I sit in my regular seat on the bus, in the seat right before the middle doors. I scroll through my phone, watching whatever amusing videos my friends sent me the night before, trying to ignore the people around me.
The high school students behind me keep making annoying sounds and laughing at each other like it’s the funniest thing they have ever heard. The one making moaning sounds gets far more laughs than the rest.
How can anyone be so annoying first thing in the morning? It should be illegal.
I start to put in my headphones but am quickly stopped by a man who points at the seat next to me.
“Is this seat open?” He gives me a friendly smile.
He is clean-shaven, with short dark brown hair and eyes to match. He stands over me, probably just under six feet tall, and looks around forty. He’s wearing jeans with a plain black sweatshirt.
“All yours.” I say, and he sits down, turning to me.
He puts out his hand, reaching for a handshake while introducing himself, and I shake it so as not to be rude.
“Daniel, nice to meet you. I’m new to the area. I just moved here.”
“Ray, nice to meet you too.”
Come on, take the hint. Maybe if I put in my earbuds, he’ll stop trying to talk to me.
“Do you know any good spots for breakfast? I just got discharged from the Army after twenty years of service.”
Well, there goes that plan.
He spends the next hour telling me all about his time in the army and how much he misses it now that he’s out.
“So there we are, getting pinned down by enemy fire—” A blinding flash of light and the feeling of freefall interrupt him, and a few moments later the bus slams into the ground.
The sounds of screaming and shattering glass fills my ears as I instinctively cover my head with my arms.
What the hell? Did we hit something?
Every window of the bus is broken, and broken glass fills the aisle, where several people are lying after getting knocked down. I brush the broken glass off of me, careful not to cut myself with it, and check the rest of my body.
The impact wasn’t very big, it must have only been a drop of a few feet. What could have made us drop like that?
I look out of the window next to me, trying to find out what just happened.
In front of me are trees. They are a few hundred feet away. Looking out the windows of the bus, I see that we are now in a forest clearing.
That’s not right. We should be on a city street.
I take a minute or two, it’s hard to tell with how fast my heart is beating, to calm down. I close my eyes and try to control my breathing, tuning out the screams and yells around me.
It doesn’t work. This is way too freaky for that.
I look around at the people near me, and they are as confused and scared as I am. They frantically look around, trying to figure out what is happening.
The sounds of people panicking and someone hyperventilating make me realize that this isn’t some dream.
Maybe we are all mass hallucinating? That can happen, right?
Daniel stands up next to me after checking that I am ok, getting his phone from his bag and holding it up into the air after a few moments of using it.
“Are you getting any signal?” He asks me.
I pull out my phone and check, seeing it has no signal, I shake my head.
“No”
“What the hell was that impact? One second we were there, and now we are in a forest? How does that happen?” He has a confused expression on, his face scrunching up.
I have no idea. I didn’t know this was a possibility. I just wanted to get to class, like I do every morning.
“Maybe it’s some kind of attack? Or maybe we died, and this is the afterlife?” One of the high school boys says from behind me.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I pat my chest with both hands. I feel fine. I don’t think I died.
Daniel walks up to the front of the bus after nearly ten minutes of all us sitting in shock, unsure of what to do. He walks straight up to the bus driver, and after a few words, the bus driver opens all of the doors to the bus, and Daniel walks back over to me.
“Will you come with me to check outside of the bus? I don't think sitting around will help any of us.” he asks me.
He wants to leave? Is that safe? And why ask me, just because I was the closest guy? But on the other hand, he has a point, sitting here solves nothing.
I steel my heart and agree to his request, mostly because I don’t think anything worse than what’s already happened can happen.
I stand up and grab my backpack from between my legs before putting it on. I join Daniel and walk to the front, seeing the faces of the scared and confused passengers as I walk past. They are talking to each other or trying to get a signal on their phones.
Daniel steps off the bus before I can join him, so I speed up my walk to catch up to him. When I reach him just a few moments later, he is crouching in front of the bus, inspecting something on the ground. I walk over to get a better look at what it is.
