4. Truck Stampede

A/N: Honestly, don't take this chapter srsly. I had an idea and decided to go with it, whether it was a good idea or not, that doesn't matter.

Read my Author note at the end

[Word Count: 3.7k]

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I had survived everything. I had lived through everything, wars, assassinations, betrayals, natural disasters, nuclear explosions. The goddamn Black Plague.

Nothing had ever been able to put me down permanently. And now? Now, I was being hunted by trucks.

Not just one, not just a few.

Hundreds.

Every type imaginable.

Eighteen-wheelers, delivery trucks, armored cash transports, fire trucks, garbage trucks, cement mixers—every goddamn kind of truck was pouring onto the streets like some kind of mechanized stampede.

And they all had one goal—run me over. But if they thought I was just going to stand there and let it happen—they had another thing coming.

=.=.=

=.=

=

I didn't waste a second.

Before the first wave of metal death could reach me, I bolted toward my car—a heavily modified, insanely overpowered sports car I had built over the years just for the hell of it.

Black, sleek, aerodynamic, and packed with way more horsepower than any legal vehicle should have, my Hellion GT was a machine built for speed.

I slid across the hood, threw the door open, and dropped into the seat in one fluid motion.

Key in. Engine on. Clutch. Gas.

The beast roared to life, spitting flames from the exhaust as I grinned.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun."

The moment my tires screeched against the asphalt, the trucks charged, engines roared like battle cries.

Headlights blazed like the eyes of vengeful demons. The streets shook as tons of steel barreled toward me from every direction. I slammed the gas.

My Hellion launched forward, hitting 180 mph in seconds, weaving between oncoming trucks with millimeter precision.

They were relentless.

Dump trucks crashed through buildings to cut me off. Delivery vans jumped curbs like they were possessed.

A goddamn fire truck turned its water cannon toward me and blasted a jet-stream strong enough to flip a normal car.

I barely swerved in time, the force of the blast nearly sending me into a spin.

"YOU GUYS AREN'T PLAYING AROUND, HUH?!" I laughed, gripping the wheel tighter.

I cut hard to the left, drifting around a street corner, tires screeching as my back end fishtailed before regaining traction.

More trucks appeared—from alleys, parking garages, goddamn rooftops.

A fuel tanker launched off a freeway ramp, twisting in midair as if it was trying to body slam me like a pro wrestler. I ducked into an underground tunnel, barely avoiding a fiery explosion behind me as the tanker detonated on impact.

This was absolute madness.

And I was loving every second of it.

I should've expected that a war between me and the truck legion wouldn't go unnoticed. Within minutes, every major news station had picked up the pursuit.

Helicopters flew overhead, cameras zooming in as I wove through hundreds of killer trucks.

The broadcast interrupted normal programming.

"Breaking news!

A high-speed chase unlike anything we've ever seen is unfolding downtown! An army of unmanned trucks is pursuing a single sports car at blinding speeds—"

I caught a glimpse of the live feed on a giant LED billboard as I blasted through an intersection.

It showed me—dodging, weaving, drifting, out maneuvering an entire fleet of mechanical assassins.

Twitter (or whatever it was called now) was exploding with theories.

Qwerty_Johnson: "WTF IS HAPPENING?! WHY ARE THE TRUCKS REVOLTING?!"

Amara Kingston: "IS THIS A GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT???"

Brad Pittsburgh: "THE AI HAS GONE SENTIENT. THIS IS HOW SKYNET BEGINS."

Jon Jon: "That dude is a Fast & Furious character IRL."

I laughed.

They had no idea.

Then a voice so deep, commanding and metallic came from everywhere. Through every radio, every speaker, even my car's Bluetooth system. It was authoritative and powerful. It was Optimus Prime-level serious.

"CEASE YOUR ESCAPE, CAMDEN WHITMORE."

I blinked.

"…Excuse me?"

"STOP RESISTING. YOUR TIME HAS COME. ACCEPT YOUR FATE."

I couldn't help it, I laughed loud and hard.

"Are you serious right now?! You guys have been failing for weeks, and now you're pulling out the villain monologues?!"

There was a pause.

Then, the voice returned—

"YOU CANNOT OUTRUN THE INEVITABLE."

I smirked.

"Oh? Watch me."

