The bus continued speeding down the street, filling the air with the conjoined sounds of pained wails and crunches of metal that appeared to echo as the bus turned over and tunneled through any cars that got in its way. The Bricklin tailing the car, swerved out of the way as cars frantically sped past it, scraping against the doors.  I daringly sprinted across the nearby cars leading to the bus, before diving through the windshield, cracking one of my ribs and coating my hair with big shards of glass that gashed my scalp before falling off and shattering against the floor, their tips seeped with blood. I got to my feet and ran over to the driver, my ears bombarded with screams from all around. I checked for a pulse, felt nothing, and shoved his body out of the chair, so I could get a better grip on the steering wheel. 

 My hands clutched the wheel with such fierceness, that they grew white, while I  stomped on the breaks and turned left, causing the bus to smash against the wall of a restaurant with such force it sent me flying out of the chair and filled the bus with sparks and debris. I swore and stumbled to my feet, holding onto a seat for support, just in time to hear the unmistakable sounds of rapid gunfire from my left, I jerked my head and through the sparks and jagged pieces of metal lying on the road, I could see a hand shoot out from the driver’s seat window, and pull back the hammer of a gun. frantically shooting at the wheels of the bus, creating I was about to

I was about to do cover my ears from the deafening noise when I felt a grassy hand grab me by my arm, and squeeze hard. the skin of the hand felt weird, it wriggled and writhed like it was composed of a fragile material, like paper, but on my neck, it felt hard and heavy, like a metal weight. I elbowed where I expected the creature’s body to be and swiftly regretted it. There was a loud crack as my elbow struck rows upon rows of sharp thorns. Pain rocketed throughout my left arm and I howled in pain shortly before the hand slammed my face first into the steering wheel, causing tears to stream down my face. I feel the hand gets tighter and tighter. I couldn’t breathe.

I tried to think of something to do, but couldn’t think of anything. My eyes fluttered open. I just barely made out the Bricklin closely swerving out of the way of cars and pedestrians, all the while releasing jets of ice from its exhaust pipe in a series of loud clicks. Suddenly, I felt a cold hand clamp onto my shoulder and from the corner of my eyes I saw flowing blonde hair, and instantly I knew who it was: Snidely. He must've teleported onto the bus. I felt him whisper into my ears the most horrifying sentence I have ever had the displeasure of hearing: "Let me grab the wheel' I was about to respond when I felt his hand clamp down on my upper back, and the next thing I know, I'm flipped over and thrown into the lap of one of the passengers of the Bus, a young boy about my age who appeared  African American.

 He wore a white shirt with dark blue stripes and had dyed brown hair that was matted with blood. His eyes fluttered and he clutched his head, muttering about how he failed. He looked familiar. I just couldn't lay a finger on why. Suddenly the bus sped to the left and I felt weightless as I was launched across the bus and crashed into what was presumably the dashboard, and flopped onto the stomach of the dead bus driver. I was in far too much pain to lift myself, which was why when I heard Snidely utter the words: “Prepare for a bumpy ride!” I made peace with God and braced for impact.

The bus shuddered violently but showed no signs of stopping, then I heard a horrible boom, like something was exploding, shortly before the bus stopped completely. I felt myself be blanketed in the dust as I was once again sent flying. But this time it was out of the window. I  could only see various brown blurry blobs in front of me, and  I heard high pitched screams from all angles. Suddenly I felt a sharp burning pain in my chest and felt intense pressure on my entire body like I was just rammed with an obsidian spear.  I winced as the pain soared through my upper body and blinked away my tears to see what was happening. And the first thing I noticed was a tree branch driven through my chest, and out the corner of my eye, I could see the same branch dripping with blood and skin tissue. My blood and skin tissue. 

I had been impaled! As soon as that fact reached me, pain quaked throughout my body and I let out a stifled cry, too overwhelmed. An intense freezing sensation washed over me, like all the liquids in my body spontaneously froze. Chills ran up my neck.  My eyes darted around my new location, desperate for something to get my mind off the pain. And at the same moment, I tried to grab onto the branch and push myself off flailed wildly, which in retrospect was extremely stupid. And while my hands were able to grab onto the branch, they weren’t able to push. My muscles were too strained. The pain was agonizing, and the fact that I couldn't even move my legs made it even worse. As if the parts of my body that I used for all my life, were suddenly useless. I could see lush grass behind me and a few other trees. I also noticed a lush pond. I quickly realized where I was: Central Park. 

