A laugh cracks the silence— sharp as a snapped wire, carving through the frost-glazed cabin. He sits there, half-lit, smoke curling around his grin like a secret he’s not telling. The car is still moving, a coffin on wheels, its paint scraped raw by miles of bad decisions. Outside, the streets smear past— ash-gray slush and cracked neon, a blur of places long forgotten, a map with no legend. The man in the glass is no stranger to you. He’s the hitchhiker you never picked up, the ghost who crawled into your passenger seat when you weren’t looking. The joke burns in his throat, a sound too wild to come from a man. You see the reflection— the twisted windshield, the ruinous grin— and you know. This isn’t a passenger. It’s you, unbuckled, undone, on a road that loops back to the same bad place. And when he laughs again, you feel the wheel shudder in your hands. He’s not leaving. Neither are you.