me. Seeing it meant I’d be home in 15 minutes, back with my wife and our little daughter. It always made me happy, but at the same time, I felt guilty. It seemed disrespectful. Somewhere nearby, a grieving family had lost a son, a daughter, a mother, or a father.

One day, there was an accident on that stretch of road, and I got stuck in traffic. By sheer coincidence, my car came to a stop right in front of the cross. For the first time, I could read the name on it: FINN LABOWSKI.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. After changing our daughter’s diaper and rocking her back to sleep, I sat down at my laptop and searched for the name I’d read on the cross. Finn was my age when he died on that road. According to a newspaper article, he was on his way home to his pregnant wife when a car coming from the opposite direction veered off the road and hit Finn’s car head-on. His car flipped over and crashed into a massive, old oak tree. The photo in the paper sent chills down my spine—a red compact car wrapped around the tree like a tight scarf. Finn died at the scene. The driver of the other car survived, and the police later found out he had a blood alcohol level of 1.9. In another article, I learned the driver was charged but ultimately acquitted. He had enough money to hire an expensive lawyer who found a procedural error and got his client off the hook.

Finn’s story stuck with me for days. I couldn’t stop thinking about his unborn child growing up without a father—all because some rich jerk decided to get behind the wheel while drunk.

Then autumn came, bringing heavy storms with it. A series of small events led to a chain reaction that ended with me staring death in the face—literally.

That day, I had to work late. Exhausted, with heavy eyelids, I sat in my car after work, listening to the metallic sound of rain pounding on the roof. And truthfully, I had every reason to be happy that day. That morning, my wife had surprised me with wonderful news: she was pregnant with our second child. Based on how she felt, she was convinced it was a boy this time.

And then it happened. Just after a curve, near Finn’s cross, a figure suddenly appeared in the middle of the road—a man, wildly waving his arms. In the darkness, I could see his outline clearly, the way the rain bounced off him and how his face reflected in my headlights.

I slammed on the brakes, and my car started to skid. I felt myself pressed into the seat, and for a moment, I thought the car was going to flip over. But then it came to a stop. I was breathing heavily when I suddenly heard loud sirens and saw blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror. How did the police know I’d almost been in an accident? Or were they just in the area by chance? I unbuckled my seatbelt, ready to step out, when the police car sped past me, followed by two fire trucks, an ambulance, and three more police cars. The fourth one stopped, and two female officers got out.

“Are you alright?” the taller one asked. I explained what had happened, and while one officer walked back with a flashlight to look for the man who had been standing in the road, I asked her colleague what was going on. Why were there so many emergency vehicles?

“The bridge,” she said, turning up her radio, “it collapsed.”

It took me a few seconds to process what she meant.

“The bridge…” I murmured. “When?”

“Not even 20 minutes ago,” she said, then looked at me with a curious expression. “You’re lucky that man stopped you. The area isn’t secured yet. With this weather, you could’ve driven straight into the gap.”

Her colleague returned. “Are you sure you saw someone? I walked all the way to the cross, but there’s no one there.”

When the adrenaline wore off, my thoughts became clearer. And then I realized why the man’s face had seemed so familiar—I’d seen it before, in the newspaper article about Finn.

My grandmother used to say there are good spirits and bad spirits. The bad ones try to drag you into the abyss, and the good ones try to pull you back from it.

The next day, I brought fresh flowers to Finn’s cross and replaced the old candles. Even now, whenever I drive past that cross, I think about how everything in this world is connected. How friendships can form out of nowhere. How there’s so much we can’t fully understand about this universe.

And I think about how my wife and I both love the name Finn. That’s what we named our son.