It’s a massive bear print, larger than I have ever heard of. Do bears even get that big? It has to be nearly two feet long and a foot wide.
“What is that? That can’t be real, right?” I ask him, hoping he knows more about bears than I do.
“A bear print. And I hope not. It’s pretty fresh and deep. This bear is absolutely massive, if these are real.”
“What should we do? Are there any military protocols for this?”
I realize how dumb I sound right as the words leave my mouth. Military protocols for what, Ray? Appearing in a forest, or finding massive bear prints?
I’m just too confused to think clearly right now.
“None that I know, but I have a gun if it shows up.” He pulls up his hoodie to show a concealed revolver.
“Will that be enough to kill a bear that big?”
“I hope so.”
More people have left the bus now, and two are walking over to us.
I look one of them in the eyes, smiling, and he smiles back.
He is taller than me, over six feet, but not by much. He has a handsome face framed with blonde hair that complements his blue eyes.
His brother behind him looks nothing like him, with dark brown hair and eyes and barely over five and a half feet tall.
“Did you guys find anything over here?” He asks me while his little brother follows a few feet behind him.
“Yes, and I have no idea how to explain it.” I say.
He walks up to the print, looking down with a contemplative expression.
“Is that real? It would have to be massive, if it is.”
“We have no idea, but we should be on the lookout in case it comes back. I don’t want to face that thing.” Daniel says, reaching a hand towards the newcomers.
“I’m Daniel, by the way. Nice to meet you.”
“I'm Clark,” he says, pointing to his little brother after and saying, “This is my brother, Duncan."
Both brothers accept the handshake from the veteran.
“So what should we do? Will people come rescue us?” Clark asks.
“They will probably search, but how can you explain us just appearing here? And I have no idea where we could even be. None of this makes any sense.” Daniel says, “We should get back to the bus. Maybe from the roof we can get a better signal.”
Everyone nods in agreement. I do it because I have absolutely no idea what to do right now.
My heart rate starts increasing as I realize that rescue may not be able to come for us for a while.
Can I survive in this forest? I was in the Boy Scouts as a kid, but does that really matter? I doubt it will make a difference if the bear shows up. How the fuck does an entire bus full of people just appear like this?
I walk past everyone outside and back to my seat on the bus. I start doing a simple breathing exercise again for a few minutes to calm down my heart so I can think clearly. It works a little better now.
Maybe it was aliens? Or magic? Or maybe that kid was right, and we are all dead and in purgatory or something. It doesn’t matter. I’m here now and need to deal with this.
Clark interrupts me from my pseudo-meditation with a question.
“Ray, can you give me a boost onto the roof? I want to check if the signal is better from up there.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I get up and walk under the open hatch, putting my hands out for him to step on, and climb to the roof. He is relatively tall and well-built, so it is no issue for him.
He probably didn’t need me to do that, but I wouldn't want to climb up either. It's too early for that.
“Anything?” I ask after waiting a few seconds.
“Nope.”
I bet it’s a pretty good vantage point up there, maybe I could learn something.
“Can you give me a hand up?”
“Sure.”
He reaches down a long arm, and I take it. His pull helps me up as I use my other arm and legs to climb up the rest of the way.
The view from up top is as expected from a forest clearing.
I take a deep breath of fresh forest air, smelling what I think is pine. I look at the trees, and they don't look like pine trees.
The canopy is too thick, and each tree is close enough together that their branches are intertwining, blocking a lot of the sunlight from entering the forest. The treeline is about two hundred feet away from the bus in all directions. A field of knee-high grass fills the distance in between.
I see something rising over the trees in front of me, barely peeking over the treetops.
Watching for a few more minutes, I start to realize what it could be but ask the man next to me for clarification anyway.
“Hey Clark, does that look like a big-ass moon rising over there?”
“Huh, well, it’s not the sun, and it’s way too big to be the moon.”
Well, fuck. That’s not any moon I’ve seen before, not unless we got a new moon expansion.
A woman screams from behind, ripping me from my thoughts.
I whip around, looking in the direction I heard it come from.
She is running back from the edge of the forest, about halfway to the bus, crying hysterically while pointing at the forest.