El “Forward Bus” Libro

It happened in the library, where I found the scrapped up leather hardly qualifying as a book. I wasn't particularly interested in the content of these gathered pages, but instead the cover. Along the spine it said nothing other than "Libro," but the cover, on the other hand, plainly stated "Forward Bus." It was as if the book wanted nothing other than to be unread. Curiosity brought me further.

Curiosity, I've noticed, rarely brought me any fortune. This is a particular example to prove so. Grabbing the book, I walked to the back corner of that crippling bank of dying stories. As I sat, I scanned for faces among the numerous posters grasping to halt the decline of paper-book reading. Only two others were around, the librarian and an elder man, whom both sat reading.. After opening the book, I saw only one word surrounded by all the unidentifiable symbols in the center of the page, "Forward."

The best description to give the next event is almost an intense teleportation. My chair rocked into the air and suddenly I was bouncing my head off of a metal pole. My first breath was thick with fog. Endorphins shot through my body and everything was almost slow-motion thereafter. A fluorescent light over my head flickers. In fact, the remaining few lights around were just about burnt out.

The first direction I looked was to my left, horrifying me before i even knew what i was watching. A small bony girl, staring straight forward. Her hair was lying about in scads around her in the plastic blue seats. Her blood crusted hand was digging into her forearm. As if I wasn't already petrified enough, I realized that dry bone scratching sound was, well, just that. All flesh raked aside by her nails as she emotionlessly itched into her own bone marrow. She stares straight forward.

I threw my eyes in another direction, hoping to find a sight more pleasant. That's when it hit me I was sitting in the back of a bus. I counted half a dozen other heads, the hair once attached to them sprawled across their shoulders and seats, just like the small girl. Eyes also straight forward. I jumped out of my seat just as the bus hit a bump, shorting my legs and sending me head first down the stairs.

I woke up on my back, blinded in my right eye. I grabbed the back of a bench seat, slowly pulling myself up. For an unknown amount of time, I had been unconscious at the bottom of the bus stairs. I found myself bloodied from an open wound above my brow in the reflection of a black window. All eyes were still straight forward. My fresh blood was barely distinguishable on the metal floor from the already laid out carpet of, assumably, more blood.

Grabbing poles to keep my dizzy self upright, I make my way to the front seat. I found myself already a little like everyone around me, as I'm covered in blood and staring forward as to not catch another horrifying sight. There was no driver. Instead, a pile of shoes lay across the top of the gas pedal. The steering wheel was broken off, missing actually.

One headlight still worked, but it shown nothing except the pavement ahead. There didn't seem to be any lines or mark indicating the road was not just an infinite blankness in every direction. To my right was the bus door, practically destroyed and covered in blood as if someone had pried it open with their bare hands.

I turned around, hoping to find someone with half an expression I can talk to. The first person I saw was a man, based off his choice of apparel, I would assume a Marine. Right as I was about to speak, I noticed that missing steering wheel dug inside of his leg. He held onto it with both hands, digging it further in as he held the grips with both hands.

I turned around, deciding to talk to the teenage-looking man instead. He had his hands in his hoodie. However he was harming himself, I wasn't able to see. I settled for that. I tapped his shoulder, "sir?"

No reply, not even an acknowledgement of my presence.

I gave his shoulder a small shake, trying to hopefully wake him from his blank trance. "Sir, do you know where we are? ... Do you know what is happe-" I'm interrupted as he bolts out of his seat. The suddenness frightened me, as I fell back and shielded myself. Looking back up, I watched as he vaulted for the bus door, climbed out, then crunched and twisted like a pretzel across the pavement aside the bus.

I was.. no, I am horrified. Because this just happened. Sitting in this same seat, everything that had just happened flashed through my head again. I'm now realizing I'm trapped. If there was a way out, all these others wouldn't be here. My head races, I feel numb.

I plant my feet in front of me.

I look out the window, but as it's just blackness, I find more comfort looking straight forward.

I scratch at the wound above my brow. Quickly I find pain from this, but I'm at a loss of ideas for other ways to feel anything except pain.

Feet forward.

Eyes forward.

Self mutilating.

I join the crowd of the Forward Bus.