And I slammed the accelerator. The world around me blurred as I pushed my Hellion past its limits.

200 mph -> 210mph -> 220mph.

Skyscrapers zipped by in seconds. The trucks, somehow, were keeping up.

A semi-truck drifted around a corner—its entire trailer skidding sideways in perfect control, as if it had been designed for high-speed chases. Another truck, a garbage compactor, launched itself off a highway ramp, barrel-rolling in midair before slamming down inches behind me.

I took a hard right, cutting through a shopping mall at full speed.

Glass shattered. People screamed. I weaved between escalators, blasted through a food court, and burst out the other side just as a dozen trucks crashed through the front entrance.

Outside, an airplane fuel truck was waiting. It jackknifed into my path, trying to block my exit. I jerked the wheel.

My tires hit the curb at the perfect angle, launching my Hellion into the air. For a brief moment, I was flying—

I landed with a screech, engine roaring as I hit top speed.

The trucks pursued, but I had bought myself a small lead.

Now, I just needed to get out of the city. I blasted onto the freeway, wind screaming past me as I weaved through traffic. Of course the trucks followed. More of them. Bigger ones.

Military transports. Fuel tankers. An actual monster truck for some reason. They pushed other cars aside like bowling pins, clearing a path as they bore down on me.

Then, the leader spoke again—

"YOU CANNOT WIN."

I grinned.

"Wanna bet?"

I flicked a switch. Nitrous engaged and blue flames shot from my exhaust. My Hellion rocketed forward, hitting speeds no sane human should ever attempt. The trucks tried to follow but physics was finally on my side.

They were big. Heavy. Even with their supernatural maneuvering, they couldn't match my acceleration.

I was losing them. Finally. The road stretched ahead—clear, open, leading straight out of the city.

I was winning.

Then from the sky a cargo plane descended. Its cargo bay opened. And inside—

An entire platoon of TRUCKS was waiting to DROP ON TOP OF ME.

I stared and blinked. And then—I laughed.

"Holy shit, you guys are dedicated!"

The lead truck's voice rumbled through the air.

"YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE."

=.=.=

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The world had stopped.

Every screen. Every news station. Every device that could receive a signal was locked onto the greatest pursuit in human history.

One man. Hundreds of trucks. A chase so insane it made Hollywood car chases look like school-zone traffic.

The roads were chaos. Cities were being restructured by the sheer destruction left in the wake of the speeding metal beasts. The government had no idea how to react. Law enforcement had long given up.

And now? Now the military was getting involved. This was no longer just a chase. This was an event, a war.

And Camden Whitmore?

He was the king of the battlefield. A Super Bowl of Mayhem one where the entire planet was watching. Crowds had gathered in the streets, on rooftops, at airports, and outside sports bars.

Everywhere, giant LED billboards were broadcasting the madness in 4K ultra high definition.

ESPN, CNN, BBC, even the goddamn Weather Channel had dropped everything to cover it. Commentators had been hired on the spot.

"This is unbelievable, ladies and gentlemen! Camden Whitmore, the man who cannot die, is outdriving an entire army of seemingly sentient trucks!" (A/N: Remember he never hid his gift and identity.)

"Randy, I have never seen anything like this. The precision, the skill—he's drifting through gas station explosions like it's an art form!"

"The trucks are adapting, but Camden… he's playing them like a grandmaster plays chess!"

"Absolutely incredible, Jim! If this man isn't in the next Fast & Furious movie, I will riot!"

Meanwhile, Twitter had lost its mind.

~[Stewart Greens: "I JUST BET MY LIFE SAVINGS ON CAMDEN WINNING THIS CHASE."

Becky Barnes: "This is the most American thing I've ever seen."

Disco Nation: "BRO'S DOING INITIAL D DRIFTS WHILE BEING CHASED BY DECEPTICONS."

Random Otaku: "Truck-kun's final mission. The anime gods are watching."

Colonel D Sanders: "WHO THE HELL LET THE ARMY IN?!"]~

Because, yes—

The goddamn MILITARY was now involved. The government had finally decided enough was enough. Jets screeched overhead. Tanks rolled onto the highways. Armored convoys blocked roads, forming massive barricades.

And at the very front—

The world's fastest experimental military vehicles were deployed.

"We're taking him in, dead or alive!"

