by Jada Fisher
There was no answer and I took a couple more steps forward. “Driver? Did we already hit…” I stopped dead in my tracks, heart seizing in my chest.
There was no driver.
I stared incredulously, looking from the empty driver’s seat to the cityscape rushing by outside. The bus was definitely moving, as were the cars around us, and yet no one was controlling it.
I stumbled back, truly terrified. I took buses because I was both too poor to own my own car and too scared to learn how to drive, so this was doing nothing for me. I tried to scream, but nothing came out.
Then something thumped down ahead of us. I couldn’t will myself to stand up and see what it was, but I could feel the earth-shattering force as it blocked the road. Was it a building? A comet crash-landing from outer space? Considering I was on a runaway public vehicle with no driver, anything was possible.
But instead of slowing down, the bus accelerated. I suddenly found my ability to scream, just as we collided full force with whatever had landed in front of us.
My whole world was inverted for a minute, the concussive force of the collision rattling me all the way down to my molecular state. I saw flashes of images—nothing coherent, nothing purposeful, just a maddening myriad of disjointed ideas. Jagged scale, the glint of metal, a crackle of lightning, laughter. It was as if time was a rubber band, and I was in for the ride as it was stretched, stretched, stretched…
And then it snapped.
Fire billowed outward from the front of the bus, swallowing me whole and consuming every part of me. I screamed, and kicked, and fought with all my might, even though I knew it was useless. Fire always won.
But then I was spit out, almost as if by a geyser, flying through a window and crashing into the street.
I let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a sob, rolling onto my stomach. However, when I pushed myself up, I wasn’t on my street at all. I was in my sister’s room and she was laying on her bed, sleeping peacefully.
“Oh thank God,” I breathed, stumbling forward. I reached her bed and gently gripped her wrist to check her pulse. Terror flooded through me when I felt nothing, and another sob escaped me.
Only for me to realize I still had my glove on.
Whoops.
A bit embarrassed, I pulled the garment from my hand. Telling myself I needed to calm down, I searched for her pulse again. But the moment my fingers touched her flesh, the bed erupted into flames, reaching up to the ceiling and throwing me into the far wall.
I screamed, pausing only when my back smashed into the wall. I tried to roll forward and grab her, to wrest her from the bed as she kicked and screamed in agony, but I was knocked back by another blast.
No. It couldn’t end this way. Not again.
I fought my way to my feet, my utter terror waning in the face of my absolute rage. We didn’t deserve this!
“We deserve peace!” I cried.
For a moment, it almost seemed like the flames had listened, slowing in their crackling whips and pops. But just when I stood fully, some sort of…limb stepped out from the inferno, its clawed foot slamming into the ground in front of me. And then its other foot joined it.
I stumbled back for the second time until my back hit solid wood. The last thing I saw coming toward me was gnashing, pointed teeth before I was swallowed by fire once more.
I bolted upright, a choking cry erupting from my mouth. Gasping, I looked around to see I was in my room, safe and sound and very much not burnt to a cinder.
Geez, as far as nightmares went, that was a pretty terrible one. I was covered in sweat and my thin, summer pajamas were sticking me like a second skin.
“Gross,” I muttered, sliding out of my bed. I needed to make sure I washed my blankets and sheets when I got back from work.
Speaking of work, how long was it until I had to go in? I didn’t think my alarm had gone off; it was pure adrenaline that had awoken me from that awful scene I had been stuck in. Checking my phone, I actually saw that I was only up about fifteen minutes early. Well, if I had to be jolted out of my sleep by unadulterated fear, at least the timing was convenient.
I went about my morning routine—showering, brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, putting on my uniform. Once I finally felt like I was fit to be among society, I trundled down the hall and into the kitchen.
There, made a bowl of warm oatmeal, following the very particular steps that the doctors had described to me until it was just right. Grabbing some cereal bars for myself, I grabbed a meal replacement shake from the fridge and headed to my sister’s room.
She was, thankfully, not in the middle of a raging inferno. She was sleeping peacefully. I almost felt bad waking her, but she was supposed to inject her medicine at very specific intervals and I didn’t want to deviate from that if I could help it.
“Rise and shine, Mickey.”
Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t move other than that. “Huh?” Her voice was adorably groggy, but of course I would never say that out loud. Even if she was sick, I was sure my older sister would have no problem kicking my butt all the way to Sunday.
“I brought you breakfast.”
“Uh, that gross oatmeal again?”
“Aw, come on! It’s strawberries and cream, your favorite!”
“Yeah, it was my favorite when it didn’t have a million and one medicines dissolved into it.”
“Come on, there can’t be more than a thousand. And I put both vanilla and brown sugar in it.”
“Fine, give it here.” With a wry smile, Mickey sat up, propping herself into a comfortable position with pillows. She was looking a bit better—much less gaunt than before—but there were still distinct purple circles below her eyes and her lips were thin and pale. It was hard to imagine what she looked like even just a year or so earlier, before her sickness really set in and started doing a number on her.
Turned out lupus was a hell of a beast, with fangs much bigger and brighter than the ones I had seen in my dreams. Of course, my sister wouldn’t be in nearly as bad a shape if she had gone to the doctor when she had first started to feel sick.
No, heaven forbid she ever take care of herself. To be honest, I felt responsible for most of that. I had been in my senior year of high school and was struggling with my pending graduation. I felt lost, adrift, and like I hadn’t accomplished anything in what was supposed to be the greatest four years of my life. So naturally, Mickey had to fly in like the superhero she was and help me through it.
I wouldn’t have survived without her. She fed me, helped me with my homework, listened to problems that seemed so silly now. She waited and waited and waited until eventually, her body gave up.
I shuddered as I remembered coming home from a friend’s graduation party only to find her on the ground, ashen grey.
“Hey, what’s with the long face?”
I realized that I was telegraphing again and forced myself to smile. “Oh, nothing important. My favorite show just had a hell of a cliffhanger for a season finale.”
“You’d think after nineteen years, you would have learned not to lie to me.” She dutifully took a couple of bites of her oatmeal. “You’re not feeling that noble guilt of yours, are you? I made my choices about how to handle my health. None of this is your fault.”
Uncanny. Mickey always had a way of seeing through me. Most of the time, I didn’t mind, but it would be nice to have some privacy every once in a while. “Just finish your food, okay?”
“I’ll do my best. You off to work?”
I nodded. “Yeah, just a short five and a half-hour today.”
“Ugh. I don’t understand why they don’t just give you a full six hours so you can get a half-hour lunch in there.”
“Because scheduling is hard and people think us minimum wage earners deserve the worst working conditions.”
“Good point. Alright, you’d best hurry off then. It’s almost time for the bus.”
Right… The bus.
I was going to
have to face it at some point so it might as well be sooner rather than later.
“I’ll see you later! Be safe now.”
“Of course, I always am.”
I laughed at that then showed myself out, making sure to grab my bag on the way.
Hiss.
The machinery around me prattled away as it steamed milk, brewed coffee, and did everything else it had to do. It would have almost been a pleasant sound, were it not for the three separate blenders beside it that were all in various stages of breaking up ice for the cold drinks.
Normally, I didn’t mind my job—there were plenty of worse ones out there for kids fresh out of high school with no intention of jumping right into college—but today, I just wasn’t feeling it.
Maybe it was because of my dream. Or maybe it was how tense I had been on the bus. But it was kind of hard not to be, considering my mind liked to remind me that the last time it saw me on public transport, it had ended pretty terribly. It didn’t seem to matter how much I told myself it wasn’t real; the apprehension was still there.
I couldn’t even read, which was the best part about someone else driving you somewhere.
It was safe to say that I was just going through the motions, customer-service smile pasted across my face. My two co-workers didn’t seem to be in much of a bantering mood either. We usually had a pretty good time together, but everyone seemed a bit lost in their own thoughts.
It was probably school. Unlike me, Jamie and Stacey were both going to college full time. I knew they were going through a major transition in their lives, so a little introspection made sense.
Another added bonus was that our manager had been called to help another store, so there was a calm we didn’t often get around the noon-rush. It wasn’t that our manager was terrible, but she was a middle-aged woman who always seemed to be running somewhere between stressed out of her mind and complete mental breakdown. Lovely person, really, but whenever I talked to her, I had the distinct feeling the woman was barely holding back tears.
