"Sir, who was that back there?" Sean piped up, curious - Ryan hardly ever chatted this long with anyone.
"An old friend. Close as family."
Sean gave a knowing nod.
A friend of Mr. Lancaster's? That was someone worth remembering.
After crawling along for twenty more minutes, they finally crossed into Lancaster Village limits.
The decade had transformed the place beyond recognition.
What was once a sleepy hamlet of fewer than five hundred households now sprawled nearly eight times its original size, boasting proper roads, streetlights—the works. It could've passed for a small town now.
"Sir, the route you mentioned seems blocked... How should we proceed?"
"I... can't quite recall."
Ryan's memory was sharp, but his mental map froze at age seven. Not a single childhood landmark remain
