I felt the person sit next to me before I saw them. They were big, bigger than me at least. The smell of cigarettes followed immediately after. It was that person; boy or girl I still couldn't tell, the one who had asked me if I had a lighter and if I smoked. In my sleep deprived state, with the siren song of sleep so close now I was sitting in a comfortable coach seat, I couldn't remember if they had told me their name.

"You again," they said, playfully, but also in a way that made me think they were pretty tired too.

"...hi…" I muttered.

The person shifted in their seat a little as if unable to find a comfortable position. That made sense given there wasn't much in the way of legroom and their legs were pretty long. They turned to face me.

"Could we swap?" they said, "Please?"

I looked from them to the window beside me. I had no intention of watching the evacuation continue to carry out, nor to spend much of this coach ride awake. But the window seat was the better seat. Having an aisle seat, potentially for hours, seemed like a far less enjoyable way to pass the time.

"Sure," I said.

There really wasn't any real possibility of me saying no anyway. Besides, this evacuation was something of a big game; friends would need to be made, alliances formed, and, if needed, people that could be a lot of trouble, violent or otherwise, needed to be appeased.

"Thanks," said the person.

We spent an awkward moment figuring out how to change positions; they had to move out to the aisle, then I did too, then they moved to the window seat. I pined for that seat for a moment before sitting in the next seat.

"Where you from?" they asked.

They smiled a little. There was a boyishness to their face, but there was also enough femininity in it, particularly to the fullness of their lips, and their eyelashes, that threw doubt into figuring out the sex of the person I was looking at.

"Stowchester," I said, "Originally."

"Me too!" they said, "Whereabouts?"

"Lowems Park."

"Ah yeah," said the person, "That's close to me. I'm from Larkswood."

I had heard of Larkswood, and Larkswood School and College over the years, but had never been there. If Lowems was a normal public secondary school and college, then Larkswood was the rougher, not-so-nice school nearby.

"Oh yeah," I mumbled.

I realized then I had missed two opportunities to learn this person's name. The first in the queue when getting my ID checked, and before boarding the coach. I considered asking their name but they seemed to busy themselves with taking their long black puffy coat off. Underneath the coat they were wearing a large gray hoodie and sweatpants; the shape of their body even after this did little to tell me if they were male or female; though again my mind seemed to skew more towards thinking they were female because their body, though tall, had a feminine slenderness, rather than an obvious masculine broadness.

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My gaze lifted to their face and, to my horror, they must have been watching me watch them the entire time they had taken off their coat. They had raised eyebrows and a slightly creeped out look.

"Sorry," I mumbled, then faced towards the back of the seat in front of me. Down the aisle to my left I could see the last of the teenagers had boarded the coach and the coach doors had just closed. The coach lifted a little, and the engine started rumbling.

"What's happening?" someone on the coach shouted out.

The African Pied Piper officer that had checked my ID before getting onto the coach was stood at the end of the front end of the aisle near the driver.

"We are heading off in a few minutes. Everyone must remain in their seats. You must raise your hand and wait for permission if you want to use the bathroom. This will be a long drive, so we suggest you rest. Food and drink will be provided for you shortly once we have left here."

Someone else on the coach must have raised their hand.

"Yes?" said the Pied Piper officer.

Another teenager on the coach spoke up. This time it was a girl.

"Where are we going?"

"To a safe location," said the Pied Piper officer, "We cannot say more than this at this time."

I expected more of a commotion from the teenagers on the coach, but everyone remained silent. Minutes later the coach eased out of the depot. Within minutes the depot was behind us and we were on the motorway.

"Look," said the person sitting beside me. Their finger was against the glass, I looked to where it pointed, sitting up a little, and saw there was what looked like Pied Piper officers on motorbikes and one of the black vans which had brought me to the depot; the two motorbikes and the black van stayed behind the coach for the next ten minutes, hardly moving from the rear position. Other teenagers on the coach noticed and watched the vehicles following us, but they, like me, soon lost interest.

The person beside me shifted uncomfortably in their seat. I wondered why they had wanted a window seat given the legroom was far worse by the window. They used their puffy coat as a makeshift pillow and raised their legs up onto the edge of their seat; they continued to look out the window but I could see they were quickly on their way to falling asleep.

I didn't notice when I did finally fall asleep, but it couldn't have been long after the other person. When I came to someone had pushed my elbow, my head fell forward and I jerked awake.

One of the Pied Piper Officers, a man possibly around thirty years of age with slicked back black hair, had a large black bag in his right hand and a smaller white bag in his left.

"Hungry?" he said, in a way that told me he didn't personally care if I was one way or the other.

I nodded dumbly, trying to wake up more. The officer handed me a bag, which was filled with items and a bit heavy. He then looked to the person beside me who was still asleep. He considered them for a moment but then seemed to decide not to bother.

"Wait," I said, "He–no she–I mean, he–they probably want something too."

I cringed at what I had just said. Not knowing what sex the person was beside me wasn't some big mystery to me, but it did make me feel like a class-A twat declaring my obliviousness to the officer and any of the others around us that may have been watching.

The officer didn't seem to care about what I said and simply handed me a second, identical white plastic bag, then moved on.

"It's she," said the person next to me. I felt my heart sink. Crap. I looked at the person, and she looked genuinely unimpressed and more than a little annoyed.

"Sorry," I mumbled, and handed over her plastic bag.

"Thanks," she said. She took one look at the inside of the bag then let it stay on her lap, promptly letting herself go back to sleep. It was still daylight beyond the window; maybe I had slept an hour or so, but without a watch or anything else to tell the time it was hard to tell.

I looked into the plastic bag. There was a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich, a small bag of crisps, a little bag of fruit, and a small bottle of water. I decided I wasn't quite hungry enough yet to start on any of the items in the bag. What I did need however was to pee. I raised my hand and waited to be seen by one of the Pied Piper officers.