Work Text:
“What the fuck…”
Daniel scowls at his cracked phone screen, hoisting it higher in the air and willing at least one of those little bars to appear in the top corner. Apparently, this place still exists in the sixteenth fucking century, because he hasn’t had any luck even though he knows he paid his bill this month.
“Fuck !” he repeats, emphatically.
Of all the places for the stupid bus to crash, it had to be in a dead zone. Great. He never should’ve come on this stupid fieldtrip in the first place; in fact, the only reason he’d signed up for it was because he needed the extra credits. When John, their professor, announced the trip a few weeks ago, it had seemed like an easy way to get those missing points— what a joke. Next time, he’ll just settle for a shitty grade.
Hearing someone start to groan behind him, Daniel turns to look back at the boy who’d made the pained sound. It’s his classmate, Andrew; at least, Daniel thinks that’s his name. He’s like, eighty percent sure, but it’s not like they ever really talked before this. The guy (Andrew, he hopes) is pretty quiet, keeping to himself for the most part, and Daniel hardly ever pays attention during class, anyway. He’s regretting all that now, though, because Andrew is the only other person he’s seen since the bus crashed.
When Daniel had first woken up after the accident, still in his seat but sprawled against the windows, the bus had been eerily dark and silent. Taylor, who had been sitting right next to him, was nowhere in sight— and when he tried calling out to the others, there was no response. Once he finally managed to get on his feet, he realized that Angela and John were missing, too; for one terrifying moment, he thought he was the only one left. Even the driver had vanished.
Then, he’d seen them: a pair of bright red and blue sneakers, sticking straight up in the air near the front of the bus. He’d stumbled over as quickly as possible, gripping the seats for support, and found Andrew hanging limply off the back of one— unconscious, but breathing. So Daniel had done the only thing he could think of, what he would’ve wanted someone else to do if the situation were different: he got them both out of the bus, and then he started trying to call for help.
While the second part of Daniel’s plan hasn’t panned out so well, things are looking better for his classmate.
Andrew is still sitting exactly where Daniel left him five minutes ago: slouched back against the bus, next to the emergency hatch they’d used to climb out of the wreck. Unlike before, however, he’s actually showing signs of life— curling an arm protectively around his stomach and letting out another groan. He’s cracking his eyes open by the time Daniel makes it over to him, although not without a grimace.
“Hey, man. Welcome back to the land of the living,” Daniel quips, crouching down to eye level. “Are you okay? You were out for a while.”
It’s as if he hasn’t spoken at all; Andrew doesn’t even so much as spare him a glance. He just stares vacantly ahead, as if he isn’t really awake, and Daniel feels his heart sinking into his stomach at the lack of response.
Thing is, the expression isn’t an unfamiliar one; Daniel’s seen it a few times over the course of his football career. Those glazed over eyes have stared back at him from a teammate who’d just been sacked, from an opponent after they’d smashed helmets, and he’s pretty sure he’s even worn it himself a time or two— but something about this seems different. Maybe Daniel’s just being paranoid because of the circumstances, but…
He eyes the gash on Andrew’s forehead nervously, wishing he knew where everyone else went. The others would be handling this situation much better, he thinks; they’d know exactly what to do. At least, Angela would know, but John could come up with some sort of concrete plan and drag them all along with him. And Taylor, she’s always been great at brainstorming ideas. She’d probably have her own, separate plan that she’d argue for— and maybe, somewhere around here, that’s exactly how things are playing out. Maybe the three of them are together, and they’re all standing around, bickering about the best way to save their asses.
Daniel hopes that’s the case; in fact, he refuses to believe anything different. For now, though, he’s stuck here alone with an unresponsive Andrew— and that means he has to figure this shit out all on his own.
