Chapter 2 -

  The twins Colin and Coleen caught a city bus to get to school, like a usual Tuesday morning.

  They boarded the bus like always. Same faces. Same stops. Coleen sat with some kids behind her. One boy was trying to talk a girl, who was sharing the seat with him, into trading snacks. Colin leaned back with one earbud in, scrolling on his phone. Half the adults were already half-asleep. It was still early and the sun had only been up a short while.

  It was calm. Familiar.

  Coleen, glancing forward, eyes flicking to the driver. “I can’t wait until we get our license,” she murmured. “Imagine not waiting on this thing every morning.”

  He’d grinned. “Imagine you driving. Terrifying.”

  She’d flicked his shoulder, but she was smiling.

  The bus itself was packed, loud, alive in the way only a morning commute could be. Colin noticed the press of bodies, the muttered apologies, the distant music leaking from someone else’s earbuds.

  They hit the stop before the tunnel that takes them through the mountain and leads toward the schools.

  Passengers shifted.

  Someone joked about the traffic inside.

  A boy and girl were a few seats ahead, whispering to each other in their own small world.

  A burly guy in a red Hawaiian shirt, towered near the middle aisle, half-asleep and half-annoyed in equal measure.

  One younger businessman clutched his binder like he always did, even on the bus.

  Normal. All of it.

  Normal enough that nothing felt out of place.

  The bus rolled forward, nosed into the long dark mouth of the tunnel.

  The lights overhead flickered.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Passengers shifted uneasily. Someone muttered, “Cheap wiring.” Someone else laughed it off.

  Then the world went white.

  Not bright.

  Not blinding in a normal way.

  Erasing. Impossibly bright.

  A flood of light swallowed the bus so violently that every window turned to beaming glass. Colin grabbed the seat in front of him as his vision sparked and went blank. He heard people yelling- but distant, muffled, like through water.

  The bus jolted.

  Metal groaned.

  Tires skidded upon something that wasn’t asphalt.

  He pressed a hand to his chest. The thrum deepened. Not pain. Not fear. Something else. Something wrong.

  Then, as quickly as it came, the vibration snapped out.

  The light faded.

  And the tunnel wasn’t a tunnel anymore.

  “What the…” he had whispered, sitting forward sharply.

  Where concrete walls and LED strips should have been, there were fields. Endless, sunlit grass. Distant trees. Open sky that stretched wider than anything back home. The bus rolled on as though nothing had changed.

  But it had changed, because outside the windows stretched a wide open plain of green, rolling under a sky too clear, too sharp, too wrong. No buildings. No signs. No city. The sun was in the wrong place. Instead of morning, it looked like it was closer to evening now.

  Someone screamed.

  Someone else gasped, “What the hell-?”

  The driver slammed the brakes. The bus fishtailed on dirt-

  Confusion rippled through the seats, murmurs, gasps, the beginning edge of panic.

  Colin’s pulse hammered.

  This can’t be real. This can’t-

  Then a hard, metallic THWACK hit the side of the bus.

  He jerked back. The sound echoed through his skull, sharp, violent, nothing like anything mechanical.

  The second arrow hit a window.

  The glass cracked.

  And the world they knew ended.

  Then another arrow punched through the bus window, scattering glass across the aisle. Someone screamed. Another person ducked too late and caught a cut along their cheek.

  The bus shuddered as something exploded against the front windshield, heat blooming across the metal frame. The windshield exploded inward in a burst of flame and glass shards. Colin ducked instinctively, feeling heat lick across his arm. Passengers shrieked and dove for the floor.

  The driver was flung sideways out of his seat, and landed on the floor, where he slumped sideways, blood running down his temple. Colin didn’t know if he was unconscious or worse.

  Someone went down hard near the aisle, and the broad-shouldered man from the bus hauled them up without a word, setting them on their feet before moving again. The woman with the pulled-back ponytail was already crouched beside another survivor, hands steady, voice low and practical as she checked for blood.

  Toward the back, the older woman kept herself between two panicking passengers, her calm cutting through the noise like weight. The boy in running shoes hesitated at the edge of the chaos, then bolted forward, reckless and fast, while the lanky kid with grease-dark fingers froze, eyes darting between danger and escape, like he was still calculating which mattered more.

  Coleen grabbed Colin’s wrist with one hand and a young boy with the other. “DOWN!”

  Chaos erupted.