The first two hours of my shift passed without a hitch and I was starting to think that I would be able to go through my entire shift on autopilot. But then, the bell at the door jingled and I looked up to give the greeting that was engrained in me.
“Welcome to…” I trailed off as my eyes focused on who had actually come through the door.
“The Beanery!” Jamie finished for me. I gave her a grateful look before my eyes flicked right back to the new customers.
It was a group of three men who had to be somewhere around my age. They were all striking, in a very devastating kind of way.
The tallest was one of those hulking, gym body types with red hair so bright, it might as well have been copper. His features were all sharp and angular, something that probably should have been intimidating, but it just made me want to sketch him.
My fingers itched for my pencil and sketchpad as I looked over the second one. He was the shortest of the bunch, with midnight-black hair. His features were almost strangely elongated, as was his thin, lithe frame, and yet it worked for him. He reminded me of those models you see in magazines who shouldn’t have been attractive yet definitely were. His eyes were just as dark and had a sort of…almost predatory gleam to them as they scanned the room. I made sure to avert my stare when they passed me, but the urge to sketch them was becoming increasingly difficult to control.
I edged toward the other side of the counter to get a better view and be less conspicuous. From there, I saw the third one and my breath hitched a little.
While I had never really been one for romance movies, I had seen enough of them to recognize the trope where a beautiful woman would walk into a room and time would slow down. I always thought it was an overused tactic, especially considering that real life didn’t work that way.
And yet…that was exactly what was happening.
The background noise of the café dimmed and the light seemed to take on a soft glow as I studied the customer. He had long, bone-white hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, and green eyes even brighter than his friend’s, almost unnaturally so. He was obviously well-built and held himself with a regal sort of countenance that struck me as decidedly old-fashioned. He had cheekbones and a jawline to die for, so sharp it seemed like a stylized person an artist might draw, and yet there he was in stark reality.
He was taller than me by at least four inches, which was impressive considering that at five eleven, I was taller than the average man. His clothes looked to be high-quality, the ones that cost about four times more than they should have any right to.
Basically, he was exactly my aesthetic.
But that wasn’t it. There was something… I couldn’t describe it. Reality seemed to sort of shift around him, making my focus automatically go to him. I felt as if he was everything important that I should ever look at, yet also that I should tuck tail and run as far as I could. He was dangerous, and yet I wanted to reach out and touch the threat to see if it was all that it seemed to be.
I leaned forward, trying to absorb every detail so I could draw him from memory later. But as I went to rest my elbow on one of the machines, it knocked into something and before I could recover, the sound of glass shattering filled the café.
“Crap!” I yelped before quickly ducking out of sight. My cheeks bloomed red. Could I be any more of a dork? I didn’t think it was physically possible. I started to pick up the pieces of glass, folding my apron so I could dump them into my makeshift pouch.
I was muttering a very long line of expletives to myself when a pair of shins came into my view. It was Jamie, who knelt down and whispered to me in concern.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“I’ve never seen you get flustered over a customer before.”
“Who said I’m flustered over a customer?”
“Please, three drop dead gorgeous guys come in and you happen to shatter your first pitcher in months before they can even make it to the counter? I’m sleep-deprived, not stupid.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but I blushed harder. I had to come up with a reason why I had reacted so strongly, because I certainly didn’t want to admit that my whole world had suddenly felt like it had morphed into something different. “Alright. Maybe I was a little surprised how the third one looks like this comic book character I was absolutely in love with in high school.”
“Oh my God, that would totally happen to you.” She giggled slightly. “You’re such a nerd.”
“Says the woman who has every single Shakespeare play memorized.”
“Excuse you, the theater is art.”
“And so are comics.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But admitting that gives me one less thing to tease you about.” Her expression softened and she picked the glass pieces out of my apron. “Why don’t you go to the back and cut some lemons. I think you could use a little time to yourself.”
“Oh, my goodness, thank you. You are so nice!” I scrambled to my feet and practically dashed for the back of house. As I dove through the swinging doors, I could hear the trio come up to the counter to place their order.
Whew. Crisis adverted. I just hoped that everything would return to normal and I could finish the rest of my shift without any more incidents.
Read the rest of the story here:
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