The AC hummed loudly but the still hot and dry air was pressing down on the people in the bus. It was uncomfortable. A lot of seats in the bus were empty, only around a dozen people occupied them. Still everything felt cramped. Maybe that was because the seats weren’t made to be comfortable. Or because the whole bus was built with shorter people in mind. Dave didn’t know.

Not that Dave was tall, he was just shy of 6 foot but the bus was designed for the generally shorter populations of South East Asia.

Sadly he couldn’t complain about that because he was in fact in South East Asia. He and his friend Max had decided to pool together their whole vacation time for the year and go backpacking in tropical lands.

Currently they were sitting in a bus on their way to cross the border from Cambodia to Laos. It had been a few hours since they left the cool embrace of their hostel lobby and stepped out into the 37 degree heat to catch a bus that was supposed to bring them from the small town in eastern Cambodia, to a more populated travelers hub in the south of Laos.

It felt like they were on an endless journey. And Dave loathed every second of it.

The scenery around them was breathtaking though. This route wasn’t one taken very often and only a handful of buses departed each day for the border passing trip. That was shown by the fact that they weren’t even traveling on paved roads anymore, it was only a well driven red dirt path.

Blooming mountains rose in the distance and the vegetation was thick and untouched. Dave was gazing out of the window over a valley to the left of them. An endless sea of green stretched out there. Not a cloud was to be seen in the sky.

None of this could change the fact that Dave was pissed though. By the calculations Google Maps gave them the last time they had access to data around here they would be driving for at least 5 more hours until they reached their destination. And that’s without breaks and the time acquiring a visa at the border control would take.

He didn’t know if they would be in time for the check in at their hostel for the night that Dave had booked in advance already. He also didn’t know if they would have time to go eating at the place he looked up for them. That was stressing him out. Dave hated not feeling in control. And he still was mad about the picture he saw on instagram right before they left the cool embrace of their hostel.

“Dude you’re still thinking about the picture aren’t you?” from the seats in front of him Max turned around and grinned at him. His blond hair was getting a bit too long and clung to his sweaty head. He laughed when he saw Dave visibly cringe a little about how easy he was to read.

“Nah I just want to get off the bus already. It’s hot, it’s cramped and it smells” he lied and turned to the window again “And I can’t even sleep because my stomach is still going crazy from yesterday”. Indeed his stomach was revolting like it was France in the 1790s.

“Dude I told you you shouldn’t drink another bucket on the way home. I know how much a hangover sucks on these bustrips. Remember the Krabi Bangkok drive? Worst 7 hours of my life.” Max's smile turned into a grimace as unpleasant memories resurfaced again. Shaking his head a little, the everpresent smirk made its way back.

“Well can’t change that now” Dave shrugged and gazed through the bus. Looking for some kind of distraction other than the jibes of his friend.

There was a girl sleeping in the back. Another two girls sat a few rows in front of them watching a movie on one of their phones together, sharing the headphones. Then there were 3 more guys who were traveling solo, one was a big fellow, his muscles bulging out of his tank top, one was a nice indian guy Dave and Max had exchanged a few pleasantries with while waiting for the bus. The other guy was sleeping as well.

Sleep. Maybe he should try that too. Dave sighed inwardly and turned back towards the window knowing he wouldn’t find salvation that easily.

“You need to relax a bit more Dave, yes it sucks that we’re delayed and all but just look where we are, this is living the dream man! Get Angela out of your head and be here.” Max said with an encouraging smile. Oblivious to Dave’s decision to sleep.

Dave just mumbled something and pulled his headphones out, he couldn’t handle Max optimism now. A bit rude maybe but Max just rolled his eyes, chuckled a little and turned back around.

They had been friends for almost 20 years now and grew up together, they hadn’t always been best friends but after deciding to live together while attending college their friendship grew to the point that there was nothing they could do to really upset the other. They went through the good and the bad times together.

It was the kind of friendship where you couldn’t see each other for years but still instantly clicked as soon as you met again. Max was probably the person he felt closest to.

While Dave was listening to his downloaded travel podcasts on his phone, some guy talking about chimps and elks and stuff, he looked out the window daydreaming. Those last couple of weeks had really been an adventure. He wanted to keep travelling around with Max but sadly they only had a little more than a week of vacation time left and their return flights were already booked.

He didn’t want to return to the office or his flat full of now tainted memories. He had hoped this trip would give him a needed break from routine and a new appreciation for life. Instead he found he hated his whole life.

