Part three
As the machine grows smaller and smaller in the distance, I watch it cradle the sleeping girl in its arms. Its lamp-like eyes finally leave mine, and it slinks away with its prize into the shadows of the wastes.
I slowly turn to look back down the aisle of the bus. Stunned, and defeated. With a final grunt, Leah brandishes the broken and severed arm of one of the creatures, and smacks another through the shattered remains of a window.
The thing makes no efforts to cling to the vehicle's side, and one by one the other machines- the ones still attached to the ceiling and sides of the bus- all withdraw voluntarily. As they drop, their shadows pass fleetingly over the bus's interior, and with subtle crunches they land amidst the dust of the road to silently watch us drive away.
As soon as I'm sure that the assailants have ended their efforts, I allow myself to collapse with exhaustion into the nearest seat, and Leah does much the same.
I breathe in deep.
"…They took her", I murmur after a beat.
"…Yeah", Leah replies, sadly.
The engine rumbles.
"I'm sorry", she says eventually.
"Hey, it's okay. It wasn't your fault. I'm sorry too", I say back.
"No, I mean, for everything. I'm sorry if you felt like I was keeping stuff from you. I didn't really think any of this could be real… Until we passed through the tunnel… and saw *this*… this *wasteland*…"
She trails off, and I look over to her.
"So what do you know, Leah? Please, just tell me. What made you think all this stuff was going to happen?"
She sighs, gently.
"I don't know anything about where we are. But this bus… A friend found a whole forum about it. We spent like an entire afternoon just reading through the posts… and I asked her to sign me up. There was a glitchy form in one of the links. As a joke, you know. To see what would happen. This was like three days ago".
"And what did it say?" I ask.
Leah shrugs and looks at her forearm. It's grazed, but she's not bleeding.
This thought makes me look down at my leg. There's a cut there, and I wince as I apply some pressure to stop the flow.
"It said that the bus was supposed to be a way to travel between…"
I wait for her to say more, but she doesn't.
"A way between what?"
She shrugs again. "It didn't really explain. All the posts used weird acronyms and phrases and it was tough to work out what they were talking about. But I remember them saying that it used to be better… That it wasn't safe to ride, anymore… That the owners, or whatever, the people who built it or run it, I don't know… The 'Operators', they called them… They said that the Operators had abandoned the project. I don't know why".
"Ugh", I reply downheartedly. This is insane. All of this.
Shadows shimmer across Leah's face, and the deep-orange glow of the sky reflects bright in her hair. She looks ashamed and embarrassed.
"I'm sorry", she says again quietly.
"…It's okay", I reply. I already start to feel guilty. "You have nothing to apologize for, really. You read through some forum, that's not a crime. And you don't even know me, anyway. I'm nobody to you".
"…You're not a nobody to me", she says.
She smiles at me.
And I smile back.
My hair drifts lightly in the breeze through the newly-created holes in the windows, and something shiny draws my eye through the one at the bus's front. Our immediate surroundings, it would seem, are starting to change. The ancient road stretches ever-onwards, but all around us, the derelict remains of the unfamiliar buildings are becoming scarcer and scarcer. The shine through the glass becomes brighter and I have to shield my eyes- and with little warning, it becomes suddenly clear what it is. The scorched-gray plains are being gradually lost beneath great puddles of subtly rippling water.
I call it *water*, but to be honest I don't know what it is. It could well be oil, actually, the way it's reflecting the orange of the sky. It seems to mix and merge with curious shades of pink and gold amidst the black.
None of the puddles touch the road. They only cover the face of the plains, far out in both directions.
And as we watch, these bodies of liquid grow larger and larger. Deeper too, judging by the liquid's darkness, but it is impossible to tell how far down they might actually go. Lake-like pools in the gray dust stretch on and out, widening further and spilling into each other as the bus travels along down the road…
…And then the plains are lost altogether. There is only the curious water. Flat and shimmering as far as the eye can see.
Vast oceans of water, and the road.
"I don't suppose the forums mentioned anything about this, did they?" I ask Leah, but she gives me the response I'm expecting.
"No", she says nervously as she glances from window to window. "No they didn't".
We are quiet for a while as the bus follows the path of the road.
"I can't believe they got the girl", I say eventually. Thinking about the sleeping young woman taken right from her seat.
"I know… But, we tried", Leah replies. Her eyes meet mine, and I can tell we're thinking the same thing.
*Did we though? …Did we really?*
"Do you think she's going to be okay?" I ask, and Leah drops my gaze.
"Yeah, I'm sure", she replies, and the uncertainty in her tone is clear.
We both jump as a familiar noise cuts through the quiet rumble of the engine. It's that same sharp buzz from the ceiling at the very front of the bus, right above the windscreen window. The orange light there flickers back into life, and that same near-indecipherable voice comes muttering through the speakers. Crackled and distorted. The first half of the speech sounds the same, I recognize the cadence, and I think the word 'test'… but I believe the rest of the speech to be different. I think I can pick out another new word.
"'Mirror'…?" I think out loud, and Leah nods. She heard it too.
I turn to stare out the left-hand window in thought. I follow the line of broken glass down the edge of the frame, until I'm looking down into that thick and oil-like water.
Quietly rippling in the glow.
The road appears to be built into a narrow bridge, one at the water-level. The black liquid laps quietly at its edge…
…But it's not entirely *black*, it can't be.
…Because a shape that is darker still lurks in the depths. An enormous shadow that slithers through the water and beneath the road.
I jump to a stand at once, but my voice is caught in my throat.
"Yaz?" Leah asks, startled. "What is it?"
I find my words. "Quick, look out the window, on your side!"
She does so, and I move beside her, and we watch the enormous shadow in the deep slither out on opposite side, a hidden monstrosity… then it turns and makes to follow the bus, keeping a rough pace with the battered vehicle, alongside the road.
