(Joshua’s POV)
I jolted awake, heart racing, the chaos around me hitting like a sucker punch. Shouting voices, panicked breaths, and that damn tension that felt like a noose tightening with every second. For a split second, I didn’t know where the hell I was—everything was a blur, that weird space between a nightmare and waking up where nothing made sense.
And then it all slammed into place: the bus. The fog. The screwed-up detour.
And now… a missing student.
I blinked hard, forcing myself to sit up straighter. The fog outside was thicker than before, pressing against the windows like it had a vendetta. The bus’s dim lighting didn’t help, casting creepy shadows over my classmates’ faces. Most of them were wide awake now, freaked out as all hell.
“She’s gone!” someone yelled from the back, voice cracking with panic. “I can’t find her!”
My pulse kicked into overdrive. Gone? What the actual fuck? I rubbed my face, trying to get a grip, but it felt like something heavy had settled on my chest, squeezing tighter by the second.
“She’s not here,” another voice said, this one closer. I turned and saw Emily—at least, I think that’s her name—standing in the aisle, her face pale as a ghost. “She went outside to look for the driver and never came back.”
My stomach did a full-on somersault. The driver hadn’t been back in hours, and now this idiot decided to wander out into that thick-ass fog? Fucking genius.
I tried to calm the rising panic, but it wasn’t working. The air in the bus felt thick, like I was breathing through a straw, and the sound of people freaking out around me wasn’t helping.
“We need to go after her—”
“No way, we’re staying put—”
“Where the hell is the driver? Why isn’t he back yet?”
“She could be hurt—”
The fear was electric, crackling through the air like static. My skin prickled with it, and I hated every second of this. Hated feeling trapped, stuck in a situation I couldn’t control. That creeping sense of doom had been crawling up my spine ever since we took that bullshit shortcut, and now it was hitting full force.
My fists clenched, frustration bubbling up inside me. It wasn’t just about the missing student—it was everything. The fog, the silence outside that felt too damn heavy, like something was lurking just beyond our line of sight.
And that’s what really got to me. The feeling that we weren’t alone. Like something was watching, waiting.
I wanted to run, every instinct screaming at me to get the hell out of here, but where the fuck would I go? I was stuck here, just like I’d always been stuck with my family’s mess. My dad bailed when I was a kid, leaving me to deal with my brother spiraling and my mom pretending I didn’t exist. Now, just like then, I felt cornered—like no matter what I did, it wouldn’t be enough to fix anything.
Across the aisle, Dillon stood near the front of the bus, trying to calm everyone down. Typical. Dillon always had to play the hero, acting like he had the answers to everything. Sure, he was well-meaning, but I couldn’t stand how he thought he could step in and fix shit like this was just another one of his frat boy projects.
“You think you can fix this, Dillon ?” I muttered, too low for him to hear but loud enough for the anger to spill over.
Dillon was talking to Matt and a few others, trying to organize some kind of plan. But I wasn’t listening. His calm, composed voice was just background noise to the anger pounding in my head. The way he acted like he could control the situation—it grated on my nerves. I wasn’t thinking straight, but everything about him pissed me off right now.
And then he looked at me.
Our eyes locked, and for a split second, it felt like the world went silent. Dillon ‘s expression softened, like he saw something in me that I didn’t want him to see. It twisted my gut.
“You think you can fix everything,” I snapped, louder than I meant to. My voice cut through the noise like a whip. “You can’t fix this.”
Dillon blinked, caught off guard, but he didn’t snap back. That just made it worse. I wanted him to get pissed, to give me something sharp, anything to justify the fire burning in my chest. But he just stood there, looking at me like he was trying to figure me out. Like he cared or some shit.
“I’m not trying to fix everything,” he said, his voice steady. “I’m just trying to keep everyone safe.”
I clenched my fists, the tension in my body coiling tighter. “Safe? We’re sitting ducks, Dillon . You can talk all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck out here, and no one knows what the fuck is going on.”
I could feel his eyes on me, and it made me squirm, like he was seeing straight through my bullshit. I wasn’t ready to deal with that.
“Look,” he said quietly, stepping closer so only I could hear, “I know you’re pissed. This is all fucked up. But snapping at me isn’t going to help.”
I opened my mouth to fire back, but the words got stuck. I hated how his voice was calm, like he actually gave a damn. No one had ever looked at me like that before—like they saw me. Like they were trying to reach the part of me I kept hidden under layers of anger and sarcasm.
Instead of responding, I just shook my head and turned away, biting back whatever was threatening to spill out. I wasn’t about to lose my shit in front of everyone.
I heard Dillon sigh, but he didn’t push it. Probably thought I was a lost cause, like everyone else.
As the arguments died down, Dillon addressed the group. “We can’t just sit here. We’ll split up into small groups and search around the bus. Stay close. Don’t go far.”
People muttered in agreement, though fear clung to the air. No one wanted to admit it, but the idea of stepping out into that fog was terrifying. Like walking into a void.
Of course, I ended up paired with Dillon . Figures. Out of everyone, I had to get stuck with the one person paying too much attention to me. We stepped into the fog together, the cold mist swallowing us up like we were walking into a whole different world. The bus was barely visible behind us, just a dark shape in the distance.
Everything felt off. The air was thick, wet, hard to breathe. My gut twisted with the same feeling I’d had since we first got lost—the feeling that something was out here, watching us.
Dillon walked beside me, silent but steady, scanning the fog for any sign of the missing student. His calm pissed me off. How could he be so composed in all this? Maybe he was just better at hiding his fear.
I wasn’t. My anxiety was simmering just beneath the surface, barely contained. Every muscle in my body was tense, ready to snap at the slightest sign of danger.
“Do you feel it too?” Dillon asked suddenly.
I stopped, my pulse spiking. “Feel what?”
He glanced at me, his expression unreadable in the mist. “Like we’re being watched.”
My mouth went dry. I hadn’t expected him to say it out loud, but now that he had, the weight of it pressed down on me, making it harder to breathe.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I feel it.”
And that was the problem. Something was out there, something wrong, and we were walking right into it.
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