I started packing the moment I got home yesterday. Didn't even stop to eat—just threw myself into the work nonstop. Since I hadn't had a chance to fix the circuit breaker, I fumbled around in the dark, going in and out of rooms until I finally collapsed into bed around dawn for a brief rest. Honestly, I knew what I was doing: exhausting myself like that was just a way to keep my mind off everything that had happened during the day.
It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I remembered I hadn't called my parents. But when I checked my phone, I weirdly had no signal.
Whatever. I'll be seeing them in a few hours anyway.
It was a bit of a shame I couldn't say goodbye to Sam. He'd helped me so much—just disappearing like that felt kind of rude. Thinking that, I decided I might as well head to the station and say goodbye in person.
I felt calm. No anxiety about my path ahead, no sentimental dread about leaving. To be honest, leaving this town was the easiest decision I'd made in a while—so easy it almost didn't feel like a decision at all. It wasn't running away. I'd simply realized I wasn't as capable of changing anything as I'd once thought. Letting go of that illusion was the right move. If anything, I was luckier than most people here. At least I had somewhere else to go.
"Hey, you're here!" Sam squeezed out of the crowded station building.
So it wasn't my phone that was the problem. Turns out the entire town's communications had gone down overnight. No calls, no internet. The cops, knee-deep in their investigations, were hit hardest by it.
Sam had some new stubble along his jaw—probably hadn't had time to shave. A few other officers were squatting by the door, red-eyed and chain-smoking, staring blankly at us as we talked.
I told him why I had come, thanked him for everything, and said we should keep in touch. But he was buried in paperwork, barely listening, muttering distractedly the same couple of words over and over: "You came… you're here…"
I felt like I'd wasted a trip. A little annoyed, but I didn't want to get in his way. As I turned to leave, I thought I heard his voice behind me, broken and barely there.
"Hey… you're leaving? … She's leaving…"
**********
Turns out, every disaster begins in silence.
*
At eleven in the morning, I boarded the bus as planned. The station was crowded, but most of the people weren't there to catch a ride. Normally, there were three outbound buses a day—none on Tuesdays or Thursdays—but ever since the rains began, it had been cut down to one per day, only running on Wednesdays and Fridays. Now with commuting lines down, getting a ticket out of town was like winning the lottery.
People stood around the bus with umbrellas, their soaked clothes blending into the rainy backdrop.
If you were lucky, someone might cancel last minute—but as departure time drew closer, it was clear that no one was getting off, only on. They craned their necks to stare inside at us… desperation and resentment written all over their faces. I started to feel uneasy under their gaze and pulled the curtain shut.
The old lady in the front row noticed and tried to reassure me."Standing there like rows of vultures eyeing fresh meat… they just don't care anything!" she scoffed.
Her sarcastic tone lightened the tension a little. Some of the passengers chuckled and struck up bits of small talk. The young man sitting next to me popped in his earbuds and started to doze off.
Another ten minutes or so passed before the driver finally climbed aboard, reeking of cigarettes. While he was doing a headcount, a mother and daughter arrived late, dripping wet. The driver immediately scowled and snapped at them—said they'd ruin the seats unless they paid extra. Otherwise, he'd toss them back out to the "vultures."
The pair were clearly stunned by his shameless shakedown. Thankfully, the old lady from the previous chat stepped in and cursed him out before he could really follow through. If not for her, they probably would've been thrown back to the crowd outside.
BEEP—BEEP—BEEP—
The young guy next to me ripped out an earbud, grumbling under his breath.
Beeep beeep—
"The damn bus's moving! Can't they see that?!" the driver bellowed, laying on the horn as he shouted at the people outside. "Wanna get crushed under the wheels or what?! Move your asses!"
Through the curtain, I could just make out the people outside jostling stiffly, pushing and shoving into each other like some packed, tangled creature. In such tight quarters, especially under the thick haze of rain, it must've been suffocating. And yet, they refused to step aside.
Even after we pulled out of the station, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was still watching me—eyes pressed up against the back of my skull.
**********
Our town sits in a low-lying basin cradled by mountains, with only a single road in and out. I remember my grandparents once telling me that the place used to be some kind of wartime base.
The bus wound left and right along the twisting mountain roads. Despite the rain, the driver didn't slow down. Every time he yanked the steering wheel, I caught fleeting glimpses of the jagged rocks down at the base of the slope.
I tried to reassure myself—someone who's been doing this job for at least twenty years surely knows what he's doing. To distract myself, I opened my journal and began to write.
"Young girl, you want some candy?" The old lady in the front row reached her hand back. That hand—so calloused that it had all but erased her palm lines—offered a fistful of brightly wrapped sweets.
I was touched by her kindness and gratefully accepted.
She smiled warmly and began chatting about her daughter's wedding. "Too bad the weather's been awful. The humidity was so heavy, we couldn't even get the fireworks to light. Without all the noise and bustle, even the wine didn't taste right."
I asked her where she was headed. She said she'd moved away from the town years ago—like my parents had. She only came back this time for the wedding. "Good thing I planned ahead and booked my ticket early," she said, "otherwise I might've gotten stuck here too." Then she started complaining about the endless rain.
Curious, I asked her if it had ever rained like this back when she lived here.
"Never!" she said, shaking her head with conviction. "This town doesn't rely on rain to survive. As for natural disasters, we hardly had any. The worst I remember was a drought years ago, but that year was rough all over."
At that moment, the young man beside me let out a low, annoyed grunt. Seemed like our conversation had disturbed his nap. The old lady and I exchanged an awkward glance and fell silent.
