'I thought my Uber driver was just lost. Then I caught his eye in the mirror.'

After a long day of work, the last thing Saskia Archer needed was a delayed flight.

The Australian actress had to fly from Los Angeles to her home in New York. But several planes had been grounded, meaning she wouldn't land in Newark airport until 3:30am.

By the time Saskia hopped in an Uber, the 28-year-old hadn't slept a wink on the plane and she was exhausted.

The hard part, however, was over; after 20 minutes on the highway Saskia would be home in bed.

At least, that's what she thought.

Watch: Your must-have travel essentials. Post continues after video.

On what should have been a relatively straight road home, Saskia's driver took a sudden turn.

Then another and another.

"I looked up and realised I was in an industrial park of some kind," Saskia told Mamamia. "The buildings around us had no windows."

The actress, who splits her time between LA and New York, didn't recognise any of her surroundings, including the dark forest that was now in plain sight.

"Instinctively, I pull up my maps, and I'm 40 minutes from home in the other direction," she said.

At this point, Saskia's sleep-deprived brain kicked into gear.

Remembering she had started live-streaming on TikTok right before jumping in the car, the actress decided to voice her concerns to her followers.

"I was like, 'Wait a minute guys… I don't know where I am,'" Saskia said.

As she narrated the situation, the 28-year-old started "getting louder and more intense."

"I don't understand where I am," she declared, before looking closely at her phone.

That's when she noticed the messages.

Saskia had turned off her notifications to focus, and had missed multiple texts from Uber.

"We're concerned about your location," one message read.

"Please click this link."

"We think you might be in danger."

As Saskia took in the messages from Uber, her TikTok live-stream was being flooded with other comments.

"What the hell's going on?" one viewer wrote.

"Are you okay?"

"Where are you?"

Saskia's stomach dropped, sensing danger.

After a delayed flight, Saskia Archer thought the 20-minute car ride home would be the easy part. Instagram/@saskiaarcher.

Her eyes drifted to the battery icon on her phone. There was only one per cent of charge left. If she called the police, it would die completely.

"I was like, I have to play a game here and I don't know what that game is," Saskia said.

When the 28-year-old raised her head, she locked eyes with the driver in the review mirror.

"He was staring at me so intensely," she remembered. "I can see in his eyes, I was like, 'Something's really wrong right now.'"

Saskia, who had been loudly narrating everything on TikTok Live, suddenly stilled.

"Everything freezes. I go really quiet," she said.

The driver looked away, then back again.

"His head moves. And I was like, 'What the f–k has this man just decided to do?" 

Saskia's body was but pumping with adrenaline, "ready to either fight, run, or scream."

Then, without warning, the driver turned the car around.

Saskia's mind went into overdrive, predicting his next move; each scenario was more sinister than the next.

"I thought he was about to park and open the door," she said. "Or maybe someone else was involved and he was going towards them."

Glancing out the window, Saskia noticed they were headed towards the highway.

"I was watching my maps, and it looked like I was headed home," she said.

But, Saskia wasn't out of the woods yet as she was still 40 minutes away from home.

She struggled to keep her phone alive with a faulty charging port.

"I had to bend [the chord] at a certain angle," she said. "Out of every 10 minutes, I'd probably get 30 seconds of charging."

For the next 40 minutes, Saskia stayed silent.

"I don't know if that was wise," she said. "But if I had spoken loudly about what I was thinking, he might have felt the damage had already been done an he might as well go through with what he was thinking."

Finally, they pulled to a stop on Saskia's street.

During the drive, Saskia was "ready to either fight, run, or scream." Image: Instagram/@saskiaarcher.

But exiting the car felt like detonating a bomb if she made one wrong move.

In an attempt to "placate the situation," Saskia "pretended nothing happened."

"I was like, 'Cheers for the ride. I'm just going to grab my bag.'"

Then, with "the most hypervigilance" she could muster, Saskia shut the car door and beelined for her house.

"As soon as I got inside, I locked the doors," she said. "I was like 'Okay, now this man knows where I live.'"

Her phone was still on one per cent battery. So Saskia plugged it in and tried to wind down. But it wasn't easy.

"I fell asleep around 6am for a few hours, then I woke up stressed and flustered with a gross, sickening feeling," she said.

"No one ever touched me, but there was this sense of violation that lingered on my skin."

Saskia reported the incident to Uber, who placed the driver on probation as they investigate.

While she doesn't know if the driver had sinister intentions, Saskia believes being "loud and boisterous" may have saved her life.

"I think he had decided to do something. I don't know what the hell he decided, and I don't want to know," she said.

"But he looked at me, and I was loud, I was boisterous, and I was aware of what was going on. I was describing everything, and there was someone on the other line. He didn't know if it was a Live or a FaceTime."

Seeing this, Saskia suspects the driver "changed his mind" and took her home.

The actress hasn't shared her story to make women feel unsafe in rideshares, but to encourage us to "be loud and take up space."

"I think it's so important that women feel safe," she said. "My advice is to be loud. So many studies show that being meek, small, and quiet is the best way to be a target.

"If you don't feel comfortable taking up space, that is something to investigate. You have permission to be f—ing loud. So go be loud."

Feature Image: Supplied

*Mamamia has reached out to Uber for comment.