The child walks down the aisle and sits in an empty seat at the back before returning to his hazy state.
He didn’t notice the scornful eyes of the one-eared child glaring at him.
There were five other children on the bus but none of them spoke, including the military driver who, after packing the suitcases, sat down, shut the door, and started driving.
Silence filled the bus, and that silence continued for the next couple of hours.
During that time, the bus stopped a few more times to pick up more children.
As the passengers increased, they started talking with one another and soon, the volume of the chatter blocked the sound of crunching gravel under rubber.
After around twelve hours, the bus was nearly packed.
There were only a couple of seats left, including the seat next to the child.
Although the child was near the window, leaving the aisle seat empty, no one sat there.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t thought about it, but one glance at boy immersed those looking into a sense of unease.
But now, the seats were almost filled and someone was going to have to sit there eventually.
It was at this time that the bus pulled to a stop, letting a strapping young boy with blond hair board the bus.
Looking to be about fifteen, he had the height advantage to easily see all the available seats.
Out of all the empty seats he could have sat in, the enthusiastic looking kid sat next to the child.
Sweeping his tousled hair back with his left hand, he extends his right hand toward the boy, ignoring of the uneasy feeling he’s giving off,”Hi!
Nice to meet ya, My name’s Kai!
How bout you?” The passionate boy awaited a response only to be given silence.
That didn’t stop him from continuing though.
The chatterbox continued to single-handedly hold a conversation throughout the entire trip.
He talked about random questions or topics that popped into his head, and even though the bus was already pretty loud, everyone could clearly hear the cheerily yapping Kai.
The child’s fortitude was strong, he lasted two hours before giving in and turning his head from the window to face the lightly-tanned Kai.
Noticing this, Kai smiles brightly,” Hey hey, so do you know where they’re taking us?
Oh, what did the guy that recruited you look like, maybe we had the same one?
I tried to talk some information out of him, but his lips were shut tight!
Oh!
He did tell me that everyone that gets to go where we’re going is special in one way or another!
So what did you do that makes you special?
I’m not really sure why I was chosen…I not really good at much, Ah, but people say my memory is really good!
One-hundred and twenty-four people to be exact!
I don’t know how I compare to others but I was definitely able to use it to survive, so it must be good for something!
Oh yeah, right, so what are you good at to be able to come to wherever we’re going?” As per the past couple of hours, Kai continues to barf words out of his mouth while the child continues to remain silent.
The only difference being, the child stared at Kai with his blank expression the entire time.
Kai didn’t seem to feel any adversity from the intense eye contact, as his words never stopped.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ …noisy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The child’s eyes start getting heavy and his blinks become slower and slower as he drifts off to sleep.
The child has had insomnia for the past month, waking up from dreams he can’t seem to recall.
Kai’s non-stop talking seemed to have a soothing affect, similar to a lullaby.
The child’s body leans against the vibrating window and he falls asleep.
“Ah, if you lean that way, your head will hurt.
Hello?
Oh, are you asleep?
Then pardon my intrusion!” Kai cupped the side of the child’s head to stop it from bumping the window and brought the small face down to his thigh.
Turned horizontally, the boy was now taking up most of the space of the two seats, with his head resting on the talkative child’s leg.
Kai continued to talk to himself about meaningless topics as the boy slept.
This lasted for the next two hours.
By this time, most of the children on the bus have spent multiple hours together and have garnered at least some rapport.
The twenty to thirty children have split themselves into small groups of twos and threes, including Axel, who was currently smiling and laughing with two other boys his age.
Kai and the sleeping child have been left alone with no one willing to start a conversation.
One, because the entire bus of children have become increasingly annoyed by Kai’s endless talking and two, the disturbing aura around the peacefully sleeping child is incredibly off-putting.
The bus slowly comes to a stop as the doors slide open and the black uniform wearing bus driver gets out of his seat to stand in the middle of the aisle.
Looking at the rows of children, he speaks,”You are to depart from the bus in an orderly manner, take your belongings, and wait for further commands.” After finishing, the man steps off the bus and walks away.
Following the orders, the children start to get off one by one, continuing to chat with their new friends.
Kai also wants to get off but is currently in a predicament.
He doesn’t want to unnaturally wake up the sleeping beauty on his lap.
Although the child has not spoken a word to him, he’s one of the only people that hasn’t gotten frustrated or visibly annoying by his infinite chatting.
He’s happy to have met someone who doesn’t care that he’s irritating and wants to hopefully make friends with the guy.
So, Kai is currently in a dilemma.
To stay on the bus and anger that military driver, or to wake the boy up and potentially anger him.
Kai doesn’t have to debate for long, because when the people at the back start to exit the bus, the child silently got up from Kai’s lap.
The child stared at the lap pillow for a few moments before turning his gaze to the door everyone was exiting from.
Realizing he no longer had to muse over this difficult decision, the charismatic boy flashed a cheery smile before standing up.
Pulling the child along with him, Kai heads toward the exit.
“Hurry up or we’ll be late.
I’m not sure what the punishment is for tardiness, but I sure as heck don’t wanna find out!
You slept like the dead.
I’m surprised there’s someone that can fall asleep to my voice.
Where do you think we are?
That bus ride was really long, wasn’t it?
Oh, well you were asleep for most of it so it probably wasn’t as long for you.
I tried to keep track of the roads and direction we drove, but it’s weird…for the past hour and twenty-six minutes, I haven’t recognized any of the landmarks in the area.
I haven’t seen any of them of them on any of the maps I’ve looked at before.
And even weirder, I haven’t seen any signs for the past two hours and seven minutes!
None!
Can you believe that?” Kai made his way out of the bus to pick up his luggage, dragging the child along with him.