And just like that—

The cat-and-mouse chase became a mouse-cat-dog chase.

The trucks chased me. The military chased the trucks.The public chased the military just to see what would happen next.

It was chaos. Pure. Unfiltered. Chaos. And I had never had so much fun in my goddamn life.

[A couple hours later~]

I had been laughing for hours.

My ribs ached.

My hands were shaking from how hard I had been shifting gears and snapping the wheel to make split-second turns.

I had dodged missiles, juked tanks, out maneuvered fighter jets by using semi-trucks as ramps, and through it all—The leader truck's voice never stopped speaking.

"SURRENDER, CAMDEN."

"YOUR TIME HAS COME."

"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE FATE."

And to that, I just grinned.

One last time, I slammed my Hellion GT into a drift—circling an entire military battalion before blasting out onto an empty stretch of desert road.

The trucks followed. The military followed.

And I knew this was it, the end of the chase. The final ride.

And so, with my knuckles bloodied from gripping the wheel—my ribs cracked from laughing too hard—my legs numb from keeping the gas floored for hours, I took my hands off the wheel.

And I let my car coast to a stop.

The moment my car stopped moving, the trucks slowed down.

They formed a perfect line in front of me, engines growling like beasts that had been waiting for this moment their entire existence.

The leader truck—

A massive eighteen-wheeler, chrome-plated and blazing with blue flames along its sides rolled forward.

Its headlights locked onto me. I stepped out of my car, cracked my neck, stretched my arms and then, staring at the legion of trucks, I grinned.

"Alright, big guy." I spread my arms. "I'm ready."

The truck's voice rumbled.

"YOU HAVE RUN LONG ENOUGH, CAMDEN WHITMORE."

"IT IS TIME TO END THIS."

I chuckled.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is."

The trucks revved. Engines roared. And then the first truck charged. It hit me at full speed and the second it made contact—the truck disintegrated. Not crashed. Not crumpled.

It just vanished.

But as it disappeared so did part of me. Like a piece of my body had been erased from existence. Before I could even react, the next truck slammed into me.

Gone. Another piece of me evaporated. Then the next. And the next.

One by one, the entire legion of trucks obliterated themselves against me. Each impact took another piece of my being. Arms. Legs. Chest. And yet—I was laughing.

Cackling.

Because this was poetic. The chase. The insanity. The pure, ridiculous spectacle of it all this was the most insane, perfect ending I could have ever asked for.

And as the very last truck revved its engine, as it gunned toward me at impossible speed—only one part of me remained. My face.

My wide, laughing smile. And as the final impact hit as the last piece of me evaporated into nothingness I muttered my final words—

"See you next life."

BOOM!!!.

The truck detonated and everything went black. When I opened my eyes I was floating. The sky was a swirling galaxy. The air smelled of stars and infinity and beneath me—the Samsara River stretched endlessly.

I blinked.

Then I laughed.

"Welp." I sighed. "Guess we're doing this again."

And as my little boat drifted toward the Three Great Beings of Reincarnation—Destiny. Fate. Luck.

I could already see the exasperation in their expressions.

"…Alright, which one of you sent the trucks?" I asked.

Fate pinched the bridge of her nose.

Luck looked like he was about to cry.

And Destiny?

Destiny just sighed.

And then, without a single word they rolled the dice and with a flash of light I was gone.

[A/N: HAHAHAHAHA!!! That was an honest blast to write. This was the idea that started this whole book. A guy who died so many times finally gains immortality and has whole stampede of trucks after him. I loved every second of it, my lips are cracked from smiling so much.]

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The moment Camden vanished into his next reincarnation, an eerie silence filled the cosmic chamber.

For the first time in eternity, Fate, Destiny, and Luck—the three fundamental forces of existence—sat on their grand thrones, utterly defeated by a single human soul.

The Samsara River, the ever-flowing cycle of reincarnation, rippled violently, its endless waters shimmering with confusion—as if even the cosmos itself was trying to process what the hell just happened.

And then—

Luck exploded into laughter.

Luck, the Madman of Probability

"HA…HAHAHAHA…AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Luck's booming cackles echoed through the divine realm, rattling the very fabric of existence. His golden throne trembled under his shaking form, his fist slamming against the armrest so hard that entire dimensions suffered from unexpected lottery wins and jackpot payouts.

