Mumbai, India.The rain fell in steady sheets, drumming against the cracked pavement and glistening beneath the dim orange glow of the streetlamps. At a lonely bus stop, Veeryan Thakurya stood with an umbrella in hand, its black canopy trembling under the restless wind.
The bus was late.
He glanced at his watch, then at the empty road stretching into the distance. With a weary sigh, he lowered himself onto the damp bench, droplets splashing at his shoes. The air smelled faintly of wet asphalt and exhaust, the kind of smell that clung to a city after too many storms.
"Why is the world so cursed…?" he murmured to himself, his voice barely louder than the rain.
At last, a pair of headlights broke through the downpour. The bus pulled in with a sluggish hiss, its doors creaking open. Veeryan stepped inside, scanning the rows of seats before sliding into one near the window.
He gazed out at the passing streets, his reflection faint against the rain-streaked glass. His eyes blinked slowly — not from fatigue, but from something heavier. When he turned to glance at the other passengers, they seemed perfectly ordinary. Faces that carried no story he could see.
With another sigh, he leaned his head back against the worn upper edge of the seat, letting his mind drift.
And then it happened.
Without warning, the bus lurched violently. Screams erupted as the vehicle tipped, metal groaning under the strain. In seconds, chaos replaced the monotony — passengers thrown from their seats, bodies slamming against the walls.
Before anyone could comprehend what was happening, the bus collapsed in on itself, shattering apart as if torn by invisible claws. Glass and steel tore through flesh. Many died instantly. Others clung to life, bleeding and broken.
Veeryan staggered to his feet amidst the ruin. The survivors around him froze, their eyes locked on something moving through the haze — a shape twisting unnaturally, its form vaguely human yet wholly wrong.
A ghost.
Its hollow gaze swept across them as it advanced. Veeryan's pulse thundered in his ears. He looked skyward — and there it was: a swirling portal, its jagged edges pulsing with unnatural light. A sound tore through the air, the chilling, otherworldly scream of a wolf.
Then, darkness.
When consciousness returned, everything had changed. He lay on his back, staring up at a sky that did not belong to Earth. The ground beneath him was a strange blend of red and blue sand, shimmering faintly under an unseen light.
Groggy, he sat up, rubbing at his face — and froze.
His fingers met scorched flesh. The left side of his face was ruined, burned to the bone. Beneath his fingertips, he could feel the ridges of his own skull.
"What the hell…?" he rasped, his voice trembling.
No answers came. Only the alien silence of this strange land… and the growing sense that whatever had happened on that bus was just the beginning.