Chapter 4: The Change

Seth was the last person on the bus, as usual. Everyone had gotten off miles ago. He was lucky they still went out this far with the bus routes considering how few people used this stop. Sighing, he focused back on the road and where he was just a few more blocks and he could get off. 

Boom! 

The earth shook and the bus careened out of control before flipping. Seth held himself in place with all his might as the bus slid across the roiling asphalt. With every wave, the bus was tossed and buffeted. Shockwaves shattered buildings and crumbled vehicles like clay. With each one, more was destroyed. Seth could not understand why neither he nor the bus were affected save for being tossed like a buoy on the waves. He just kept chanting "Stay together… Stay together… Stay together…." Over and over in his mind and his fingers pressed into the frame of the bus. The driver had exploded into blood mist and reformed over and over again before Seth's eyes. He kept screaming every time he reformed as if he felt everything. The man was different every formation, from a rotund man in his late 50s reversing back to a mid-twenties, early thirties fit individual. As Seth gazed outside the bus, he realized the bus driver wasn't the only one. In fact, Seth remained the only individual within his sight to not undergo such as absurd and horrendous change. He was by no means fit and had left his early thirties years ago. Seth couldn't think on that as he desperately kept thinking, "Stay together… keep it together… together… together… whole…". No matter how it came across he kept pushing the thought through his mind. He didn't want to combust, let alone repeatedly explode and reknit. He held on for dear life as the bus stayed firm and so did he. He felt sick but kept down the nausea as he held tight through the eddying of the world around him. 

Then just as quickly as everything began, it stopped. The driver, fully formed, a giant of a man, covered in muscles. A massive horn jutted from his head into the frame of the bus as he lay curled up and trapped in the area where he sat. A single eye of the deepest, darkest yellow Seth had ever seen stared at him as tears seemed to drain from the eye and the man's voice now bellowed with every cry. 

Seth forced himself to look away from the man or monster or whatever he was now and looked at the madness the world had become. Everyone around him had changed, and each one matched some mythological creature or legend. Some still looked human but had an air about them that was far from normal. Nothing was normal. A man stumbled out of the wreckage of his home with white feather wings on his back, screaming as he tried to tear them off. A… something crawled out of the debris of another building scampering on all fours with flames floating around… er… her? It looks female with large breasts, but with bat wings and horns and sharp fangs and… looking hungry. 

"Shit!" 

Seth scrambled to figure out how to leave the bus before that creature decided he was on the menu. 

"Don't leave me!" A deep, cavernous voice boomed through the bus. "Help me!" 

Seth turned around in shock. The man still had his intellect, did that mean that every creature out there still did? And why didn't he turn into one of those creatures? Was he extremely lucky or severely unlucky? 

"Only time will tell," he whispers to himself before rushing back along the bus to help the creature that once was the bus driver. Just as he reached him, the voice of Joshua pierced his mind as a… er… screen… of sorts… appeared before his eyes. It read "Welcome to the Merlin System" across the top. Beneath it held a description of the world's current state of events and what had just happened. It cut off on the bottom as if there were more pages. With trembling fingers, Seth reached out and attempted to scroll, like he would on his smart phone. The page scrolled up and the text continued. As he continued to read, another window popped up and overlapped the second. 

<> 

He reached over to tap the screen and pulled up a new note. 

<

Though it pains me to tell you this, but I was not as I appeared to you. My story is long and arduous, but I will sum it up as such. There is a group that goes by the Council and the Supreme One rules them. They desire nothing but to conquer everything. Upon my visit to earth, I discovered anomalies in humans. So hopefully I gave each of you a fighting chance. Life will be hard, but humanity must survive. I have implanted my remaining consciousness into this system. Prepare for war. Learn and you will be the greatest among your kind. 

Sincerely, 

Joshua Merlin Kronos>> 

Seth felt shocked. Joshua? Was Merlin? Considering what he was seeing, it was very possible. Humans turning into monsters, but somehow still retaining their human souls. The driver was a prime example of this very point as he called out for help in a two toned voice that no human could make. The single visible eye whirled around in its socket as the driver began to panic further in the constraining space he was in. Seth did not know how to help him. His size had expanded so much that the very space around him seemed to squeeze and press as if it could not contain what he was. What… what is he? What did that blast do to him? How can I help him? How can he move him out of the confines of the metal bus? He thought, frantic.