The Road Trip (found family, vaguely horror, o/o)

A truck driver who spends most of their day driving and listening to podcasts comes across a child, hitchhiking. What they learn is that they child is trying to find their brother, and the monsters that took him away. The truck driver is unfortunately good-hearted, and decides to quit their job and obligations to help.

Rules:
This is gonna be, like, a parent and child dynamic so you know.
Found family is my jam.
Anyways don’t be a dick, don’t be bigoted, and diversity is cool if you can be respectful.
Don’t be overpowered or overly edgy.
Gore, horror, and dark themes are fine by me.
No NSFW. Dirty jokes are okay if they’re funny.
No one liners! Be literate!
Have fun!

Ooo sounds cool! I could stand to practice writing horror anyway, may I?

I’ll set up a separate chat for you Ash. And yeah, totally you guys can join!

So, Cloudy, templates or just jump in?

Templates, please, and thank you!

Okay, cool!

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Appearance:
Personality:
Backstory:
Other:

Speaking of, what character do you wanna play?

So, uh, am I RPing the truck driver or the kid? I'm cool with either btw

Oh lmao oops, I mean I'd kind of prefer playing the kid? If that's cool with you

I could be the kid. To help with plot?

I mean if you'd rather and you think it'd work better for the plot then go for it! Your RP, after all.

Cool! We can do templates then?

Yeah, sure! It might take me a little while to make my character, my internet's being stupid right now. If I can't have them up tonight, I'll have them up sometime tomorrow

Name: Lydia Benz
Age: 14
Gender: Cis woman, she/her
Appearance: Short, 5’2”, with long brown hair and sloppily cut bangs. She looks thin, and hollow, like she’s seen too much. She has. Lydia has tanned skin from hours on the open road, and blue, blue eyes. She wears a ratty brown hoodie, ripped jeans, and a long sleeved grey shirt, and carries a blue backpack.
Personality: Lydia is guarded and speaks with a whisper to her voice, like she’s afraid of what her words could do. She is brave though, and determined to find her twin brother Benjamin.
Backstory: Lydia Benz was 11 years old when she saw her brother get kidnapped. The monsters stole him away, in the middle of the Love’s Travel Stop, and her parents didn’t even notice. She knows she had a brother, but her parents tell her she’s faking it, a liar and a nuisance, and they move on. They don’t care, a voice whispers. So she runs away, and goes to find him.
Other: I wouldn’t know.

Yeah, sure! It might take me a little while to make my character, my internet's being stupid right now. If I can't have them up tonight, I'll have them up sometime tomorrow

You’re fine bro!

Name: Kimberly "Kim" Hertz
Age: 28
Gender: Cis woman
Appearance: Kim has almost a "lumberjack" build, being rather tall and well-built. Her curly light-brown hair is usually kept back in a ponytail under a black baseball cap with a red heart on it. Kim's eyes are green and she has freckles all over her body. In addition to the cap, Kim wears a grey tee-shirt with three eight-bit hearts, a red plaid flannel, blue jeans, and red tennis shoes.
Personality: Kim is extremely compassionate and hates seeing others in need. Picking up strangers on the side of the road isn't exactly new to her, though she has had her share of rough experiences. She tends to gush about her wife, pets, or friends when prompted. Kim enjoys listening to almost anything while she's on the road, her favorites being gaming podcasts and lore theory videos.
Backstory: Kim has been married to her wife, Jaiden, for seven years. The two of them were highschool sweethearts and their house–or "home base" as Kim likes to call it– is in a university city in Michigan's upper peninsula. She took the trucking job to help pay for Jaiden's tuition. The two of them have two cats, a parakeet, and a dog, as well as a roommate. I don't think it's super relevant, but she also grew up on a dairy farm if you care about that lmao
Other: Though she desperately hopes she doesn't ever have to use it, Kim keeps a handgun in her glove box. She also has a backpack and suitcase in the back of her truck's cab, inside which she keeps her belongings(spare clothes and such). She's definitely not the cleanest person and tends to have fast food wrappers scattered everywhere in the backseat. Also, Jaiden runs an online store in her free time and Kim has several buttons and pins from said online store on her backpack.

She’s great! So, should we begin soon?

Yeah, whenever you're ready!

Lydia Benz is 11 years old when they take him away.

She proceeds to 12 before she decides to screw it, and runs away to find him.

Currently, she is hitchhiking on the side of the highway, firmly believing this is not a mistake. Okay, so maybe she thought it was a little bit of a mistake, but the mistake was being here, not looking for her brother and instead trying to hitch a ride into the next town over. She’d searched the first, very carefully, and found nothing.

The road took weird turns for her now. She saw things she wasn’t meant to see, met things she wasn’t meant to meet. She survived them all. But if she didn’t get something to eat right this second, she’d certainly faint from the hunger. She had cash, saved up since she was eight from allowances and birthday parties and fives and tens stolen from her parent’s wallets, and then the contents of their wallets on the day she left. They’d get over it, and it was for a good cause. She didn’t waste time begging, she’d never needed to.

A car sped by, gravel skidding on the ground. It hit her feet, and some of it hit her face, leaving small cuts there that she’d buy bandaids for later. “Asshole,” she murmured. Being fourteen meant you could say a lot of words you’d never even dreamed of saying before. And, to be right in saying them. Her birthday was just two days ago, and what a shitty birthday it was. She waved her thumb out to another passing car.