Kai was waiting for the boy to take his suitcase, the only luggage left, but the boy just stood next to him, letting his hand be held.
Not wanting to be tardy, Kai lets go of the child’s hand to pick up and carry the boy’s luggage for him and caught up to the rest of the group.
The group of children walk into an unidentifiable building that leads underground.
The spacious underground tunnel resembles New York’s underground train stations.
The tracks are currently empty with a wide platform occupying the space beside it.
The platform was filled with disorganized children chatting in groups.
More groups arrive every once in a while from different entrances.
The new groups tended to integrate themselves with the already formed groups, talking about their current situation, hypothesizing where they’re being taken, and what kind of place it’ll be.
Some children made wild theories about places like Neverland, aliens, and child experimentation.
Other, more reasonable children, grouped together to share their information and analyzed possible situations.
Men in the black military outfits were scattered at different intervals, standing straight with their hand at their sides, stone-faced.
There were about ten soldiers in total and the bus driver from earlier could not be found among them.
The soldiers all had well-defined bodies and a hidden, fierce disposition.
They have obviously been trained in some way.
As the child’s bus group enters, people from other groups start recruited them to their groups, which the children happily oblige to.
All the other children join groups except for the child, who radiates and uncomfortable vibe, and Kai, who’s happily standing next to the child, chatting up a storm.
The children chat for another half an hour, during which, two more groups of children enter.
By now, there’s at least a couple hundred children in this underground area.
Kai continues talking to the child about what he thinks this place is, who those soldier are, which children look interesting and which don’t, seemingly random things.
The child also starts observing his surrounding.
The number of children and their characteristics, he observes their gestures and behaviors.
He looks at the shiny metal tracks and into the dark tunnel.
He looks over the floors, walls, and doors.
The boy notices things like the fact that the doors look air-tight and the room was empty except for the other people and small button near one of the doors that has faintly noticeable, faded words that can’t be read.
The child spent most of his time watching others and listening to Kai’s voice, which he is slowly getting used to.
Five minutes after the last group of children entered, the soldier stationed in the area simultaneously leave through different exits, closing the doors on their way out.
A minute after they leave, the rushing of water can be heard through the tunnels.
The grows louder and louder until the roaring water pours out of the tunnels and into the room.
The platform quickly starts to flood as water gushes out and fills the building with water.
Confused and disoriented, many of the children start to panic.
A few smarter ones look for higher ground but quickly realize the platform is flat.
Some try to go back up the stairs to leave but metal doors are blocking way, the children started to bang on them out of panic.
Kai looked surprised when the water first stared pouring in but remained relatively calm.
The child didn’t even blink, let alone change expressions when the water started engulfing them.
Kai and the child stand out in this moment as they are relatively calm, though there are also a couple of others that have also managed to compose themselves.
Worried that the panicking children will run into or shove the frail looking child, Kai grabs onto the child’s wrist so he wouldn’t lose him in the chaos.
After securing the child, Kai goes into deep thought as the water level climbs up their legs.
“…width, length, height….so the volume….and the rate of water inflow…which means we have about two minutes before this whole place is flooded….the waters coming from the tunnels meaning….they must have accounted for this possibly…there should be something…a drain maybe…” Their feet no longer touched the ground and the water level continued to rise, lifting them five feet off the ground.
Panic continued, yelling and crying could be heard, a few children tried to calm people down to no avail.
Kai’s wet wrist was suddenly tapped.
He focused his attention on the boy who’s wrist he was holding.
He met eyes with a calm, blue lake, relaxing his tense nerves.
“What’s up?” The child then pointed to a direction, an area that was currently underwater.
“Hm?
Oh!
That odd button on the wall!
I thought it was an inconvenient place to install a button, and I’ve never seen that kind of design before.” Kai starts rambling as the water gets higher and higher, and the ceiling gets closer and closer.
The child tugs on Kai’s wet sleeve, pulling him over to the area the button was in.
“Hm?
Well why didn’t you say so!
You want me to press the button right?
Letting me have all the credit, I knew you were a nice guy!” Kai took a deep breath and immediately dived into the water before it was too late to breath.
The moment he dived in, he also let go of the child, who instantly sunk into the water.
The child quickly grabbed onto a pipe sticking out of the wall, lifting his head above the water as it slowing crept up his body, filling the room.
At this point, most of the children were swimming above the water as well, faces less than a foot away from the ceiling.
The crying and yelling quickly of the numerous children quickly used up the oxygen in the pocket of space.
It was getting harder to breath and right when the children almost gave in to despair, a clunk sound was heard and the water level quickly started depleting.
As fast as it came, it was gone.
Soggy children were left in the wet room to cry, sigh in relief, or compose themselves, depending on the person.
The child was observing the others expression when a wet body slopped themselves onto his back, bear-hugging him.
“Yes!
We did it!
It ended up being a really close call though, wasn’t it?
I almost ran out of oxygen down here and I can’t imagine you were doing much better with so many people and so little air up there.” Kai released the child from the bear hold to pat him on the back.
The child turned around to face a head-to-toe, soaking wet Kai.
Blond hair was plastered onto his face and his clothes stuck to his body, revealing his thirteen-year-old body that was bigger than the child’s scrawny body.
He was wearing a wide grin and cheeky appearance as he said,”Look at you!
Did they even feed you!
What kind of place were you living at before, ah?!
Aren’t you too thin for a ten year old?” It seems Kai has mistakenly assumed the child was ten instead of thirteen because of his short stature and small frame and the person involved didn’t care enough to notify him, so he continued to believe the child was a lot younger than he actually is.
Kai also wasn’t aware that during the past month, the child had insomnia and hadn’t eaten much, which contributed to his pale and young complexion.