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If you're on the last bus for the night, there are some rules on how to survive.

My car got utterly wrecked. No saving it. Mashed up to bits. My sister had borrowed it and cheated death that day. Even after looking at the heap of scrap metal that was my car, I had no idea how she got out with only a few broken bones. By all right she should have died. But that’s was my sister. She has the best luck. She married a good guy with a decent amount of money for them to live comfortably. The day of the accident, they had taken their car in to get the snow tires switched to all season ones. Her job wanted her to come in for an extra shift. She almost refused but I lent her my car for the day. I was so thankful for having my sister I didn’t even think about I now had to take the bus for work.

Thankfully my boss let me have the weekend off after seeing photos of the crash. He also had no idea how my sister lived. I took care of things while she was in the hospital and soon found out city transportation isn’t reliable. It arrives late. Or too early. Or not at all. Sometimes it’s so packed you need to stand for the entire ride. And it takes forever. A city bus could take over an hour to get to a location that was only a ten-minute drive away. I sometimes could walk faster than the bus. But I couldn't afford getting a taxi to and from work. I thought about borrowing a bike, but it was still cold. During the day it was fine but I worked late into the night. Even just waiting for the last bus nearly froze me to death. Sure, it wasn’t going to snow any more but I’m very sensitive to the cold. I just never adjusted to the climate after we moved further up North. So, no biking home.

Aside from all that, the bus wasn’t all that bad. I could get some reading in. I couldn’t read while driving. And most books I enjoyed didn’t have audio books.

That’s how I found myself on the last bus home after a week of missing my car. My sister was doing fine and I could finally relax a little after a stressful week of being late to work because of my new form of transportation and losing an hour of sleep each night riding home. Because it was so late it was only myself and the driver for most of the ride. I still had half the ride to go when the bus stopped to pick someone up. My nose buried inside my latest trashy romance I didn’t even look up to see who it was. Even with the empty bus they sat in front of me. Odd but I wasn’t complaining. I took a quick glance up and noticed they were short. And had bleach white hair. I glanced at my watch and groaned at how it was so close to midnight. I lived close to the bus depo so that was lucky. Not every route had a bus running so late. I got off the second last stop. The bus normally turned it’s light off once I got off so I knew it was out of service when I was within walking distance of home. In the past week I had never seen anyone get on this late. I shrugged and went back to my book.

Then another person got on. Which was weird. I didn’t think we had actually stopped. Just paused at red light. But I had seen kind bus drivers who picked people up if they tapped on the front door if the bus had stopped somewhere. This time I peeked up but the person who got one was so tall they crossed the bus fast. They were dressed in black and had passed me before I got a good look at them. I started to turn my head for a discreet peek, but a voice in front of me made me stop.

“Don’t look at it.”

The voice was soft and it sounded like it belonged to a child. I stared at the person in front of me instead of the one who just passed behind.

“It?” I asked slowly.

“May I sit beside you?”

It was an odd request, but if I was talking to a child, I didn’t see why not. Without waiting for an answer, the small child in front of me got up from his seat and walked to sit next to me. I was guessing it was a boy but it’s hard to be sure of children. He was wearing gender neutral clothing. Just a big grey sweater, jeans, and I was shocked to see no shoes. Why was he out so late? Where was his parents? Why was he missing his shoes? I had put the other person on the bus out of my mind as I looked over at the child. He finally raised his head to look at me and under his long wavy white hair, pink eyes stared at me. I had never seen someone who was albino before. Aside from some photos. It was off putting for a second. But I focused on the more important questions.