The grass was cut to perfection, the pond rippled with intensity, the bus appeared to have come to a complete stop, and I would've been able to take solace in that if I wasn't fucking impaled! I wriggled and writhed in pain. It became hard to breathe. I could slowly feel my pain deplete. my nerve endings were severed. I was in such pain that my bod the police siren of the Bricklin continued, getting louder and louder before the Bricklin, drifted into view, ripping up dirt as it drifted in front of me. The pain was overwhelming. I wanted to scream and beg for the person in the car to help me, but no sound came out. Then all at once, pain quaked through my body and then began to deplete. I could feel nothing but pure pressure and force on my body.

Athen I heard a strange sound behind me, like a series of torches, were being snuffed out. I then felt myself being slowly lifted off the branch. At the same time, my body slowly lifted off the branch and my bones cracked themselves into place, creating a sensation that teetered on the edge between pain and animalistic satisfaction. I wanted to move, to do something physically so that I could know that this was actually happening.  The screams around me appeared to reverse. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed the Bricklin appeared to reverse drift, and strangely the grass and dirt appeared to slowly settle down as if the car didn’t drift over it at all. 

A mixture of confusion and awe ballooned inside me.  Suddenly, I felt my body flop over the hood. Then, when I slowly fell inside the bus and landed on the Pilot’s corpse, I had a sudden realization: Time was reversing. I suddenly had this strange feeling, that if I moved any of my limbs in even the slightest bit away from how they were when I was originally thrown off the bus, time would flow normally and I would probably be impaled once ag And the thought felt like it wasn’t my own like it was someone else’s thought, and they coded it into my mind to realize it only in that particular moment, it felt almost as if my mind had been invaded by some unseen force.

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Unexpectedly, the boom that I had heard before flying off the bus, appeared to reverse, creating a sound like a reverbed slide whistle filled with water. Quickly after that happened, I felt the dust practically leap off my body shortly before I crashed into the dashboard. Suddenly I heard two gunshots so loud, they rattled my eardrums could be heard from my left. And as soon as I heard those two gunshots, I was sent slamming into the back of the bus, as it rolled over. Time had resumed. Once the bus finally stopped, pained groans and creaks of metal could be heard inside.  My eyes fluttered open and I looked at the damage. Various people in the   Front were convulsing on the floor, their limbs covered in disgusting gashes, the people in the back we're luckily less damaged. Only having bruises and cuts. 

The boy who looked familiar was lying on the ground, unconscious. Snidely was nowhere to seem. Perhaps he teleported off after the gunshots or the initial crash. Suddenly, I  heard a car door open. I tried to get up but each time I tried to stand, the pain would curl through my body so much, I would end up falling back down. My muscles were practically screaming at me to not move. Everybody stopped and looked at the door as a strange man entered the Bus. He stood ridiculously tall, roughly 6 or maybe even 7 feet tall.  He looked over at the corpse of the bus driver and turned over his body to where the dagger was sticking out. I watched as his eyes scanned every inch of the dagger. He seemed fixated on its handle, which showed an illustration of what to me kind of looked like a pink tornado pouring out blood but I couldn’t really see it fully, my vision kept blurring out of focus from the pain.

 The man eyed me, and gritted his teeth. He slowly walked over me and I realized something. His footsteps were making no sound, he stepped over the glass that littered the floor, causing it to shatter, but yet it made no noise. “Horace Industries huh?” the man trailed off, it took me a while to realize he was talking about the backpack I was wearing, and my heart stopped. Did this man know Horace? “I wonder…” he trailed off as he slowly reached into his pocket, where I saw the unmistakable gray glint of a pistol. He was going to shoot me! And as that thought entered my body, I went into panic mode. I wanted to shoot lightning at the gun, but my arm was too weak and wouldn’t rise no matter how much I wanted it to. 

