ABANDONED: Small Town Livin'

After Charlie left the tunnel, he looked around. There was nothing but rock everywhere. He looked up at the sky. Clear blue, with just a spattering of clouds. He listened again for any sounds and was glad to hear birds chirping. For a moment, he thought that his situation was weirder than it already was. He climbed out of the rocky pit and looked all around him. In the distance he saw a small town. It was strange, but given the shape of the landscape, he could have sworn that this should have been L.A. But this was anything *but* a metropolitan area. It was more like farmland. He walked towards the town until he found a road leading towards it. It was a dirt road, but judging by the tracks, it was a well-used one, even though he saw no one using it at the moment. About ten minutes later, Charlie made a strange discovery. He passed a sign (you know, one of those green signs that tell you how far you are from the next town) that said: LOS ANGELES - 5 MILES. It was impossible. That small town *couldn't* have been L.A. What had happened?