To be fair, this weather was made for sleeping. The rain dulled the senses, turning midday into something that felt more like midnight. In this dim, enclosed space, time seemed to move slower. The musty, damp smell of the bus filled my nose, and my mind slowly began to drift.
"Crack… crack… crack…"
I jolted awake from my sleep, my entire body tensing up in an instant.
Looking around, I realized that at some point, everyone else had dozed off.
I gently lifted the curtain and gazed out the window. From halfway up the mountain, the whole town lay visible below. It was probably the same view I saw from the car years ago when I left with my parents.
Over the years, the town had gained a few new things—restaurants, shops, that electronic billboard in the center square—but nothing fundamental had really changed. It was like slapping fresh paint on an old wall. At first it might feel new and bright, but over time, the color would dry out and flake off. The bare, original wall would always show through. If you were lucky, maybe some patches of color would stick around until the wall itself crumbled. But even when people looked down at the pile of broken bricks, they'd still only ever think of it as a wall—nothing more, nothing less.
"Crack… crack… crack… crack…"
I covered my ears, but the sound didn't stop.
"Crack… crack…"
Eventually, I realized there was no need to search for the source of the sound—because it was coming from inside me.
It was the sound of my heartbeat.
*
Why was it so quiet?No—this wasn't right. The usual sounds were still there: the breathing of the people around me, the hum of the bus engine… but something had changed.
It was like the air had solidified.
Everything outside had come to a standstill, so still that I could hear my own heart beating.
"Crack… crack crack crack…"
I had never been so acutely aware of the organs inside my body. They pulsed and twitched with life—machinery that had always operated without my attention. But now that I was aware of them, it was as if something sacred had been disturbed. My organs felt like they had developed a will of their own, like they were breaking free from their usual rhythm. The dissonance made it hard to breathe. I slid the window open, hoping that a bit of fresh air would ease the feeling.
But the sight that greeted me left me too stunned to even speak.
*
The rain had stopped… ...
*
The young man sitting beside me had woken up at some point. He yanked off his earbuds and lunged past me toward the window. The noise drew the attention of the others, and soon everyone was opening their windows too.
The air was thick with the pungent, suffocating scent of earth and mud. It clawed at our lungs, instinctively putting us all on edge.
I truly believe humans still carry some degree of animal intuition deep down. Faced with this unnatural silence, everyone grew visibly anxious.
Nature carved this kind of sense into the genes of wild animals—to give them a chance to escape when disaster struck. But humans gave up that primal edge long ago in pursuit of something else, didn't we? And now, without that protective instinct, even though we could feel something was terribly wrong… it was already too late.
In an instant, the world turned upside down.
Murky rainwater surged down the mountain like a tsunami.
"MUDSLIDE! A MUDSLIDE'S COMING—!" someone screamed as realization struck.
With the crash of metal, the first wave hit us. Mud and debris smashed through the open windows, burning against our skin from the grit and sharp stones mixed within. I was lucky—my window hadn't been opened much, so I was mostly spared. But several passengers up front were completely soaked in sludge, and some were already bleeding from debris strikes.
"Close the windows! Buckle up!"
The roof had already caved in a large dent, and I could hear the constant barrage of rocks slamming against the metal body of the bus. Through streaks of splattered mud, I could see the sky—pitch-black clouds swirling above, lightning writhing inside them like living things. For a moment I was dazed by the terror, frozen—until screaming and sobbing shook me back to reality.
The driver had managed to turn the bus around and was trying to take us back down the mountain! But it's easier to climb than descend. The road was a slippery mess, and even I could feel the bus fishtailing wildly from side to side. Just then, the light dimmed again—and without any warning, it felt like we were struck by a high-speed train.
The bus went flying sideways.
All I knew was that we were tumbling off the edge of the cliff.
Sometimes it was mud, sometimes it was gritty dust—all of it trying to pour into my mouth whenever I lost consciousness for even a second.
I tried to curl into myself, tried to brace—but with the violent rolling of the bus, my limbs were completely powerless.
One side of my body slammed over and over into the interior wall. It hurt the first time. Then the second time. The third. The fourth… I had no control. The pain kept piling on, relentless. Whether it left bruises or broken bones didn't matter—it wouldn't stop. And all I could do was endure it.
If anyone had looked at my face at that moment, they probably would've thought I was already dead. That stiff, twisted grimace was the kind only a corpse would wear. But the goosebumps on my skin and every single bristling hair proved I was still very much alive—and still feeling everything.
Somewhere in that chaos, a woman's shrill scream rang out. I was stunned by her strength and turned my head in her direction.
It was the mother and daughter who had boarded late.
The daughter's seatbelt had come loose. She was flailing, her body slamming around like a broken puppet. Her mother, still strapped in, could only scream in panic. Watching her child thrown around inside the bus like that, she began frantically trying to unbuckle herself.
No!!!!!!I wanted to stop her, to shout something—but no sound came out of my mouth.
She stumbled past me as she unfastened herself.
Crawling forward with desperation, her body thudding every time it was slammed against the interior. Eventually, she reached her daughter and pulled her into her arms. After that, I didn't hear their voices again.
At the same time, the bus—under attack from both inside and outside—finally began to give in. The first part to break was the window.
Before the bus was entirely swallowed by the mountain's fury, I saw that mother and daughter flung out the shattered glass.
And the very next moment, darkness—filled with shards of glass—rushed straight toward my face.