Welcome To Limbo

Chapter 1 ~ The Bus of Regrets

Wet. My hair was wet, my ass was wet, my legs were wet, my arms were wet, even my boobs were wet. Every little piece of me was drenched in the freezing water that poured down from the sky in bucket-sized drops. Not to mention how incredibly loud the rain was. I could barely hear myself think with the constant crashing of raindrops on the sidewalk and the spine-shaking booms of thunder that resonated in the distance.

I'm so cold. I'm so wet. It's so dark out here, I can barely see, I thought to myself as my body shivered under a flickering street lamp.

The street I was on seemed completely void of people, even though it was in the downtown area of Laketon, Illinois, my college's city. Laketon State University was only a few blocks away, and my stomach heaved at the thought of running into someone from there. I was running away. Away from college and all the big business plans that my parents had for me. I didn't want to be a CEO, or really anyone with so much power, even if that's what the world expected of me.

Tonight was my lucky night, my only chance of ever escaping the life I didn't want to be a part of. There was a huge festival across town, being held in the only mall we had. Everybody and their mother was there. I think there was supposed to be someone famous there, but I couldn't be sure, because I didn't really care. All that mattered was that nobody was around to see me leave.

I held on to the hood of my jacket, pulling it as far over my face as possible. The rain was unbearable and I was desperate to get on the bus that hadn't arrived yet. I shuffled my feet and stared down the street with a hardened expression. After a few moments, my heart rate picked up at the sound of a large vehicle disrupting the steady fall of the rain. My eyes widened slightly at the big black bus that approached me from the left. At nearly the last second, I realized what was about to happen and jumped backward with a small yelp. As the bus slowed to a stop with a screeching noise, a bucket of water splashed across the sidewalk from under the bus' front tire.

My chest heaved as I let out a sigh of relief, glad that I had gotten out of the way fast enough. I would've been incredibly pissed if I would have been splashed, even though I was drenched anyways. The door of the bus slid open, and I looked up into the eyes of a very old and very white man.

"Ya gettin' on, miss?" he shouted over the thrum of the rain, looking at me with squinting eyes.

"Oh- Yes!" I stumbled with my words, finally realizing just what it was that I was doing.

It had hit me that I was running away, about to become a vigilante. The dark bus before me made that fact feel more real than it ever had before. I felt my cheeks tighten as I gave the driver a big smile and proceeded to hand him my ticket. He barely even glanced at it before giving it back to me and jabbing his thumb in the direction of the seats behind him.

"Pick any seat ya want as long as it ain't taken," he said lightly.

"Thank you," I mumbled, stepping into the bus.

My search for a seat was short. There weren't many available, since the bus was packed with people of all sorts. I chose an open seat near the back, next to a girl who looked a couple of years older than me. I asked her if I could sit next to her and she just gave me a short "yes" and continued gazing at her phone. After I sat down, the bus started moving again. The only thing I could hear was the pounding of the rain on the bus, and the swish of water every time the bus passed through a puddle. The inside of the bus was quite dark. I figured all of the lights would be off at this time of night because people were trying to sleep. Although it would be kind of hard in my position, because there was a rather lanky dude sitting diagonally in front of me with his laptop on. The screen was burningly bright in the darkness, and all I could tell was that he was programming something. I was never able to understand that type of stuff.

As the bus merged onto the highway, I stared forward and tried to fall asleep to the steady roar of the rain. It had always been easy for me to fall asleep in a moving vehicle, but for some reason I just couldn't do it. Maybe it was the bright laptop, the loud rain, or just the fact that my heart screamed like a banshee at the thought of what I was doing.

Listening to the crackle of thunder, I watched the programming boy type endlessly with his long and skinny fingers. I wondered what it was that he was programming. Perhaps it was a website? Maybe it was a game or something. I wasn't able to ponder it for long, because only a moment after I started thinking about it, I nearly flew out of my seat and my upper body slammed into the back of the chair in front of me.

"Augh!" I grunted loudly as my butt fell hard back onto the edge of my seat, "What was that?"

I rubbed at the sharp pain in my shoulder and looked around, but nobody else seemed phased. A lump quickly formed in my throat as my eyebrows scrunched together and I assessed the situation. The bus had clearly just ran over something big, considering the harsh way it lurched and sent me flying forward. So why didn't anyone else seem to care? Were they not thrown out of their seats for a moment as well? I felt my heart start to pound like a rapid drum in my chest as I finally clicked on my seat-belt.

Dumbass, I scolded myself for not putting it on earlier.

I turned to look at the girl sitting beside me and I hesitated a moment, swallowing, then I began to ask, "Um, do you know-"

SCREEE

Crushing weight, pressing backwards, falling fast, flashing light, screaming tires. That was all that I knew in that moment. That was all that existed. The road was gone and the outside of the bus was replaced by an endless abyss of nothingness, like a void that you could travel through forever and never find an exit. The light of the laptop was gone, and my surroundings were illuminated red like the light of a police car, flashing on and off. My words had been snuffed away by the crushing weight pressing against my lungs as the bus fell forward at a speed I had never reached before. The thrum of the rain had been silenced, and the deafening sound of tires screeching rang in my ears.

I thought I had lost my mind. Surely this all was a nightmare. It wasn't ending, and I couldn't breathe. Tears swelled in my eyes as they were pressed deep into my head, and I forcefully blinked hard to keep myself from passing out. My heart was dangerously racing almost as fast as the bus was falling, and it picked up the pace as I saw something unbelievable. The passengers around me were changing. Their features sparked red and I only saw them for a second at a time. A pair of horns, a pointed hat, fuzzy ears, and a strange mass were all that I saw before the world around me was engulfed in darkness.

~

A/N +Woah look, I actually wrote something! Haha, I'm actually super excited for this story you guys. I'm still working on End Illusion, but this one inspires me much more so it's probably going to be easier for me to write it more often. This first chapter is kind of short, because it's an introduction of sorts, but I really want the rest of the chapters to be longer! We shall see if I can pull that off, heh. Remember, this is unedited so there might be some issues there but don't mind, I'll go through editing once I'm done with the story. I really hope y'all like it, and leave a vote if you do! It really helps, thanks. ~Bea