"Oh my God", I say out loud. "Leah if there's anything else you know about this place that you think might be worth mentioning-"
"I don't, I swear! You know as much as I do!"
…And we both watch in terror as the shadow grows larger. Rising up to the surface… closer and closer… and with it… comes the water itself.
With a sound like rain, thick and brutal, the water starts to rise up and away from the surface in a great and enormous wave, a rippling oily wall, and the shadow is subsumed within it.
"What the hell-" Leah begins, but she gets no further.
The oil-like substance of the watery wall thunders louder, and as its form starts to steady, it reflects back at us a perfect mirror copy of the bus. I can see myself through the cracked windows, I can see Leah, and the driver… all shadowy and strange in the reflection. I raise a hand, and my mirror image does likewise.
I lower it again.
…But my reflection, does not.
My pulse starts to race. I lift my hand, again and again, but my reflection remains static. My mind struggles to process this disconnect, then I slam the hand over my mouth in horror as the reflection of Leah starts to *change*. The wall ever-rises and cascades and crashes through the dark sea and alongside the road, keeping pace.
The mirrored Leah starts to warp and change. She falls to pieces before my eyes and another steps from her skin.
*…It's Courtney.*
The girl who loves to torment me. My bully from back home. The one I'm convinced signed me up for this hell in the first place… I watch as she strolls the length of the shadowy bus towards my reflection, both of them still grinning, though I can no longer see my eyes. I can't see Courtney's either. They've sunken back as dark pits into their heads.
I tear my gaze away to look at Leah, the REAL Leah, the one standing beside me. She's staring at the scene in the bus too, though her eyes are quickly darting from left to right, as if she's watching some kind of back-and-forth…
…*Is she seeing the same thing I'm seeing?*
I look back to the wave.
…Except, it's not a wave, any more. It's REAL. A second road has appeared alongside the first. The bus is not just a picture on an oily, watery canvas… It's a solid vehicle that I could reach out the window and touch, if I were so inclined.
Courtney has reached my reflection, and still, with those terrible grins fixed in place, Courtney begins to slowly strangle me.
…The reflected me, I mean.
I watch in dismay as my reflection starts to twitch, her throat contracts, she loses her footing and drops to the ground, but Courtney keeps my head held up.
*…HER head held up…*
Squeezing tighter…
…and tighter…
…and tighter…
…And I choke.
Me. The real me. The real Yaz starts to choke.
I reach up to my throat…
…And I can feel it.
I can feel her elbow and forearm around my neck. I can feel it. I can't fucking… I can't get in any air!
I try to push her away- but there's nothing there! I look to Leah, but she's nowhere near me. She's not even looking at me. She's still staring out through the window, eyes wide.
'L-Leah!' I try to choke out, but I can't, I just can't.
*…I NEED AIR! I NEED AIR, NOW!*
In the other bus, my mirrored copy is turning from red to blue. Still grinning that disturbing smile as she is steadily choked to death. She's barely even fighting back.
*WHY?* I mentally scream to her, *WHY WON'T YOU FIGHT BACK!?*
Black dots begin to flash at the edges of my vision. I start to feel dizzy, except, that's a poor word for it, really. My brain is struggling to get the oxygen it so desperately needs…
…I stagger down the length of the bus.
With one hand still on my neck I reach out and fumble for the release for the door, and with a hiss it clanks right open. The breeze that was gusting in through the cracks in the windows becomes a roaring rush of wind, and my hair is immediately blown about my face.
The mirrored bus is not far away. With a leap, I could make it. I could jump right over to the vehicle and stop the madness taking place onboard.
I can barely think. And desperate times, call for desperate measures.
*I only get one shot.*
Coughing and spluttering I take a step back, and then power forwards, ready to jump across to the neighboring vehicle.
…Just as my foot leaves the bus, however, I feel a hand on the back of my collar and another around my waist, and with a crash I am drawn painfully back inside, landing on the ground with a loud bang.
I grab a nearby seat to haul myself up and swivel in anger. "LEAH!" I shout above the twin roars of the wind and the oily rain, "I need to get to the other bus!"
"No!" Leah replies, gripping my shoulders. "You don't!"
"But I'm… I'm-" I fumble for words. I was going to say: 'I'm choking', but… I'm clearly not, am I? If I can still talk…?
I reach a hand to my throat, but the tightness is gone.
*And hell, was it ever really there?*
"…Why did you pull me back in?" I ask the girl, and without speaking a word, she raises a hand and solemnly points over my shoulder.
A shiver of cold fear passes through me, and I turn to look behind.
…There is no bus.
There is no second road.
It never 'became real'.
The great and monstrous wall of oily water rages on… but there is no reflection, now.
Now I can see the contents of the wave for what they really are.
It's the size of the bus, to be fair, if not a little longer, but the similarities end there.
I find myself staring into the great and watching eye of a soulless metal leviathan.
A monster from the depths; all rolling gears and spines and barbs, a blight on a landscape even as barren and joyless as this, it sends a stab of terror right into my beating heart.
The thing is a living engine, twisted brutally into the rough shape of some long-forgotten and prehistoric terror; the clanks of the chains of its mouth reverberate through the water as its jaw distends in the manner of some dark angler-fish; it sends a hiss like the scraping of metal on metal through the water and the air, and for a long and terrible second I think the creature means to strike out from the wave and to try and force its teeth through the open door of the bus…
…But it does not. Its cracked and glassy eye flashes a quick, bright white, then the mechanical plates of its body ripple out and it drops through the wave, back into the water below as no more than a creeping shadow, and the great wall drops with it. With a loud rush it smacks the surface and is promptly left behind… Left behind with its oily froth and ripples as the bus speeds on…
…onwards, down the long and empty