It passed by. Shit. She had been waving all morning, she might as well just sit down and cry at this point. So she did. She cried and cried and hated herself for doing so because crying was for babies, crying made you weak. She wiped away her tears after a solid three minutes of sobbing and got up to wave for safe passage again.

Kimberly Hertz frowned slightly as she pulled out of the truck stop. "Well, that was just rude," she huffed. Some jerk had tried to hit on her, then had reacted…less than nicely when she'd told him that she had a wife. Kim pulled out her phone and scrolled through Spotify for a moment, eventually deciding on a podcast on Minecraft–hey, it wasn't a bad game, and the words made her monotonous drive a little less boring. She had to admit, though, the host was reaching a little bit this time. Why did he decide to try and look for a story in Minecraft, anyway?

After a while, the podcast was ending. Kim drummed her fingers on the wheel. The next one came on, one of her old favorites. Kim hummed along to the intro and looked out at the road. A young girl was hitchhiking, it looked like. Kim felt a pang of sympathy. Seeing someone out there hurt badly enough, but the woman practically crumbled when it came to kids. If a kid was on the run, that meant two things. One, something was bad enough to get them to leave and risk the dangers of the road–a bad home life, being kicked out, or things of the sort–and two, they were vulnerable to any sick bastards that might try to take advantage of them. Kim pulled onto the side of the road and opened the passenger-side door. "Come on in, sweetie. I'm Kimberly, but you can just call me Kim. What's your name, and are you headed anywhere in particular?" she asked kindly.

“Not sure if you get my name yet, and just into the next town. I’m trying to find my brother, he got stolen away by the monsters and I want him back.” she said simply, hopping in. Lydia wasn’t very trusting of adults, for the obvious reasons. They just wanted to take her back home, or to the police, or something or other. But when it came to it, she could make a quick, clean getaway in no time at all.

Kim blinked. That…was not what she was expecting. "If you don't mind me asking, what kind of monsters are you talking about? " Kim didn't know whether she wanted the girl to be speaking literally or using a metaphor for awful people. She didn't blame her for not giving out her name, though. "Oh, and seatbelt, please. I'm sure you saw that people out here don't seem to know how to drive."

Lydia buckled her seatbelt, and sighed. Adults just didn’t understand the way the world worked.

“Real monsters, duh. The kind that take people away. With skin that doesn’t fit on their bones, that keeps sagging off. And yellow teeth. And wings.” she explained, settling into her chair. Lydia watched the cars go by, their zooming past something… relaxing, honestly. She hadn’t felt relaxed in a long while.

Her stomach rumbled, and she hissed. Lydia didn’t like showing signs of weakness, and hunger was one of them.

Kim looked over at the girl next to her. She'd said something so disturbing, and yet her demeanor was so calm. Kim didn't want to believe her, but something about the girl made her question her doubts. Some of the tension in her shoulders gave way when the girl's stomach growled. "Why don't we focus on getting you something to eat first," she said. "Do you have a preference, or is anywhere good?" Kim wanted to help in whatever way she could, but knew that she probably shouldn't push the subject right away.

"I don't need anything. I can probably go another day or so without anything." she huffed, slumping back in her seat. She kicked her feet up on the dashboard, settling into a relaxing position and closing her eyes. If she could get a little rest here, it would be worthwhile to try. Her stomach growled uncomfortably again, upset at the prospect of losing a free meal. "So maybe that was a lie. Anywhere is fine, I'm allergic to pretty much all nuts though so there's that." Lydia said, embarrassed.

"Alright," Kim said with a chuckle. "I think I might have an apple in the here, actually…" She took her eyes off of the road for a few seconds, opened the console, and rummaged around in it. She was just about to pull the fruit out when the podcaster said something in particular.

"…considering how absolutely fuckin' wack this map is–"

"O-ho-kay," she said, unplugging her phone from the speakers and turning down its volume, "We're gonna find something else to listen to in juust a sec. Here's that apple, since it'll be a little while before we get to any restaurant."

“I don’t care about swearing.” she said, taking the apple and devouring it in seconds. “I’m fourteen, swearing is okay now.” Lydia said, setting the core on her lap to throw out at the nearest convenience. She didn’t want to litter in this already messy van, she was going to be polite and act like the young goddamn woman she was.

When they stopped in the next town, Lydia sat and waited to be booted from the car. “So, what are you dropping off, and where? There’s gotta be something in that big truck of yours. Who are you dropping it off for? What’s it like being a truck driver?” she rambled, getting a little excited. She’d always wanted to ride in a big truck like this one.

Kim didn't comment on the swearing bit–a warped perspective was almost a given–but she did turn on music instead of a podcast. Jaiden's remix playlist didn't have any swear words(considering they were all instrumental tracks) and the music was good, so she wasn't about to complain.

Seeing the young girl acting like a kid after being so closed-off earlier was a breath of fresh air. "Oh, I've got a bunch of canned food back there. Beans and stuff, for a grocery store a few days away. Driving trucks is pretty fun! You get to see a lot of places you probably wouldn't have even thought to check out otherwise. I do my wife and pets, though. Anyways! You're probably starving, let's get you an actual meal."