A twig snapped nearby, too close. The creature lunged, but a distant howl—another one?—split the night, drawing its head sharply away. Seizing the moment, I dragged Marie deeper into the underbrush, thorns ripping at my clothes, ignoring the fire in my wounded forehead.
I need to check the compartment first for hazards or structural weakness.If it's clear, I will move Marie quickly and quietly inside.
After moving her I decided to have a check on the bus. The bus's interior was a disaster zone. Seats were ripped from the floor, luggage was strewn everywhere, and moonlight filtering through the shattered windows cast jagged shadows. It was horrifying.
I scanned the rows, my breath catching in my throat and then I found Mark, dead. I saw him first. He was slumped across a broken seat, his head resting at a physically impossible, grotesque, and disturbing angle.
Further back, near the emergency exit, I found Peter. His clothes were torn, not from jagged metal, but shredded in broad, powerful swathes. I noticed the dark, heavy saturation of blood, but it wasn't just pooled around him.There were deep, jagged wounds—not the clean slice of glass or metal, but puncture marks. Teeth marks. They were impossibly wide, and one side of his jaw was ripped away, exposing bone.
Beneath a collapsed overhead compartment, her face ghostly pale and slick with sweat and grime, Nicole.Her features pinched with unspeakable pain. But the immediate terror was the wound. The left side of her torso and shoulder was a horrifying mess. Her jacket and shirt were ripped and saturated with deep crimson—Three deep, parallel furrows—too wide and deep for a bear, too curved for a knife—ran from her shoulder across her ribs. These were claws. The wounds were actively seeping dark, venous blood and exposing muscle tissue.
She was barely alive, her chest rattling with every struggle for air. Her eyes found mine, wide and desperate. She tried to speak, but only a choked, urgent whisper escaped. She was pointing, frantically, to something on the floor.
It was a phone, probably knocked loose in the crash. I snatched the random phone up—it was cracked but still working. Without thinking, I hit the most obvious button: 911.
"Hello? I... I need an ambulance! Bus crash, Route 12, just past the old forest road! Please, hurry!" My voice was a frantic, strained rasp.
I dropped to my knees beside Nicole again, listening to her agonizing struggle to communicate. She grabbed my sleeve with a surprising, desperate strength. Her lips were moving, trying to form words, her eyes locked on something outside the shattered window, a look of sheer, terror-filled urgency.
"Nicole! Listen to me. The ambulance is coming, trying to comfort her.
Her eyes, still fighting the encroaching darkness, focus on mine. She struggles for one more breath, one last burst of strength. Her hand, slick with blood, grabs the front of my shirt.
She manages to get three words out, her voice barely a whisper, a sound of absolute terror and realization:
"It was one among us…."