Rain didn't fall—it crashed. Each drop exploded against the bus windows like shards of malice, merging into cloudy rivulets that smeared the neon glow outside into disfigured colors. Elias Rowan pressed his forehead against the icy glass, letting exhaustion seep up his spine. The bus was packed like a tin can of sardines, rattling forward on slick roads, every brake triggering groans and bruised limbs.
The air was dense—muggy with sweat, rain-stench, and cheap perfume. Elias curled into a corner, clutching his backpack like a mismatched shield. In his pocket, a paper-thin rent notice poked his thigh—urgent, unforgiving. Outside, the rain distorted a billboard featuring a radiant celebrity grin, as if mocking the laborers crammed inside the bus.
Then the shriek of metal tore through the storm.
A monstrous oil tanker burst out from the intersection—a river of molten rage unleashed. Its headlights blazed like furious gods, locking onto the bus like prey. Time thickened into syrup. The driver's face twisted in voiceless horror. A boy with earphones raised his head too late. A mother clutched her baby mid-breath, frozen in terror.
The world stopped.
The only motion left: the fiery titan, inching closer, a predator laced in inevitability. And in that split second of annihilation—
A searing heat exploded from Elias' chest.
It was the pendant. A crude amber stone his grandmother had pressed into his palm on her deathbed. Once inert, now raging. Beneath the surface, golden currents roared, like ancient fire fighting to awaken.
Then came the rupture—a tremor not of sound, but of space. Elias felt his mind dip into a frozen abyss. Sight twisted into grey chaos. And everything else paused.
Time had frozen.
Rain hung midair, glass shards hovered before his eyes, the bus cabin a wax museum of panic. His gaze landed on Serena Wynn—his quiet classmate—her eyes wide with shock, a raindrop suspended against her cheek, her neck vulnerable, aligned with death.
Her name struck like lightning.
"No—!"
Without thought, Elias lunged, shielding Serena with his body. Motion was agony, the air thick like syrup, resistance biting into his muscles. A glass fang halted inches from his skull. A whisper away from ending him.
He clung to Serena, her hair against his cheek, the scent of wild herbs anchoring him in the timeless void. The pendant on his chest pulsed furiously. Beneath the fabric, a fissure appeared—delicate as a spiderweb. Elias felt strength slip through his bones, his breath ragged.
Then, without warning—
The grip of time snapped.
A roar returned to the world with violent force. The oil tanker screamed past, nearly shredding the bus in two. Passengers flew into walls, screams collided like a chorus of chaos.
Elias took the full impact—his shoulder slammed into a railing, pain blooming like fire. Serena whimpered in shock, eyes glued not to him—but to the shattered window behind him.
Raindrops… still floated.
Just for a moment, the world defied gravity once more. Droplets shimmered like diamonds suspended in space, before finally succumbing—falling, vanishing.
Serena gasped.
"This... this makes no scientific sense…"
Her voice fractured, words stumbling over quantum laws and equations that could no longer explain the impossible. Elias pressed his hand to the pendant, its heat lingering, the crack growing deeper.
In the shadowed corner of the wrecked bus, no one noticed the translucent shape curl back into the void, a jellyfish-like ripple that fed on residual fear—and disappeared.