  More blasts hammered the side of the bus, rattling the frame. Arrows punched through the windows with a dry, horrible snap. One embedded in the seat inches from a young girl’s shoulder; she screamed and pulled the boy with her in the seat, close against her.

  The burly guy bellowed something wordless as glass rained over him. The young businessman was already curled behind a seat, binder clutched to his chest like it could shield him.

  The boy in running shoes blurted out, “What's with these arrows? Are we being attacked by the Archery club?” he said as he peeked his head over a seat to see outside.

  Colin pressed his back against the floor, heart slamming, ears ringing. His mind couldn’t catch up.

  Hooded figures were rushing toward them from outside, dark cloth, metal glinting, flames swirling in their hands.

  Magic.

  Real magic.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  “Why us?” someone cried.

  “Why are they attacking?!”

  Colin didn’t have answers.

  No one did.

  The cloaked attackers- dozens of them- shouting, telling them to surrender. Shadows moved past the shattered windows. More arrows thudded into the bus frame.

  Inside, panic thickened the air.

  A woman a few rows ahead dropped to her knees beside a shaking teenager, hands steady as she spoke low and fast, her voice cutting through the panic just enough to anchor him. “Hey. Look at me. Breathe with me. In. Out. You’re not alone.”

  Someone was sobbing. Someone else was praying. A woman in a soft cardigan was crouching between seats, nervously picking at her fingernail polish. A few passengers were frozen upright, staring at the broken windshield as if refusing to accept what was happening.

  Coleen wasn’t one of them.

  She ducked under a handrail and crawled toward the two young passengers in matching school uniforms. The girl looked terrified but alert. The boy held her shoulder tightly, eyes darting everywhere.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Coleen asked, already scanning past them, broken glass, bodies on the floor, movement outside the windows.

  “No,” the girl said too fast. Her fingers were locked tight in the boy’s sleeve. “Not at all. We came through the tunnel and then- people started screaming. The driver- ” Her voice caught. “I don’t think this is our town anymore.”

  “I’m Kevin,” the boy said quickly, forcing the words out. “This is Shelby.”

  “I’m Coleen,” she said. “That’s my brother, Colin. Stay low. Stick together.” Her voice stayed firm, controlled. “We help each other, and we get out.”

  Her voice cut crisp through the chaos. People around her straightened, just a little.

  Then another fireball slammed into the side of the bus.

  BOOM!

  Glass exploded inward. A hot wave washed through the aisle. Someone screamed. The boy in the tracksuit and running shoes fell backward over an armrest.

  “Hold still,” a young woman snapped as she pressed her scarf against a bleeding arm, already knotting it tight with practiced hands. “Pressure. Don’t move it.”

  Near the aisle, a broad-shouldered man with a worn cap planted himself between two seats, one arm braced against the frame as the bus rocked, jaw clenched, eyes tracking every movement outside without a word.

  Arrows clattered across the floor.

  Colin lifted his head for half a second- just long enough to see the figures outside begin advancing with weapons drawn.

  Coleen crawled toward the rear, deciding this situation needed someone to take charge in order for these folks to calm down. She tried gathering what little courage the others had left.

  Just then, the one that appeared to be the leader of the attackers yelled at the passengers, “All of you inside that… thing, If you come quietly, no one will get hurt! Surrender and this will be easy.”

  Colin didn’t hesitate. Neither did Coleen.

  “No way,” they said together.

  Coleen raised her voice over the chaos, addressing those in the bus with her. “We don’t know what’s going on, but if they’ve already done all this, and thrown fire at us, I seriously don’t believe they won’t hurt us. I think we should run. I saw outside, over there, what looks like a forest, or at least a wooded area that can give us cover and a place to hide. We need to get safe and find someone to help us.”

  A male passenger says, “Yes, but over there are houses,” he points off to the other side. “We should run that way. There are bound to be people there.” The man’s badge swung as he pointed, catching the light. Jeff.

  One of the crying passengers said through her sniffles, “The police should be along soon to help us. We should just wait. It can’t be long now!”

  Colin whipped his head around to look at her, and said, “Look around! We aren’t home anymore! We have no idea where we are or when or who, if anyone, will be coming around to save us! We have to help ourselves right now.” He then turns to Coleen and says, “I think I have a plan.”

  One of the sniveling passengers says, “We should do what they say. He says we won’t be hurt!”

  The burly guy pulls a bottle from his backpack, takes the bandana from around his neck, and begins stuffing it into the bottle. He looks up at the attackers through the windshield, and states firmly, “Like Hell I’m gonna do what they say!”