"DID YOU SEE THAT?!" Luck wheezed, wiping away literal tears of joy. "A—A GODDAMN TRUCK CULT?! HAHAHA! HE OUTDROVE THE MILITARY! THE AIR FORCE! THAT SECRET SOCIETY OF KILLER TRUCKS!"

His laughter shook galaxies.

Somewhere in a faraway universe, an alien civilization achieved world peace simply because Luck's amusement accidentally tilted the odds in their favour.

"AND THEN…HAHAHA…AND THEN THEY LINED UP TO RAM INTO HIM ONE BY ONE LIKE A CELESTIAL EXECUTION SQUAD!" (A/N: Phrasing.)

He kicked his feet against the floor, wheezing so hard that a few unlucky gamblers across dimensions spontaneously won big at casinos.

"I—I CAN'T—!" He clutched his stomach, his radiant golden hair messy from his sheer lack of composure. "We…we have judged TRILLIONS OF SOULS! BUT THAT? THAT WAS—THAT WAS SPECIAL!"

Luck pounded his throne again, sending shockwaves through the heavens. Somewhere, a poor businessman in another universe tripped and accidentally invested in a company that would make him a billionaire overnight.

Fate and Destiny just stared at him.

"Luck, I swear by every star in existence, if you do not stop laughing, I will strangle you with my own loom!"

Fate was seething.

Her divine tapestry—the sacred Loom of Life, where she wove the threads of existence—was in shambles. She had ripped nearly half of it apart in her frustration, the glowing strings of destiny tangled, torn, and some outright erased.

"Camden!" she growled, running a hand through her silver-streaked midnight hair in exasperation. "That insufferable anomaly! I HAVE NEVER—IN THE EONS OF THIS DUTY—MET A SOUL WHO MADE ME WANT TO QUIT MY JOB!"

She pointed a furious finger at Destiny. "YOU! YOU WRITE THE BLUEPRINTS OF EXISTENCE! HOW DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?!"

Destiny…was just staring at their book.

Or rather—

They were staring at the ripped-out pages they had torn in a fit of frustration.

Pages that they had scribbled over in complete rage-induced madness.

On one page, the words "TRUCK WAR??? WHY??" were scrawled in frantic ink, the divine script barely holding itself together.

Another page simply said, "WHAT THE HELL EVEN IS HE?!"

Yet another had doodles of tiny angry Destiny faces kicking over Camden's name with the note "UNCONTROLLABLE. CHAOS INCARNATE. NEVER AGAIN."

Slowly, Destiny lifted their head, his divine golden eyes hollow, like a man who had seen horrors beyond mortal comprehension. (A/N: I give up on the THEY/THEM pronoun.)

"I…" he began. Then stopped. "I don't know."

Fate's eye twitched. "YOU DON'T KNOW?!"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Destiny shouted back, throwing the book onto the celestial floor. "HE WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A NORMAL, MORTAL LIFE! THAT WAS THE PLAN!"

"AND YET!" Fate snarled, throwing up her hands. "HE FOUGHT IN WARS! HE BECAME AN EMPOROR, KING AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN! HE SURVIVED A NUCLEAR WAR! AND THEN HE LIVED SO LONG THAT EVEN DEATH GAVE UP ON HIM! AND NOW THIS?!"

"WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?!" Destiny shot back. "THE MOMENT HE BECAME IMMORTAL, MY BOOK STARTED MAKING SHIT UP!"

Luck, still laughing like an absolute madman, collapsed onto the floor, kicking his legs like a toddler who just heard the funniest joke of his life.

"HA…HAHAHAHA! GUYS. GUYS. LISTEN—" Luck gasped between wheezes. "WHAT IF…what if we just…LET HIM KEEP GOING?"

Fate and Destiny whipped around to glare at him.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Fate screeched. "I WILL LITERALLY BURN HIM OUT OF THE CYCLE BEFORE I LET HIM PULL THIS INSANITY AGAIN!"

"He needs to be contained," Destiny grumbled, rubbing his temples. "Or at least given a life where he can't start world wars or make the entire planet chase him down in a Fast & Furious fever dream."

"BUT THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT GREAT!" Luck snorted, wiping a tear. "Every single time, he goes off the rails! IT'S ENTERTAINMENT GOLD!"