Suddenly the world around Dave went black and he no longer felt like he was sitting in the bus. The air wasn't hot and he wasn’t feeling totally cramped anymore. After about a second of standing in absolute darkness a humanoid shape out of white light appeared in front of him. In a rushed voice it spoke:

“Hello people of Earth.

I know this may sound scary to you, but your world is about to change. This is the only warning we could get to you before it will happen. Your planet has surpassed the underlying Mana levels and we couldn’t keep them artificially controlled anymore. Your plane will overlap with planes we wanted to protect you from.

We are sorry.

There are things on your planet you don’t know about. There are lots of things you don’t know about actually. We will try to get you another message as soon as we can. We need to prepare a few things before we can get you all attuned.

I’m sorry these next few hours will be hard for you. Your electronics and most of your technology will cease to work, we will explain more later.

Again I’m very sorry for all of this. We tried to keep your world out of the system but we failed. There will be dangerous things and creatures. Be careful of monsters.

We will try to get back to you in a few hours. But we’re not sure how long it’ll take. You will get more information then. Survive.”

And then suddenly Dave was back in his seat again. What had that just been? A weird dream? But it felt so real.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The bus had come to a stop on the road. Dave looked around and saw the other people looking around disoriented like him. He immediately noticed that not everybody was there. One of the girls that were watching a movie was missing, as was one of the solo travel guys. There was also no sign of the driver.

Dave looked out the window in panic but there was no sign of the nice old Cambodian man that had been driving them in this hellhole for the last few hours. The same man that also let them wait 20 minutes instead of being punctual and who refused to pull over when Max needed to go for a pee break.

Now Dave wasn’t so upset about him being gone anymore, then he remembered that he was likely the only one knowing the way. So Dave started panicking a bit. Adding to the rise of shared panic that was starting to spread through the bus.

“Woah you guys saw that as well right?” Max was the first one to break the silence that hung heavy in the air “I’m not just crazy right? Cause that felt real.” Disbelief colored Max’s usually casual voice. Disbelief and a hint of worry.

One of the guys from the front turned around, an incredulous look on his face and asked, “Have you also seen a weird shape talk about Earth and Mana and stuff?”

“You had that weird dream too?” the before sleeping girl from the back chimed in.

“Betty?” a whispered question drew Dave’s attention. The tone of that voice immediately made Dave feel bad. The girl suddenly sitting alone began looking around confused. Befuddlement was written on her face. She started yelling in a language Dave didn’t understand. The nice Indian guy in front of her tried to calm her down. But confusion was slowly turning into cold panic.

The muscled guy was getting up and walking towards the bus driver's seat.

Dave was just now realizing that he still had his headphones in but his podcast had stopped. He quickly checked his phone but his screen stayed black. Weird because he remembered having more than 80% battery left. Trying to turn it back on didn’t help.

“Hey, is your phone dead too?” he said to Max who had been lost in thought.

Max raised his eyebrows and looked down at his lap “Oh yeah weird, I thought I had charged it before we went.”

“So did I.”

“Hey everybody!” the guy in the front screamed “The bus is not working! Keys are still here but the bus not work!”

“My phone is also dead!” the girl in the back said. She held an old Nokia phone in her hand. If this thing had run out of battery there might really be an apocalypse upon them Dave thought to himself.

Everybody started checking their various electronic devices and panic was starting to spread through the bus. Apparently nobody's phones were working.

The shape had told them that electronics would stop working. So was this proof that it was right? Could this dream really be? Dave saw similar thoughts crossing through the minds of the people around him.

This vision he had was crazy. Usually he wouldn’t believe that he saw what he saw but apparently the others saw it as well. And the things happening around him seemed to be fitting into the narrative this white shape told him. Was there really an apocalypse of sorts among them?

Whatever was happening, the matter of fact was that they were stranded in the Cambodian wilderness with no access to technology. As people realized that, panic overcame confusion.

“Hey guys I’m Max.” Max stood up and walked into the middle of the bus “Listen we don’t know what’s going on, so let’s not go crazy. I get it that we all blacked out for a second and all had this weird dream with a white humanoid shape in the darkness?”

The others nodded or mumbled in agreement, he even held the attention of the girl that was freaking out now.

