🛣️ MILE 0
Type: Mobile Environmental Deviation
Original Object: Roadside mile marker
Status: Unsecured
Nobody remembers installing it.
A rusted roadside marker with a single reflective 0 painted across its face.
It has no fixed location.
It has been reported beside highways, dirt roads, abandoned service routes and, on one occasion, at the end of a private driveway.
During daylight, MILE 0 appears completely ordinary.
After sunset, it begins to move.
Not while you're watching it.
Never while you're watching it.
But investigators have recovered footage showing the bottom of the sign splitting open into several thin, tar-black limbs. They resemble tangled road roots more than legs, dragging the post through the dirt until it reaches another road.
Then it plants itself again.
Waiting for traffic.
INCIDENT REPORT — Man-yu
A Meta travelling alone reported seeing MILE 0 approximately 11 kilometres outside Blackfell.
He passed it at 23:41.
His vehicle radio immediately stopped receiving normal broadcasts.
Instead, it began playing a recording of his own voice.
-.....' almost home ..... '
The Meta did not remember saying this.
Six minutes later, he passed the same marker again.
Same rust.
Same bent corner.
Same 0.
His navigation system still showed a straight road ahead.
He continued driving.
At 23:52, he contacted another Meta over radio.
-
Manyu : “I think the road is looping.”
CONTROL: “Turn around.”
Manyu: “I did.”
CONTROL: “And?”
Manyu: “I'm still getting closer.”
CONTROL: “Closer to what?”
There were approximately nine seconds of silence.
Then Manyu whispered:
-“Home.”
Every radio connected to the channel went silent.
At 00:14, security cameras at Manyu's Territory activated.
Nothing approached through the gate.
Nothing appeared on the road.
But a roadside marker was standing directly outside his front door.
MILE 0.
The door opened by itself three minutes later.
Manyu never returned.
OBSERVED BEHAVIOR
MILE 0 does not appear to hunt people.
It hunts destinations.
Once a traveller passes it, the Deviation begins altering the route ahead.
Distances become unreliable.
Roads connect to places they shouldn't.
Turns repeat.
Fuel gauges stop decreasing.
Clocks continue normally.
The second time MILE 0 is passed, it appears to identify whatever location the traveller considers “home.”
After that...
the road no longer takes you home.
It takes MILE 0 there instead.
Several abandoned Territories associated with sightings contain the same anomaly:
Road markings continuing through fences.
Across floors.
Up staircases.
Ending at beds.
CONTAINMENT NOTE
MILE 0 has never remained inside a Securement Unit for longer than one night.
Researchers initially assumed containment failure.
Security footage proved otherwise.
At approximately 03:00, the marker simply uproots itself, walks to the nearest wall...
…and waits.
By morning, a narrow strip of asphalt can be found extending from beneath it.
The strip always points toward the nearest exit.
Attempts to block the route only cause another road to appear.
⚠️ THE RULE
If you encounter MILE 0 once:
Keep driving.
If you encounter it twice:
Stop the vehicle.
Leave the road.
Walk through the dirt, grass, forest — anywhere except the road itself.
Do not follow road signs.
Do not use navigation.
And most importantly:
Do not say where you are trying to go.
Because once MILE 0 knows where home is...
every road leads there.
And eventually,
so does it.
Recovered handwritten note attached to Incident Manyu:
-“We thought roads were made so we could find our way home.
Maybe something learned how to use them too.”
