Ezra eyes snapped open.
Rain hammered the glass, relentless, precise.The world outside blurred into streaks of silver and gray.
He was on a same bus—alone.
Every seat stretched forward into dim blue light, damp fabric sighing under the hum of the engine that wasn't running.
Ezra sat still, hand pressed to his throat. Smooth. Whole. Breathing.Yet his mind screamed the memory of it—the crushing pressure, the tearing sound, the thing that should have killed him.
He blinked hard.
A small teddy bear sat on his lap.Brown fur, soaked ribbon, one glassy eye cracked.
Niya's teddy.
His stomach turned cold.
Outside, through the fogged windows, stood a bus stand, half-rotten, roof sagging under the rain.Beyond it—ruins of a village, half-swallowed by mist.
The bus doors wheezed open.
No driver. No sound.Just the hiss of cold air.
Ezra stood, each step down the aisle echoing louder than it should. He stepped out into the rain.
The air was thick with decay—iron, moss, wet wood. The ground squelched beneath his shoes.Everywhere he looked, houses slumped like corpses, their walls split by roots and silence.A rusted sign swung on a single nail, creaking: "Welcome to Darnell."
He turned the teddy in his hand—and blinked.
Gone.
Only wet fingerprints remained.
He exhaled sharply—and the sound echoed from somewhere behind him.
He turned—
The bus again. Same window. Same rain. Same seat.The bear was back, sitting neatly on his lap, head tilted farther now.
Loop.
He knew it.He felt it in his teeth, in the rhythm of his heartbeat that no longer matched time itself.
He got off again.
Fog. Ruins. Silence.
But this time—he didn't stop.
Ezra walked deeper into the village, the fog curling tighter around him like breath. The street narrowed into cobblestone, ending at a building whose sign still clung faintly to the doorframe:
THE OLD HOLLOW BAR.
The glass in the windows was cracked, the wood warped.Inside, faint light shimmered—flickering, uncertain.
He pushed the door open. It moaned like something dying.
The smell hit first: old liquor, mildew, and a faint sweetness beneath—like flowers rotting in water.
Tables stood where time had left them, chairs overturned, bottles clouded with age.Dust lay thick enough to muffle footsteps, but still—something had been moving here.
At the far end, a piano slumped in the corner, its keys half missing, strings humming faintly as if touched by invisible hands.
Ezra's eyes adjusted.
Then he saw it.
A teddy bear, sitting on the nearest table.Facing backward.
Water dripped from its matted fur onto the wood—one drop at a time.
He swallowed hard. "...Niya?"
The teddy didn't move.
He stepped closer, each board groaning underfoot.The smell of damp fabric and rust grew sharper.
When he reached the table, he stopped.The bear's head twitched—just once—slow and stiff, as if acknowledging him.
The room's silence deepened, thick as fog.
Behind him, the door clicked shut.
The lights flickered.
And when he blinked—
He was back on the bus.
Same rain.Same window.Same teddy on his lap.
But now—its head was turned toward him.
And stitched into its chest, in wet black thread, were three new words:
"DON'T WAKE UP."