The story was recently posted on Reddit by Hennessey_Drew.
“Let me start by saying that I tried several times to write about this case, and each time I deleted everything, fearing ridicule, but also because of the fear I still feel. But then I posted it on the ask reddit, and there I found that other commenters had similar experiences, I'm not alone. So now I am writing here.
I was working together with a guy called Fats, he was 24, I was 22. One winter we were sent on a business trip from Albuquerque to Lordsburg, New Mexico. We called our friends and told them that we were going to Lordsburg. As a GPS navigator, we had a TomTom device in our car, we drove along Highway 25 south, and then along Highway 10.
We spent 5 hours on the trip to Lordsburg on this route.
But when we got there, the oddities began. At first it turned out that the place where we had been assigned was closed, and also our manager did not give us any accompanying documents with him. Realizing that we would not be able to work there, we decided to return home to Albuquerque.
The second oddity began when we set up our GPS navigator for the way back, instead of taking us the same way that we arrived here (along Highways 10 and 25), for some reason, he built a completely new route that went in a straight line through the mountains. At the same time, it was reported that such a route would almost halve our travel time, so we decided to take a chance and go along it.
It snowed when we drove out of Lordsburg, and about an hour later the radio stopped working, so we put in a CD and listened to our music.
By that time, we were already driving along a mountain road, where trees grew on both sides, and suddenly giant walls went behind the trees, as if we were near a huge castle. Feeling anxious that we were going somewhere in the wrong place, we checked the GPS-navigator, but it showed that we were going exactly along the planned route and soon our city would be in front of us.
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We continued to drive on (at this point I always get goosebumps when I remember this incident) and finally the giant walls ended and the city houses appeared from the side.
But what were these houses! They seemed to have stepped out of a dark oil painting by the artist, all dark black with a touch of gray, except for one house, which stood out among them like a TV in the living room. It is difficult to truly explain exactly what these houses looked like, but there was something wrong with them.
By that time, we were already quite scared and drove along the same road without stopping.
And then out of nowhere appeared cars, dozens of cars, empty and abandoned on the sidelines. My buddy Fats said it reminded him of The Twilight Zone and we both felt a lot of dread. And we also thought that someone was watching us.
Fats was driving and he decided to go faster in the hope that this nightmare would end. And soon the houses on the side disappeared, and then the giant walls of the “castle” reappeared. We passed this section and again found ourselves in the middle of the road with trees at the edges.
At that moment, our fear almost disappeared, and soon we drove up to an intersection, turned left and suddenly drove into our familiar city. And when we went back to our house and called our girls, they accused us of lying and that we did not leave Albuquerque anywhere.
And when we called them, we noticed the call history and judging by it, only TWO HOURS AGO we called our friends and warned them that we were leaving for Lordsburg.
Nobody believes us when we tell them about it, so now we don't tell anyone for fear of ridicule. But I still feel intense fear when I remember this incident."
According to one commentator, the cars that the author and his friend saw abandoned on the side of the road near a strange black city belonged to other travelers who "slipped" into another reality. Most likely, they got out of their cars and went to this gloomy city. And they never came back.