The first idea that comes to mind is to leave the bus and search for help elsewhere. There could be a town nearby with a working phone, or even an elusive cell signal, and he could call for help from there. That’s making the assumption that there is a town nearby, though, which might not even be true; from the looks of it, they crashed in the middle of literal nowhere. Plus, if he leaves the bus, he won’t be able to bring Andrew with him— and that seems like a terrible idea. Daniel might not know his classmate very well, but it would still be shitty to just abandon the guy when he’s injured.
Throwing out that idea, Daniel moves on to a second, more obvious option: staying by the bus and waiting for help. It should be a good plan, since it solves the issue of leaving Andrew alone, but the more Daniel thinks about it, the more he hates it. He doesn’t want to wait; that sounds like the stupidest thing he could do in this situation. After all, he’s not sure anyone will even come down this road, let alone be able to help them— especially if they are in the middle of nowhere. What if help never comes? Are they just supposed to sit here all night? What if Andrew doesn’t get better? What if he gets worse ? What the hell is Daniel going to do then?
Nope. Fuck that. Fuck both those options; they’re getting out of here.
Somewhat desperately, Daniel reaches out and shakes his classmate’s shoulder. “Hey, Andrew,” he says, but frowns when he again gets no response. “C’mon, man. Can you hear me? Andrew !”
He immediately regrets raising his voice when his classmate flinches and lets out a low groan— because it’s a response, yeah, but it’s not one that Daniel wanted. It’s one he feels pretty bad for causing, actually, but at least he knows the guy’s aware enough to hear him now. “Sorry,” he mutters. He keeps his voice down after that; he’s not a total monster. “Are you okay?”
There’s a few terrifying beats of silence before Andrew finally responds. “...Where are we?” he asks, sounding just as dazed as he looks. “What happened?”
Relieved, Daniel glances from the woods around them to the empty stretch of road they’re sitting on— both of which are slowly being swallowed by the thick, creeping fog. “No clue. I don’t remember taking this road on the way up,” he responds, brows drawing together slightly. The unease is creeping back again, so when he turns back to Andrew to answer his second question, it’s with a quiet sigh. “The bus crashed. I’ve been trying to call the police, but I can’t get any signal on my piece of shit phone. We must be in some kind of dead zone or something.”
“If you say so,” Andrew mumbles. Blood trickles into his eyebrow from the gash on his forehead, the crimson line a stark contrast to the mottled blues and purples of the bruise that’s forming, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s looking at Daniel with a troubled expression— actually looking at him, fully comprehending that he’s there and everything. “I don’t remember being in any crash,” he says, then shakes his head slightly as if it might clear up his confusion. “My head’s… I mean, something’s wrong. My brain is goo.”
To be fair, Daniel was having similar concerns a few minutes ago, before Andrew started responding. Now that his classmate’s looking at him and asking questions, however, he’s feeling more optimistic; he even finds himself smiling at Andrew’s word choice. Sure, something’s definitely wrong— head injuries are never a good thing— but it doesn’t seem so scary anymore. “Nah, your brain isn’t goo. You just have a concussion,” he replies, patting his classmate’s shoulder. “Give it a minute; you’ll be alright.”
Before either of them can say anything else, they’re cut off by the sound of someone shouting nearby. “Hey! Anyone up there?”
Immediately, Daniel is on his feet, his head swiveling around in search of the source. “Hey!” he yells back. He doesn’t see anyone approaching, but he’s pretty sure he knows that voice. “That you, John?”
“Daniel! Good to hear you!” comes the reply. It sounds like the professor’s voice is coming from somewhere around the back of the bus.
Eager to investigate, Daniel nearly runs off then and there— but he stops at the last second, remembering the state Andrew is in. “Stay here, buddy; I’ll be right back,” he promises. He pats his classmate’s shoulder again, the action almost instinctual, and then takes off in the direction of John’s voice.
The scene Daniel finds at the side of the road sends a chill down his spine. The back end of the bus juts out over a cliff’s edge, its emergency doors wide open to the gully below, and suddenly it’s not so difficult to figure out how the group had been separated during the accident. He can remember a brief moment of being airborne before crashing back into his seat; apparently, the others had experienced an even rougher landing.