“Ok so I don’t know if we all just had some sort of weird group dream or if whatever this was is real. But I do know that we’re stuck out here with no access to our phones right now. And I know that we’re missing 2 people and the driver. Am I correct?” He continued talking calmly and Dave saw how the others were relaxing a little bit and nodding in agreement. “Ok good so we’re all on the same page now, we need to work together if we want to get back to the city. But first things first we should look for the people. Let’s form groups and check around the bus. Me and my friend will stay here and check on the bus, maybe it’s something with the engine that we can fix. Does anybody else know anything about cars or maybe even buses specifically?” Nobody answered and a few people were shaking their heads. “No worries, I know my way around an engine so if it’s anything that’s fixable, me and my friend Dave will get this bus going in no time. The rest of you split up into 3 groups and look around a little, don’t wander too far, I want to meet back here within an hour.”

With that he went out of the bus and gestured for Dave to follow him. So he got up and went after Max. Looking around the bus Dave was impressed. Max had turned the tide from chaos and confusion into calmness and determination. These people didn’t know what was going on and didn’t even know each other for the most part but Max gave them a common goal to work towards and calmed them down. Most of the nervous chatter had died down and now they were organizing into groups to go out, confusion and worry turned into determination on their faces.

Dave went out of the bus into the hot midday sun and saw Max standing at the front of the bus waiting for him.

“Dude you don’t even know anything about cars.” he said to his friend who was leaning on the engine hood. Max chuckled in return.

“Yeah that was a little lie but I needed them to keep up hope for a bit. If they knew we would have to walk all the way back, they probably wouldn’t go looking all that far for the missing people. Well, other than that girl maybe.” he shrugged.

Dave raised an eyebrow at him “When did you get so leader like? I’m impressed.”

“Hah I just read a few books a while ago and remember the day you wanted to do your cooking course? I stayed at the hostel that day and watched Catch Me If You Can. So I’m pretty much an expert at faking confidence and reading people.” Max said while mimicking a pilot's salut.

They both laughed at that. And Dave just now realized how tense he had gotten after the whole blacking out and being stranded thing. Just laughing with Max helped a lot. They settled into comfortable silence for a few seconds before they noticed the others were getting out, so they tried looking busy while rummaging through their backpacks. Because as it turned out, they both didn’t even know how to open the engine hood.

After the others were out of sight, they talked about the situation a bit. Neither of them was sure what was really happening. But they had to consider that they might really be in some sort of fantasy world merging event. They were pretty open minded in that regard, both being avid lovers of video games and all that was fantasy or sci-fi.

A bit later the groups returned and they stood in front of the bus.

Mira, the girl who had lost her travel partner sat on the stairs of the bus. A resigned look in her eyes and tears rolling down her face. They all stood around her unsure what to do. Dave didn’t even know how he would feel in that situation. Then Max stepped up.

“Okay listen, I can’t imagine the pain you must be in after losing your friend. I can understand if you don’t really want to believe it. Hell, I wouldn't believe it if I were in your shoes. But we have to move and we have to move soon. We don’t have that much food here and we will need a few days to get back to civilisation.'' Mira had started sobbing again while he was talking and Max looked her deep in the eyes and continued “This isn’t you abandoning her. This is you surviving like she would have wanted. We have too much evidence by now to know this is real. And we have to move soon, not just because of food but also because of the dangers the man warned us about. Do you understand that?”

The girl just stared at him for a few seconds, her sobbing having slowed down a little, before she nodded and looked down.

“Okay y’all, judging by the light outside we still have the better part of the day to make time back towards civilization. I say we head out in roughly 10 minutes. Gather all that could be of use.” waiting for all of them to confirm in one way or the other Max walked back towards his seat and started going through his backpack.

“Was.. was he always like that?” Ryland said in a lowered voice, turning to Dave.

“No..? I don’t think so… He was always a bit decisive and knew what he wanted but not like that. Maybe I just never experienced him in a situation like this though..”

“Well I’m glad he’s here.” Sam said pitching into the conversation “He seems like he knows what he’s doing and heck I just felt helpless watching her cry like that.” With that he went back into the bus as well.

Dave actually felt the same, some part of him wanted to help the poor girl but he didn’t know what he could say to make her better. He would’ve never expected that she would be willing to walk away right now. But now she was packing.

After a few minutes everybody was ready to leave. Dave was the last one still on the bus, because he did an extra round to check that they hadn’t left anything that might be important. Of course he also ignored the backpacks of their missing bus mates. Just for the off chance that they might still be alive and made their way back here. He didn’t want to leave them without anything.

As he was about to walk outside he stopped for a second and looked back to the empty driver seat. Dave wondered if that dream was real. He also wondered what happened to the others. And he wondered if there really were monsters out here now.