  With that, he lights the bandana on fire, rears back, and hurls the makeshift Molotov through the open front windshield, right at the hooded figure that spoke before. The bottle flies toward the group, and once it hits the ground, shatters and ignites, and sends flaming shards of glass everywhere. The blast was close enough that a few of them turned and covered themselves, while some even dove to the ground for cover.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The hooded leader shouts to his men, “Get them!” And the group of attackers began moving towards the bus at a cautious pace.

  Coleen, taking charge, says, “We can do this. This can work. The plan he gave us is solid. We can get out of this. Grab whatever you can to bring with us, and remember, stick together.”

  The male passenger Jeff again, “No, we should go towards the houses.” He shoots Coleen a sneer. “When we get outside, come with me to safety!”

  Another male passenger, visibly shaken, this reflected in his voice, “I-I’m Paul. I think we should go t-to the h-houses, too.”

  Two of the attackers reached the front of the bus. They look at each other with confused faces, not knowing what to make of this giant thing they’ve never seen before. One testingly pokes the bus with his sword, making a *clank* noise.

  They shrug and move towards the front broken windshield with the idea to climb inside. As one bends down and locks his hands together the other puts his foot in the handhold and his hands on the one boosting’s back, ready to be hoisted up and in.

  With a satisfied “heh heh,” the booster grunts and lifts the other. Reaching the windshield, he places his hands on the rim to lift himself, and out comes the trash can from the bus! It lands right on his head, trash going everywhere, knocking him backwards, falling. On his way down, kicking the booster in the head and causing him to fall face first into the dirt, bloodying his nose and making his eyes water. The climber lands to the ground with a grunt, his wind knocked out and trash on his head.

  The other attackers froze, staring.

  The group of hooded figures gathered their courage and began to advance once more. Almost reaching and surrounding the whole front of the bus, the group inside make their move.

  The front bus doors hissed open with a violent pneumatic snap, loud and sudden.

  Colin barely tracked who was moving anymore. People spilled past him in fragments, road flares blazing like miniature suns, shadows breaking and scattering as attackers recoiled. Smoke burned his throat. His ears rang.

  Motion everywhere. No order. No time.

  Then, from the bus, out jumps a man. He starts screaming at the top of his lungs and waving a broom around with the bristles on fire! He then scatter-sprays the contents of a bottle in an arc in front of him. He throws the broom down, and all the alcohol he just threw burst into flames, creating a flaming arc; a makeshift barrier.

  Taking advantage of the confusion he caused, he rushed back inside the bus, just as others began pouring out the back door. Passengers came out the front that had road flares they lit to confuse and keep the attackers at bay.

  Then out of the back doors of the bus were the twins. Colin bursts out the doors with a fire extinguisher. He runs up and sprays a group of three attackers, causing them to cover and fling themselves to the ground, shrieking. Coleen comes out already giving orders to the throng behind her, “Quickly! Run to the trees to the left!”

  A woman stumbles from the bus, and screams as soon as her feet hit the dirt. She looked over and saw one of the men holding the flare grunt and clutch his chest. He throws the flare into the group of attackers and falls over. She can clearly see the arrow sticking out of his chest. When she saw the scene, she screams. She screams and throws her hands in the air, and takes off running straight ahead, not thinking or aware of anything else. Just running and screaming. Coleen yells to her, but it does no good.

  Four more passengers come rushing out, and run the wrong way in a panic! Instead of running out diagonal, they run to the back of the bus trying to go around and escape some other way. As they turn the corner of the bus, they run into a group of attackers that were on their way around the back, and one passenger is run through immediately by the sword the attacker carried. The others behind him, being in such a panicked rush, all collide into each other and the attackers, making one large pile on the ground.

  The contrary male passenger Jeff comes out after. He looks around and starts jogging off towards the houses. He shouts back that everyone should follow him. The next few passengers that come out of the bus do just that, and start running after the man.

  Shelby and Kevin came out of the bus, give a determined nod to Coleen, and they take off running towards the forest she had suggested.

  Paul comes staggering out and takes a step towards Jeff’s direction. Coleen puts her hand on his back and gently pushes him towards the forest instead. He looks at her with fear in his eyes. Coleen smiles gently at him, trying to reassure, even though she had no such reassurances herself. Paul closes his eyes for a second, takes a deep breath, opens his eyes and starts running off to the forest behind Shelby and Kevin.

