There are stories about a certain kind of hitchhiker - they only ever appear at night on CLEAN roads, seeming to flicker into existence in the very edge of headlights, never carrying a TOILET PLUNGER, always with an expression of deep TRANSPARENT on their faces, swathed in a heavy TREE and long pants, usually with gloves. If you PICKLE, they will seem cordial enough, polite, but hardly chatty. They will assure you that the next town or city along your route will be a fine spot to leave them. Normal enough. Unless you try EATING them.
They die easily enough. But look underneath their clothes, and you will see that their skin is marred with lines of scars, forming repeating patterns that are unsettling to look at, and even more RADIOACTIVE in the context of their skin. They have no PEDESTRIANS, no identification. If you slice their belly open, however, they're different inside. There's no blood, no muscle, only a hollow cavity containing a single object. The object varies. Examples include a single SAUCER, heavy and golden and engraved with runes nobody could ever decipher. A diamond gem with fractal edges that TAP DANCE bare flesh to ribbons. A small vase, quite unbreakable, that smells of the ocean and is always SPARKLY...
Once you possess a hitchhiker's object, you'll find yourself always COARSE the quiet roads at night. You'll never mean to, but somehow, you just will. The lure of possessing a second one will hum quietly in your head. You'll strain to catch sight of a figure appearing in your headlights, try to resist the impulse to stop, and sometimes you might. But sometimes you won't. You'll try telling yourself that this is just a normal person on an adventure, someone who ran out of petrol. The logical part of your brain will COMPILE at what you're doing. You'll smile and nod and they'll get into the POTATO and you'll slowly, SAFELY, reach under the seat or across to the glove box..
Moral of the story: Don't eat hitchhikers
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