Realizing just how violent the crash had been almost makes him too scared to look down, but when he finally forces himself to bite the bullet, he doesn’t see anything gruesome. Quite the opposite, actually. Standing there at the bottom of the cliff is not only John, but Taylor and Angela, too— all three of them staring up at him, looking relatively unscathed despite literally being flung over a cliff.
Holy shit.
“Taylor! You okay?” Daniel shouts, before he can think about it. It’s not that he isn’t worried about the other two; after all, he’s known Angela pretty much his whole life. It’s just that Taylor was sitting right next to him on the bus when they crashed, and having her disappear so suddenly was more jarring than he’d like to admit.
“I’m good!” Taylor calls, and Daniel matches her tiny, shy smile with a grin of his own. It falters slightly when he sees Angela scoff and cross her arms, no doubt hurt by his unintentional exclusion— but it’s too late to take it back now.
“We’re fine, too, thanks for asking,” John interjects, sarcastic as ever. He sounds more amused than annoyed, though, so Daniel takes that as a win. “You okay up there?”
Daniel rubs the back of his neck, glancing over his shoulder at Andrew before he replies. “I think so. Andrew hit his head pretty hard, but he’s coming around. Any idea what caused the crash?”
“Not sure,” John answers. “Looked like the driver swerved to avoid something in the road. He up there, by the way?”
Even though he’s already looked around more than once, Daniel finds himself searching his surroundings for the driver— just in case he’d missed something the first time. All he sees, however, is the same empty street bordered by foggy woods, and Andrew, who’s still slumped against the overturned bus. “Nope. No sign of him.”
The trio at the bottom of the cliff exchange puzzled looks. “Weird,” John says. “He isn’t down here, either.”
That is weird; people don’t just disappear into thin air. Their driver has to be somewhere— but they’ll have to figure that out later. Daniel shakes his head slightly, derailing that train of thought and focusing instead on what’s more important right now: reuniting with the rest of the group. They’re not going to achieve much of anything when they’re split up like this.
“Hey, can you guys get back up to us?”
Angela speaks up first, of course. She’s never been one to shy away from sharing her opinions; it’s one of both her best and worst qualities. “Are you kidding?” she exclaims, gesturing to the cliff face he’s standing on top of. “That looks way too steep. Do I look like a mountain climber to you? In these clothes?”
Although it’s delivered in her typical abrasive manner, she has a point; the cliff is pretty steep. Daniel’s not even sure he could scale it, and he’s way more athletic than the three people who are actually stuck down there.
Taylor eyes the cliff, sizing it up, and then starts looking around for another way up. Thankfully, she finds something after only a couple seconds of searching, triumphantly pointing to something on her left. “I see a trail!” she exclaims. “We should try that.”
Angela and John walk over to investigate, shining a flashlight into the darkness, and even at this distance, Daniel can see Taylor rolling her eyes at them. It must be promising, though, because it only takes the duo a few moments to reach a decision. “We’re taking the trail,” John announces. “Should take us to the road; we can regroup there.”
The relief that floods through Daniel is palpable. “That’s a plan,” he says, opening his arms in a sweeping gesture. “See you soon.”
When he turns back to Andrew to tell him the good news, however, he’s met with a pathetic sight: his classmate is holding his head in his hands, reaching the end of a coughing fit with a low groan. Daniel cringes in sympathy, taking a half-step forward to try and help— and that’s when something strange happens.
An intense wave of deja-vu crashes over him, so strongly and suddenly that it stops him in his tracks. It genuinely feels like he’s seen this happening before; he’s lived this before. A memory is nagging at him, nearly tangible in its emotion— Andrew, sick and stubborn, clutching weakly at his chest as a violent cough racks through his body; Daniel, lingering nearby and feeling just as scared and helpless as he does now.
