One moment, she was inside a crowded bus like sardines.

The next moment, the whole bus was empty.

Kirana was stunned. Her mind raced a hundred different thoughts, but her tired brain couldn’t comprehend what had happened.

The bus she was sitting on was dilapidated and old. At first glance, she could discern that it wasn’t the same bus she boarded earlier. Kirana’s eyebrows went taut and started to examined her surroundings.

The seat she was sitting on was corroded. She flinched a bit in disgust, but continued to look around.

Aside from her, there were four other people in the bus, each of them looking as confused as she felt. Kirana’s frown was getting tighter and tighter. “Oy! Where is this? Why am I here?!” One of them started to look around in panic.

All around them, there was only the dilapidated bus. It wasn’t moving. She looked out the window and found… blank nothingness.

All of sudden, a voice echoed.

[Welcome to the World’s Best Survival Game! This is the novice game: The Haunted Bus. You are the players chosen from countless humans in the world. So, you have to play, or just die!]

The voice sounded sinister, yet cheerful at the same time. The combination left Kirana with a bit of wariness.

[As the first batch of players, your suggestions and advices are welcomed. As long as you don’t die, of course! If you die here, you die forever. Your mission is to: survive 7 hours. Good luck, players!]

“That… Am I going crazy?” One of the others, a middle-aged woman, muttered 

“Who are you? Let me go back, damn it! I have an important meeting!” It was the first guy who screamed earlier.

“I was in class…” A teenager said, whispering.

Kirana was used to being lowkey all her life, otherwise, her life would be threatened. Many forces wanted to control the genius, after all. She didn’t speak up.

The people started to calm down. “My name is Nusa,” one of them said, taking the lead. He looked to be in his mid-fifties. “We have to work together. Did you hear, the mission was to survive seven hours?”

“Yes…” The middle-aged woman trembled, but she replied, “I’m Bunga.”

“Kirana,” she said quietly.

“I’m Indra!” The teenager, being so young, already looked around enthusiastically. “Is this the legendary escape game? I read a lot of novels like this.”

“My name is Surya,” the irritable businessman said, impatient. “What escape game, what survival game? They kidnapped us here…!”

Before he could say anything further, he was cut off by the voice.

[Sorry, there was an error.] You just act cool without doing anything… She seemed to hear another voice whispered. The cheerful voice was a bit gloomy now, but it continued. [Initializing the scene… Countdown, 3, 2, 1…]

Hour 1.

In a burst of white, Kirana blinked, and found herself in a full bus.

She glanced at the people who suddenly appeared all around her, a bit startled in her heart. She couldn’t see the other ‘players’ amidst the crowd.

The bus wasn’t that full. After a few stops, there were no longer any people standing, and Kirana could observe the others. They seemed equally bewildered as she was.

Next to her, an old woman was sitting quietly with a baby in her arms. Kirana felt like she couldn’t be passive. ‘Survive’ meant that there was danger she should either avoid or solve, and she had never been someone who laid back and wait. “Ma’am… I’m sorry, can you tell me where this bus is heading?”

The old woman raised her head. Her eyes looked a bit threatening and Kirana felt a sense of danger. “You don’t see the sign before entering?”

“Ah, this…” Feeling that the old woman grew even more threatening, Kirana quickly replied, “earlier I was chased by some people, so I just chose a bus randomly… I was in a daze and didn’t notice the destination…”

The sense of danger receded, and Kirana held back her breath of relief. Thankfully, she had always been quick-witted. Well, that was also her experience, being chased into the wrong destination. “This is going to T City.”

Kirana blinked. It was an actual place in the world, not a made-up one. Somehow she felt that this survival game was even more dangerous, even more uncomfortable than when it threatened her with death. “Ah, so it is T City…” She quickly replied to avoid the old woman’s suspicion. She started to get up, but the old woman’s wrinkly hand prevented her.

She seemed to see red in the tips of the old woman’s fingers. But the old woman didn’t notice her shudder. She focused in holding her baby with one hand. “You shouldn’t move around; we are entering the toll road.” Somehow, she saw a glint in her eyes.

Kirana looked back to the other players, only to see that they were also prevented from moving. She quietly acquiesced and sat back down. Her mind was racing in a hundred different directions. That high school kid, Indra, was saying what she was thinking. She didn’t know about survival game novels or whatever, but she had played a couple of escape rooms before. It was all easy for her, which meant that everything had a direction: clues. The most important thing was to find clues.

The old woman and other passengers gave her a sense of danger. She had always believed in her intuition. That was the first clue, they might be her enemy. But what they said… it might also be true. However, she didn’t want to act rashly and get up, because she might be killed instead.

These people strewn around the bus…

Upon passing the toll gate, the outside returned to the same emptiness. Kirana glanced at the clock in the front of the bus. It was now ten o’clock, and it had reached the second hour.

Hour 2.

The bus sped up.

Right after she managed to balance herself, the bus lights went out. It kept speeding up, though. Kirana stayed in her seat, tense and ready to act.

A scream sounded in the dark. Kirana shuddered. It came from the direction of that businessman, Surya. The screaming voice was cursing to the end, which confirmed her guess.

She held back the fear in her heart.

The lights went on again after that.

“Oh, someone died,” one of the bus passengers commented. However, he had a completely bloody hand, and his pale face was also splattered with blood.

This was the passenger that sat next to Surya.

Surya, on the other hand, was in the middle of the aisle, laying back with his insides all torn out. Kirana averted her eyes. She was rarely afraid of gore, being avid watchers of horror, but Surya’s miserable condition made her afraid.

This could happen to her.

So why Surya?

She realized something. Surya was not in his seat; he was in the aisle. Was that why he died?

Kirana could hear a sob from another corner. Seemed like the middle-aged woman, Mrs. Bunga. She ignored it and continued to think. Then was she safe if she stayed in her seat?

But there was no guarantee either. Maybe Surya did some other things that earned the ire of the passenger. He was pretty annoying, after all. Or maybe it was chosen at random, and any player can die when the light was out…

The digital clock in front of the bus blinked and turned to eleven.