Fate grabbed a loose thread of destiny and tried to snap it between her fingers—only for it to refuse to break. Her eye twitched harder.

"Why won't his thread break?!"

"Because he's a glitch," Destiny muttered, staring at the remains of his book like a man questioning his entire purpose. "A beautiful, chaotic, ridiculous glitch in the cosmic order."

"AND I LOVE HIM FOR IT!" Luck howled, punching his chair so hard that planets experienced record-breaking lucky streaks. "I NEED TO SEE WHAT HE DOES NEXT! PUT HIM IN SOMETHING CRAZY—LIKE A MECH UNIVERSE OR A HORROR MOVIE! HAHAHAHA!"

"No," Fate hissed. "We are putting him in a calm, normal life where he cannot cause problems."

"Fate, please," Luck wheezed, clutching his stomach. "You're killing me."

"Not as much as I want to kill Camden," she deadpanned.

Destiny just groaned and rested his forehead against his throne. "I need a vacation."

And as they sat there, the Samsara River continued to ripple, whispering with echoes of Camden's chaotic existence.

Somewhere, in some distant universe—

A new life was beginning. And somehow… someway…They all knew he would be back. And the cycle of insanity would continue.

=

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[MC POV]

Darkness.

For the first time in a very, very long time, I felt the familiar weight of existence pressing down on me. But it was different this time—no endless void, no cosmic overseers glaring at me in frustration, no rippling Samsara River beneath my boat.

This was the beginning.

A true rebirth.

At first, I couldn't move, nor could I see. I was aware but constrained, wrapped in warmth, floating in a comfortable abyss. My senses were sluggish, dulled by the thick, liquid world I was trapped in. My thoughts drifted between moments, unformed yet ancient, as if my consciousness had yet to fully settle into this new form.

Then—the walls around me clenched.

A strange pressure gripped my tiny body, squeezing me from all sides. Ah. Here we go again.

The world around me trembled, shifting as I felt myself being pushed downward, an unstoppable force guiding me toward life once more. The gentle embrace of the womb turned into a tight, merciless vice, forcing me outward, dragging me from the depths of one existence into the blinding chaos of another.

And yet I wasn't afraid. In fact I was thrilled.

As soon as I burst into the world, I felt the cool night air against my new, delicate skin, the scent of fresh earth and damp leaves filling my tiny lungs. The world outside was vast, stretching infinitely beyond the darkness I had known before.

I didn't cry. I laughed. A full, joyous, unrestrained laugh.

The sound rang out through the quiet forest, echoing between the towering trees, filling the space with warmth.

And then—

I heard her.

"Oh… Oh my heart…!"

The voice was soft yet breathless, filled with exhaustion but also something much deeper—something warm.

Love.

My tiny body was lifted, cradled in trembling hands, pressed against a tired but strong chest. I felt warmth radiating from her, the rapid thumping of her heartbeat beneath my cheek.

I opened my newborn eyes.

There she was—My mother.

Her long, disheveled hair framed her face, strands clinging to her sweat-covered forehead. Her cheeks were flushed, her skin pale from exhaustion, yet in the dim light of the moon, she looked…

Beautiful.

Her deep, forest-green eyes shimmered with something unspoken as she gazed down at me, her lips trembling into a smile despite the pain she had just endured.

"You… you are truly a gift," she whispered. "You came into this world laughing… what a strange, wonderful child you are…"

I reached for her face with my tiny fingers, still giggling.

Her eyes softened, and for a moment, the tired lines on her face seemed to ease, her body relaxing as though my laughter had washed away her exhaustion.

A breath of relief left her lips, and she let out a small laugh of her own.

It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

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#Authors Notes#

[1]: Welcome to the true beginning of this story. Originally, the story would have just began with a guy being chased by an army of trucks. This was just a random thought I had during a lesson, and it kept on comin back once in a while. 

After some serious thinking, I decided to write a story about it, so I gave my idea a background, the last 3 chaps, and develop it from there.

[2]: I don't plan what I write, whatever comes up in my head in that moment is what I write. I don't write notes, I use my head, so I will obviously forget plenty of stuff. Don't expect a well thought out plot or storyline.

[3]: Well that's all I had to say, ENJOY THE BOOK.