Chapter 3: Special Passenger

Chapter 3 Special Passengers

Under the cloak of night, a dilapidated Route 444 bus rumbled along fog-shrouded streets. The world seemed to narrow to just three sources of light: the dim, yellowish glow within the bus, the faint streetlights ahead barely visible through the mist, marking the next stop, and… a blood-red full moon, starkly crimson despite being veiled by darkness and fog.

Inside the rust-eaten bus, eight passengers were scattered, none appearing to be traveling together.

Near the rear door, a bespectacled boy of about fifteen or sixteen, dressed in pajamas, fidgeted restlessly. His nervous expression betrayed an undeniable terror. This wasn't because he occupied a seat reserved for the elderly or infirm, but because he had inexplicably materialized on this eerie bus, with a strange voice in his ear narrating the rules of this "game."

The boy only remembered secretly playing video games under his covers until the early hours, defying his parents. The next thing he knew, he was on this bus. His eyes still ached, and his empty hands retained the lingering warmth of his smartphone.

"Perhaps it's just a nightmare…" The only logical explanation for the boy was that he had fallen asleep while gaming and was now dreaming of a creepy bus.

"But this feels far too real." He turned to look out the window. Even with the bus's interior lights, he could only vaguely discern the shadows of buildings through the dark fog. The unknown and hazy surroundings made everything feel even more uncanny.

His gaze returned to the bus's interior. He sat on the left side, with the other seven passengers scattered before and behind him.

Directly in front of him sat a girl with dreadlocks. She didn't look much older than him, but she reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, dressed as if she had just emerged from a night out in the city.

On the right side, an elderly woman with silver-white hair sat to his right and slightly ahead. Her eyes were fixed on the window, and in its reflection, he could see her wrinkled, expressionless face.

Further ahead of the elderly woman sat another passenger. From a distance, the boy could only tell by the uniform that they were also a student—a uniform strikingly similar to his own school’s, though this one was soaking wet.

The pajama-clad boy abruptly turned to look behind him, making eye contact with a tall, burly man not far back. The man’s imposing build and stern expression intimidated the boy.

Next to the burly man sat a woman in a white qipao. She was young, with a pale complexion and heavy, theatrical makeup. Her lips were curved into a smile, but her eyes, staring straight ahead, seemed unfocused.

Further back on the right, a middle-aged man in a wrinkled suit belched, his face flushed red as if he’d just finished a late business dinner.

The boy’s eyes drifted to the very back of the bus, but the moment they landed there, he immediately averted his gaze and looked down, as if he had seen a ghost. He couldn’t help but wonder why something so terrifying would appear in his dream.

Though he had only glanced for a second, what he saw was unmistakable—a bride dressed in red wedding robes, her face covered with a bridal veil.

If that were all, the boy might have simply found the passengers odd. But there was more: a horrifying, gaping hole in the chest of the bride sitting silently in the back row.

This wasn’t just any bride—it was a terrifying ghost bride!

"Hey!"

The boy didn’t dare look back again. Even though he tried to reassure himself that this was just a nightmare brought on by too many horror games, he couldn’t shake his fear. Vivid images flooded his mind—the ghost bride’s bleeding chest, the blood spreading from the back of the bus toward the front. His own imagination terrified him so much that his breathing grew rapid.

"Hey!" A hushed, insistent voice broke through his thoughts. "You appeared on this bus out of nowhere too, right?"

The voice snapped the boy out of his terrified daze. It came from the girl who looked like she’d just come from a nightclub, sitting directly in front of him. She spoke in a low whisper and didn’t turn around to look at him.

"You…"

"I saw you in the rearview mirror mounted above the driver’s seat. You were looking around nervously, right?" The girl in front tilted her head slightly, clearly watching the mirror positioned some distance above the driver. "Too bad the mirror’s tilted. From my angle, I can’t see the very back row. At most, I can only see the three passengers behind you who still looked normal."

The boy also tried to glance at the small rearview mirror, but even with his glasses, he couldn’t see clearly.

"What did you see back there?" The girl’s voice dropped even lower. "I saw your expression suddenly change to fear."