It feels so damn real, but he knows it can’t be. It’s all wrong: their closeness, the unfamiliar room, their weird, outdated clothes. In the foggy image that his mind keeps trying to conjure, not even the hair is right. The Andrew he’s imagining has dark brown hair that's longer on top, but the real Andrew’s hair is short and blonde— something Daniel only knows because he’s staring right at the guy.
Which brings him to the main reason this deja-vu bullshit can’t be real: he and Andrew barely know each other. In fact, Daniel’s pretty sure he’s never even seen the guy outside of class before today, so it’s literally impossible for the memory to exist. He must be remembering a scene from a movie, or maybe even a weird dream he’s had; that makes a lot more sense than anything else. It would explain the details getting mixed up, too, since dreams are just a clusterfuck by nature.
Jesus. They really need to meet up with the others; Daniel’s losing it on his own.
“Hey, Andrew. I’m gonna help you up, okay? We’re gonna go meet the others,” he says, forcing himself to move forward and past the strange moment. He crouches down next to his classmate again, holding out one hand for Andrew to take and getting ready to support his weight if he needs it.
Andrew snaps to attention, making eye contact and everything, but he doesn’t take Daniel’s hand. Instead, he just stares, his eyes wide and terrified the way they should’ve been when he first woke up. “Wait. I— I don’t remember anything,” he chokes out, and Daniel feels his heart drop into his stomach. “Who… who are you?”
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
“It’s okay. You’re concussed,” Daniel reassures. It’s just as much for himself as it is for his classmate. “My name’s Daniel; we’re in a creative writing class together. A few of us were taking a bus on a field trip, but things kinda went to shit on the ride back. Pretty sure crashing wasn’t part of the game plan.” He manages a small smile, and sees Andrew’s shoulders relax slightly in response. “We’re gonna meet up with the others down the road, get some help. Sound good?”
This time, when he offers his hand, Andrew takes it— allowing himself to be hauled to his feet with a pained grimace. It’s clumsy and awkward, and Daniel has to steady him when he starts to stumble backwards, but they eventually manage.
Daniel can’t help the triumphant grin that stretches across his face once they settle. Not only is Andrew upright, but he’s even standing on his own two feet again; maybe things aren’t as bad as Daniel thought. “Teamwork makes the dream work,” he says, patting Andrew’s shoulder lightly.
Andrew stares back at him, his gaze oddly intense and more focused than it’s been all night. “I had this dream. It was so real... ,” he blurts out. He shakes his head and looks away, obviously troubled by what he’s remembering. “Flames all around us. It was… Grim.”
For a moment, Daniel is speechless. If he ignores the part about a fire, Andrew could be describing how it felt having that fucked up deja-vu; that, too, had felt real, and grim in its own way. He’s still a bit thrown by it, to be honest, so he can’t imagine how jarring a dream like that must be for Andrew, whose concussion makes things even more muddled and confusing.
“No fire here. Just you, me, and the bus,” Daniel replies, trying to lighten the mood. “We should probably get going, though— catch up with the others. Don’t want them to leave without us.”
It’s meant to be a joke, but judging by the worried look on Andrew’s face, he doesn’t know that. “Yeah, okay.” He hesitates for a moment, glancing down the road ahead of them, and then takes a step closer to Daniel. “We should stick together. I don’t wanna… be out here on my own.”
The quiet admission makes Daniel pause, looking up from the phone he’s just pulled back out of his pocket. Now it’s his turn to stare, taking in the blue-purple-crimson gash on Andrew’s pale forehead, and the solemn expression on his face as he stares back— as if he’s actually expecting to be left alone. Like maybe he’s used to it.
“You won’t be,” Daniel promises, and he’s surprised by how much he means it. ‘So much for not knowing the guy,’ he thinks as he turns on his phone’s flashlight. “C’mon. The others won’t be far.”
With that, the duo head off down the road— toward the rest of the group, and toward a town called Little Hope. Neither of them notice the fog creeping in behind them, separating them from the bus like curtains falling on the final act; they just continue on, unaware that they’ve already been swallowed whole.