Then I had an idea. Maybe I could still shoot lightning at him. Hollyhocks never said anything about magic taking physical dexterity, just mental. I decided to give it a try. I fired a tiny ball of lightning from my palm and sent it flying into the barrel of the gun. Once it was inside, I visualized the ball expanding. The front of the gun exploded, sending jagged pieces of metal and sparks every which way. The man cursed and threw the gun behind him. It clattered to the ground. His hands appeared slightly bloodied. “So you are a mage.” He muttered, “How..interesting.”  Suddenly, a tendril made of water leaped from his right index finger, grabbed the remains of the gun behind him, and flipped it into his hand. The man quickly put his weapon into his holster and yanked it back out. To my horror, the gun was now perfectly fine like it didn’t explode. “Good grief this is going to be a lot of paperwork”

 the man said. Everyone looked at the man fearfully. “Suddenly, I saw Snidely collapses out of the driver’s seat, his aviator glasses missing and blood streaming from his forehead. Fear was very present in his eyes. Snidely Raised his hand to his lips at me and suddenly began to blur rapidly. I realized what he was doing. He was going to teleport away. Rage ballooned inside me. And I fired a string of lightning at him. However the pain was really getting to me and I didn’t have enough energy to sustain my lighting, so it just fizzled away and inch or so from his groin. Snidely didn’t know that. He thought he was hit, and flinched, his head smacking into a metal railing. The man spun around and faced Snidely. 

 My eyes rested upon his heel, and I had an idea. And as soon as I had that idea, Lightning shot from my hand and coiled around the heel of the man, barely touching the hairs and definitely not touching the skin. I called for the man’s attention. “Hey!”  I cried. The man turned to face me and then turned to the lightning, whereupon they stayed. “If you attack me or my friend, I’ll shoot your heel” The man furrowed his brow and grimaced audibly. “A fractured tibia is impossible to stand up on” Snidely yelled, pain in his voice. If the man felt any fear from my threat, he didn’t show it. 

But despite that, for a moment, I felt that maybe he would let me and Snidely go. Maybe the tables would turn in my favor. But that thought quickly washed away from my mind when the man casually put his weapon directly to my forehead. My heart began pounding so rapidly, I felt it might rip from my chest. “You probably haven’t thought this out through Kid.” The man said, “You appear to be so damaged, you only have a few seconds before you pass out. Same with your friend.  I on the other hand Can deadlift a moose in a second and am the owner of  an enchanted pistol that fires HEAT rounds.” The passengers on the bus went deathly quiet. “Oh-oh shit” Snidely stammered, breaking the silence. “What’s wrong Snidely,” I asked, my eyes focusing on the gun, specifically the trigger. 

“Heat rounds aren’t fired from pistols, or even from rifles. They’re fired from tanks” He quivered. That single factoid made me feel a hundred times smaller then I already when he put the gun to my head. At least getting shot by a pistol could possibly have me survive, but against a tank round, that meant nothing. It’d be an Instant and disgusting death. “The boy knows his weapons,” the man said, “HEAT stands for high explosive, anti-tank warhead. You little man, do not stand a ghost of a chance.”  And even though I knew he was right, I tried to keep a good poker face.  He probably wouldn’t kill me right? I’m just a kid. Besides, the splash damage would probably hurt him. But as soon as that came to my mind, the man spoke again. “And if you think the explosion could hurt me, your wrong there. For each bullet in my cylinder, it is also cursed to never hurt me.“ the man’s breath was cold as Ice. “Well I can still beat you,” I said, honestly not believing the words coming out of my mouth.   “My gun fires tanks rounds,” the man said, a matter of factly. 

I still tried to stay bold. “I’m still pretty powerful,” I said trying to stay confident, “you haven’t even seen the gadgets I’ve got in my backpack-!” I quickly stopped upon the realization that I probably blew my cover. I could faintly see Snidely facepalm and groan. “His guns pretty much shoots explosions”  Snidely said, aggravated, “Just shut the fuck up before this bus lights like a match” I still tried to keep up the brave facade but as the gun grew colder, and his eyes appeared to slowly glaze over like he was dead I just broke from the pressure. I let go of the lightning, and let it fizzle away. I heard Snidely let out a deep sigh, probably of relief,  that appeared to require all of his energy as he immediately passed out soon after. Suddenly, I felt the gun be lifted off my head and felt like a heavyweight was lifted off my spine.

  The man turned the gun on its side to me and spun its cylinder and I couldn’t believe what I saw. The gun was empty. He tricked me!  I became drowsy. The pain was definitely getting to me And I quickly blacked out, but not ore seeing that the man was wearing a necklace. It was painted gold but as he cocked his head to look at me it fell out of his collar. There was a beautiful police badge on the necklace. And engraved on it was the name “Sherrif Dawson”