  Coleen, pushing the backs of the other passengers towards the trees in the right direction as they come out, she looks at Jeff and those that ran off and begs them to come back, but no response.

  As the plan continues to unfold, and more of the passengers were out and running, either to the houses or the forest, some bending down to grab a weapon fallen to the ground. Then a passenger came out with a second fire extinguisher. It was the burly guy that threw the Molotov in the bus. He comes out yelling and runs towards the attackers and sprays at them while cackling.

  Colin looks at him and just shakes his head. At least it's keeping them back like in the plan, he thought to himself as he turned to Coleen and said, “Go! We got this for now!”

  Colin would be fine. At least for now. Grandpa Dan had made sure of that, what with his daily training exercises.

  But the light. The fire. The way the attackers moved-

  She didn’t understand that part yet. Then she shouts at Colin, “then hurry it up. We're trying to get away!” and she turns and runs after the rest of the group towards the forest.

  Colin turns back to the fray, away from getting yelled at by his sister. He turns from his sister right in time to see two attackers coming for him, one armed with a spear and the other with a one-handed sword!

  He had just enough time to think to himself, Why are they attacking us? The only fights I've been in were training and sparring. I'm 15! I don't just go around fighting everybody!

  He uses his front foot to scoop some sand and kick it in the face of the spearman, temporarily blinding him. Then planting the kick foot, he easily grabs the wrist of the other attacker and turns aside the thrust from the sword. He swiftly backfists the attacker and he crumples to the ground. Colin lets go of the swordsman's wrist, and with the same hand he backhanded with, he comes around and elbows the spearman in the jaw, who crumples to the ground as well.

  Colin, pleased with himself at how well his first real fight had gone, looks over to the burly guy that was helping fend off the attackers. He sees him slam his fist into one of the attackers, but as he is falling from the hit, he reaches out and grabs onto the burly guy's bright red Hawaiian and drags him down, too!

  The burly guy lets out a grunt as he falls on top of the attacker he hit. The two start to wrestle and grapple on the ground. He doesn’t see the other attacker as he comes up from behind. Armed with a mace, he raises it to bash in the head of the burly guy.

  It happened too fast to process. Colin had no time to think. He let out a yell and leaned down to grab the spear at his feet. “No!” He yells and throws the spear. It flies, and just before the mace comes down, it plunges into the attacker’s back and bursts out the front. Blood spatters the Hawaiian shirt and a little on the face of the man as he looked to see.

  The burly guy brings both his hands together over his head, and slams them into the face of the attacker he was on top of, completely knocking him out. He turns to look at Colin. Colin had fallen to his knees, tears streaking down his face, and fresh vomit on the ground. The burly guy recognizes what’s happened and scrambles onto his feet and runs to Colin.

  He drops to one knee beside him and places a heavy hand on Colin’s shoulder.

  “Hey- hey, kid… breathe. Look at me. Not over there. Look at me.”

  Colin’s throat didn’t work, and a dry sob broke out of him as he squeezed his eyes shut. His hands are shaking so badly he can barely hold himself up. He can taste bile. He doesn’t want to look at his hands, or the spear, or the body behind the burly man.

  “I didn’t- I didn’t think…,” Colin chokes out, voice cracking. “I just… he was going to kill you.”

  The man’s grip tightens, grounding him. There’s fear in the man’s eyes too, but also gratitude, heavy, real, anchoring.

  “You saved my life,” He says, rough but steady. “If you hadn’t moved, kid… I’d be gone. That’s the truth.”

  Colin’s breath staggers in his chest. The world feels tilted, too sharp and too loud.

  He doesn’t feel brave. He feels sick. Wrong.

  But the man’s words push through the haze.

  The thought came late, shaky, barely holding together.

  He hadn’t moved because he wanted to.

  He’d moved because someone was about to die.

  Something painful and clear settles in his chest, not strength, not yet… but the shape of resolve.

  He wipes his trembling mouth and nods weakly, eyes unfocusing as he tries to steady his breathing.

  “I didn’t want to…” he whispers.

  “I know,” the man says. “But this place isn’t home. If you freeze, someone else won’t walk away. You understand?”

  Colin hesitates, just a heartbeat, then nods, tears still hanging on his lashes.

  He hates what he had to do.

  But he understands why he did it.

  And that understanding, fragile as it is, becomes the first piece of the resolve he’ll need to survive in this new world.