Part 1
Lena wasn't supposed to be awake at this hour. The university library closed at midnight, but her group meeting dragged on endlessly, and by the time she finished scanning the last set of reports, the campus corridors were already quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat. She walked fast, her boots tapping on the pavement, her breath fogging the air.
The sky was a thick sheet of black. No moon. No stars.
Just cold.
By the time she reached the small bus stop outside the north gate, her fingers were stiff from the night wind. She rubbed her hands together and checked her phone.
12:06 a.m.
Four minutes until the last bus.
She sat on the icy metal bench and exhaled.
That was when she noticed someone sitting at the far end—
an elderly woman in an old-fashioned grey coat.
Lena frowned. She had looked around earlier.
The woman definitely hadn't been there before.
Her posture was painfully straight, hands folded over an old handbag, chin slightly raised as if she were posing for a portrait. She didn't move at all, not even when the cold wind whipped past.
Lena hesitated, then offered a polite smile.
"Cold night, huh?"
The woman did not respond.
The streetlight above them flickered.
The bench vibrated slightly as a truck passed far down the road.
Still, the woman didn't blink.
Lena shifted uncomfortably.
The silence between them thickened.
Her phone buzzed suddenly, making her jump.
A notification:
"WARNING: UNUSUAL ROUTE DETECTED — 12:13 a.m."
followed by static-like symbols she didn't understand.
She blinked hard.
"What the…?"
She tried to open the message, but it vanished.
Her phone network dropped to zero bars.
A long, distant rumble rose from the road.
At first, she thought it was thunder.
But the sky showed no signs of storm.
The elderly woman slowly lifted her head.
Her neck cracked.
Lena's breath froze in her chest.
Headlights emerged from the darkness—
a pair of bright, unnatural white beams sweeping across the road.
A bus—old, dented, the kind she had only seen in abandoned stations—rolled into view. Its engine growled like something alive, something struggling.
The digital route display on the front flickered violently, showing nothing but scrambled letters:
▉▉▉ 12:13 ▉▉▉
Lena's stomach tightened.
The bus brakes screamed as it stopped.
The doors opened with a long, painful hiss.
The elderly woman stood immediately—too quickly, as if pulled by an invisible rope. She walked stiffly toward the bus and climbed aboard without a glance at Lena.
The cold air that spilled out from the open doors seemed wrong—
thick, stale, heavy.
Lena walked slowly to the bus entrance.
The interior lights flickered, revealing rows of unmoving passengers.
All facing forward.
No one speaking.
Some with heads resting at odd angles.
Some with their hands clasped too tightly.
Some with skin that looked almost… grey.
Her body screamed at her to run.
But the night behind her suddenly felt even darker.
She took a step forward.
A cold hand grabbed her wrist—
She gasped—
The old lady!
Her hand had shot out from the first row like a dead branch.
The woman's eyes finally met Lena's.
They were cloudy.
Glass-like.
Unfocused.
Her lips parted slowly.
"You're late."
Lena yanked her hand back.
The old woman turned away as if nothing had happened.
Lena swallowed hard and stumbled further inside.
When she reached a seat, she whispered shakily:
"This can't be real. It's just an old bus. People ride these all the time… right?"
But the longer she stared at the passengers, the more she felt that something was deeply, horribly wrong.
Then she saw the driver.
He was hunched forward, his uniform wrinkled, his back rising and falling with slow breaths. His cap shadowed most of his head. Only his jawline was visible—sharp, too sharp.
Lena forced herself to speak.
"Excuse me… does this route go to Westhill?"
The driver responded immediately—
without turning.
His voice was a low scrape, like bone dragging over stone.
"Last stop."
She stiffened.
"Sorry—what?"
The driver's head twitched as if the tendons in his neck resisted movement.
Then, slowly:
"Last stop depends on you."
Lena sat completely still.
The doors slammed shut.
And the bus plunged forward into the night.
THE ROAD DISAPPEARS
Within minutes, Lena realized something was wrong.
The city buildings faded too fast, swallowed by darkness as if the world behind them had erased itself. The streetlights flickered once and then disappeared entirely.
Outside, the window only reflected her pale, frightened face—and rows of shadowy passengers behind her.
But then—
movement.
She jerked her head.
A shadow at the far end of the bus was moving without its person.
The passenger sat motionless, but the shadow beneath his feet twitched, stretched, then dragged itself toward the aisle—
like an animal sniffing for something warm.
Lena's chest tightened.
"Nope. No. No…"
She shut her eyes.
When she opened them again—
The reflection in the window had changed.
The advertisement panel above the driver's seat suddenly lit up:
A funeral notice.
Her funeral notice.
Her photo.
Her name.
Her birthday.
And below it:
Time of death: Today.
Lena's pulse exploded in her ears.
"No. NO. I'm alive! I'm right here!"
Her voice echoed down the bus.
No one reacted.
A man slowly turned his head.
The bones in his neck crackled.
He looked at her with fog-filled eyes.
Lena pressed a hand to her mouth.
She tried to stand but froze when she saw her own reflection again.
Her reflection was looking at her.
Staring.
Smiling faintly.
Her real face wasn't smiling.
Her reflection lifted one hand slowly—
and wrote on the fogged window:
RUN.
THE DRIVER SPEAKS AGAIN
Lena stumbled toward the front.
"Stop the bus! I need to get out!"
The driver didn't reply.
She reached for his shoulder—
Her hand passed through him.
She screamed and stumbled back.
The driver finally moved, but not naturally—
His entire upper body twisted around too far, like his spine had too many joints.
Under the cap where his face should be—
there was nothing.
Just a hollow black void humming with pale light.
A voice whispered from everywhere at once:
"You boarded the road of the forgotten."
Lena couldn't breathe.
"No—no—take me back! I'm not supposed to be here!"
The whisper sank deeper, colder:
"Every soul who boards… belongs."
Suddenly—
The bus lights shut off.
The engine roared.
The temperature dropped sharply.
And Lena felt something cold wrap around her ankle—