Bus Stop 13 ➼hood

Fifth. Duh

|Calum|

❝it's just a trick.❞

***

When I jerk awake the second time, I realize that I am in a dark room, sitting down on a chair. My poor eyes hurt just trying to adjust to the non existent light. I feel like slipping into unconsciousness again, extreme darkness does that to you.

Faint wailings and screams can be heard around me. Very faint, but endless and it drives me up the wall.

Help! No, don't! Please don't do this to me!

I try to stand up but it seems that I am stuck so I just look around. It's just an eternal void of nothingness and it looks inescapable. The darkness just goes on and on for acres.

"Where am I?" I mutter to myself.

"You are in Bus 99."

Rosalyn.

"What are you trying to do to me?" I yell at the voice. "Let me out of here!"

The wailings suddenly get louder and louder and I find myself screaming and covering my ears, begging them to stop. Just stop so I can finally hear my own screams for help clearly.

But they're still there. They're still screaming, and I'm still screaming. And it's not doing any of us any good.

"You're one of them now." Rosalyn continues. Her voice is just so haunting, so soft yet so chilling.

"What is this? What are you?"

"I am a spirit. I am just like you. Someone warned me not to go on the bus but I went anyway. I am trapped here forever and if I can't get out, neither can you."

"Rosalyn." I beg. "Please."

"I cannot help you Calum."

Then suddenly out of nowhere. Around me, dozens of people appear. It's just traumatizing.

First a spotlight lands on a man, handcuffed to his metal chair. He seems like he's been here long, his plaid shirt ripped, a patch of hair missing, a bloody scalp in its place. His hands are bloody, his voice hoarse. 

"Get me out of here!" He yells out from his lungs, way louder than I had. "What did I do wrong!?"

Before I know it, I start crying. I'm terrified, glued to my seat. Afraid that it would be me.

Then a little girl, holding a lolly stick. She has her hair in pigtails and she's just there crying. "Mummy..." When she looks up I give a horrified cry, a cry that has never been heard from me. Not from Calum Hood.

The sockets of her eyes were bloody. Her eyes still intact, just bloody sockets. Her cries get louder and louder. "Mummy... Mummy... Mummy. Mummy. Mummy! MUMMY!"

Gone.

Next a woman, about mid thirties, holding a bloody knife. Her severed hand lay beside her chair in her attempt to free herself from her handcuffs but unfortunately her legs are still attached. She looks murderous, almost crazy. And I wonder if these people age, or have they stayed like this.

Gone.

A teenage girl, the most disgustingly horrifying thing I have ever seen. She has her phone in her right hand but her other is bloody, blood still dripping off it. 

But what scares me most is the fact that there is a needle hanging down the side of her mouth, connected by a bloody thread from the inside of her throat. It's evident that she had tried to pull the needle out of her mouth.

Gone.

"You see, Calum Hood? Nobody gets out." Rosalyn's voice echoes through the darkness again.

"Why are you out then?" I sob.

"I have escaped, once. But only in spirit." She says.

"Please, let me out."

"I can't. How many times do I need to tell you!? I'm a spirit, Calum Hood!" She yells and I flinch. "Do not cry. I will tell you how you can try to get out." Her voice lowers.

Around me, random people from random times start to pop out and I cry harder. I have never been so scared. A crazy man yelling for his wife. A kid with a bandaged head who looks about my age. An old man who's trying to chew his hand off.

And they're all seated around me, their voices so loud.

"Listen." Rosalyn's voice tells me.

I don't get it. What do I listen to?

"Listen to the old man with the vintage radio." She says gently and I wonder if she's trying to trick me.

I look to my left and I try to listen to what he's saying.

"99. 99. That's what it is. 99. 99. He tricks us by 99. The holes, the holes. 99. It's a trick." The old man chants, rocking back and forth on his chair with his glossy eyes. He's not handcuffed just like me but he just sits there. He's  lost his mind.

A cracking sound coming out of his radio. 

"Cra-ack. 99. 99. 99. 99. 99. Cra-ack. 99..."

99.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"99. Figure it out, Calum. You are a smart boy. The holes, Calum. The holes." Her voice faints. I am instantly reminded of the helpless Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.

And then the old man looks up at me. 

"It's a trick, boy. 99."

[haha late dedication to jellycreamdonuts. she's amazing check her out]