"Nothing, really." The boy adjusted his glasses and shook his head. "It’s just a dream anyway. Once I wake up—"

"Snap out of it!" The girl’s voice rose slightly, tinged with frustration. "You think I’m just some character in your dream? Well, sorry to break it to you, but my mind is perfectly clear!"

"I don’t know." The boy lowered his head, avoiding reality.

"You have no idea what’s really happening!" The girl sighed. "You haven’t heard the news? Lots of people have been going missing lately in cities everywhere—men, women, old, young… If you look up related topics, you’ll see people going missing nearly every day."

"...I think I’ve heard something about that." The boy did recall rumors related to the keyword "missing," but when he was online, he usually only paid attention to gaming and entertainment content. Sneaking time on his phone was hard enough—he didn’t have the energy to follow news like that. At most, he might have caught snippets from the TV in the living room during meals.

"Could those missing people have gone through the same thing we’re going through? Or right now, do our parents and friends think we’re missing too? Is it really like that voice said—that we can only go home if we survive 48 hours in this 'game'?" The girl’s voice grew more anxious. "Is this really just a game? What is the Nightmare World that the voice mentioned? And what are the 'special passengers' on this bus?"

"And what did you see when you looked back there? Was it a special passenger?"

With every question the girl asked, the image of the ghost bride the boy had been trying to forget grew clearer and more vivid. The more she pressed, the more he could imagine the ghost bride rising from her seat at the back of the bus and walking toward them, leaving a trail of blood!

"I…"

"Actually, aside from the three of us, the remaining passengers are probably all special passengers." A low, unfamiliar voice came from behind.

The girl glanced up at the rearview mirror. The speaker was the burly man sitting next to the woman in the white qipao. Compared to the man’s large frame, the bus seat seemed cramped. He was pressed against the window, trying his best to scoot away from the motionless woman in the white qipao beside him, making his posture look extremely awkward.

Even though the woman in the white qipao was beautiful with meticulously applied makeup, the burly man acted as if some kind of venomous creature were sitting next to him, desperately clinging to the left window. If it weren’t for the window, he’d probably have leaped out already.

"When we entered this so-called game, that voice said the bus was safe, and we have 20 minutes before the game officially starts to talk and find teammates, right?" The burly man in the back seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "If ordinary people found themselves in a situation like this, would they really stay quiet? Or how could anyone who ended up in a place like this just sit quietly unless they weren’t ordinary at all?"

"Are there only three of us?" From the rearview mirror, the girl could see—aside from the three of them who were now speaking—the soaked boy up front, whose face was hard to make out, the elderly woman on the right staring out the window, the woman in the white qipao next to the burly man, and the middle-aged man in the wrinkled suit toward the back right.

As for the very back row of the bus, even though the girl couldn’t see it in the mirror, she figured the boy behind her had seen something.

"But… what’s so 'special' about these special passengers?" Though the girl asked nervously, she knew the others probably didn’t have much information either.

"I don’t know much more than you do, but as for special passengers…" The man in the back seemed to hesitate, his eyes nervously darting toward the woman in the white qipao beside him. He said warily, "Have you ever seen something that looks almost human—with a face and body like a person’s—but whose hands are just two flat, paper-thin sheets, with red watercolor painted on for nails?"

The man pressed against the window cautiously raised his left hand, making a subtle but deliberate gesture toward the woman in the white qipao beside him.

"…"

In the rearview mirror, the woman in the white qipao sitting next to the man still wore a smile on her lips, her eyes staring vacantly ahead. But her pale face, layered with heavy makeup, now seemed downright sinister.

Meanwhile, sitting in the front row of the bus, Su Bai was putting up with the discomfort of his drenched clothes, quietly staying in his seat. Perhaps because he was used to the harshness of the Nightmare World, the environment of the Route 444 Last Bus and the aura of the Nightmare World felt more familiar and comfortable to him than the confusion he had felt in the real world.

As he carefully listened to the bold conversation among the three passengers behind him, he began calculating his odds of beating this game once again.