《The Crucible: Midhell Inferno》


 The Enrollment

    It was a quarter past nine o''clock that evening, and my bus was late. Of course, it was.


    Coming off a Calculus exam at school and a stressful shift at the restaurant, it was just the sort of luck my life needed to torture whatever spirit I had left for the day¡ªto find myself stuck waiting in the bus shelter for half an hour: the cold, October rain hunching me down against my body to huddle what little warmth I could, and the dark, heavy night hammering the streetlights along the roads ahead into hazy orbs too feeble to pave the scene or the roads before me against the blackness, leaving me cornered into the meagre light of the bus shelter, stressed and mad and running on fumes.


    I had nothing else at that time but to believe that my situation would sort itself out eventually, as did with everything that hampered my life so often, that some extent of my day could be salvaged, and the bus would arrive sooner in the next minute than as far into the hour and then some, and that I''d be warming my cold dinner at home by ten-thirty in the best case scenario. That miserable, shaded wick of optimism was all that I had to prop myself up against the pull of absolute exhaustion.


    So I sat there, tired, with nothing else but the thought of my tardy ride taking me away from the cold and rain eventually, fixing me onward to home, right into the weekend and the school break properly.


    It was a quarter and a few minutes past nine o''clock that evening when my bus arrived.


    As I spotted that vehicle coming around the corner three blocks away, trudging over the large puddles that had formed over the road across from me, with its headlights fracturing through the sheets of rain like beams from the sun, all that I had bottled in my shivering, wet frame stirred me into great relief to know that I wouldn''t have to freeze and soak my way through the night to walk to my house by foot instead. I had my bus now; I had no real source to be mad about any longer. That was all very good to me. That was why the bus had arrived at last.


    Quickly I grabbed my bag and futilely propped it over my head to shield the rain off me as I got out of the bus shelter and passed the opening doors of the bus. The bus driver¡ªan old, grey man with bags under his eyes deeper than even mine¡ªcaught my gaze and gave an apologetic smile so tired I almost emphasized with the cause of the delay. Almost. The bus was still late, and I was still dead, exhausted, cold, and ashamed.


    "Traffic," he sounded a lot more jovial than I expected. "Long one. Sorry about the delay, kid."


    I looked up as I hovered my phone in front of the scanner and gave him a small nod of understanding, though I still grumbled inside as I made my way to a seat. But before I knew it, that anger had waned down to half as I was pressing my head against the window, slumped down, relieved but exhausted, as the vehicle started forward again, tires slapping against the rain-puddled pavement.


    I pulled my damp jacket tight around me, the cold outside still lingering around as I rubbed my palms together to generate friction. Leaning my head against the condensed glass, which trembled faintly as the bus drove on, the world outside blurred into streaks and hazy circles of orange lights and black blocks of shadows, with the thick rain carving rivers along the road. The stress began to crawl off my shoulders now that I was no longer alone, and the paranoia of sitting under that dimly lit bus shelter had finally loosened its grip on my anxious chest.


    The bus was mostly empty. There were just a couple of tired commuters like me, about a dozen, all leaning against the windows and, no doubt, cursing to themselves about the long delay. There was a man in a rumpled suit snoring softly a few rows up, and a middle-aged woman clutching a wet plastic bag of groceries to her chest, eyes closed with headphones in her ears. The air smelled faintly of wet shoes and cheap upholstery and however, buses usually smelled. The robotic announcer of the PA pulling me from Fifth Street down to Third in less than thirty seconds was enough to slow me into a better mood.


    Closing my eyes, I half-imagined the whirring of the microwave heating up my late meal, the feeling of dry clothes, and the warmth of a blanket pulled over my exhausted body. No homework, no shifts. There was no Mister Newman to scald my self-esteem in the restaurant when I was clumsy and dumb; there was no Rachel (who was only a year older than, me and far more professional) to hurl insults at me when I was being too slow delivering the food to the busy restaurant; there was no Tom to yell at me to raise my voice when I was being too quiet to relay a customer''s instructions to the ever-moving kitchen staff. There were none of the clumsy failures that I sometimes wished would''ve just fired me at the spot that moment to save me the stress of another day of getting yelled at by everyone and stressing over obnoxious customers; I had Miss Taylor to save me for that, though, who was the nicest to me as the ''kid'' in the staff¡ªwhich, in turn, hurt me even more when even she got fed up with me, not even an hour ago, like everyone else had at some point during my career as a sweaty, panicky waiter, when I got berated by a customer for getting her order wrong and I turned too quickly to hide away from her mean, blunt superiority and spilled hot risotto over Miss Taylor''s head as she was leaning down to fetch her dropped napkin. At the very least, it was Friday, and I had a long, shift-free Weekend and a school break to heal my self-esteem, and a chance to start looking for a new job once I inevitably got fired.


    The rhythmic swaying of the bus and the faint hiss of rain against the windows were almost soothing, lulling me into a state of half-consciousness, when a thought I had pushed aside earlier came to ring; and I pulled up my phone and opened my messenger app to text my mom that I was on the bus at last, though saving my complaints about the delay once I got home. I waited for a reply for a couple of seconds, then turned my phone off when my message wasn''t opened yet, closing my eyes as I went back to trying to shut myself down from how sweaty and clumsy I was.


    I felt a tap on my shoulders suddenly.


    It was so light at first, that I thought I¡¯d imagined it. I opened my eyes, blinking at the rain-streaked window, then turned and expected to see one of the commuters I had half-glanced over as I made my way through the bus, only to look at someone who had just entered a stop ago while my eyes were blanking off.


    A boy, older than me, stood in the aisle, looking down at me with a smile. His clothes were immaculate despite the weather¡ªblack slacks, a pressed shirt, and an odd blazer adorned with a red-and-gold emblem on the breast, of a raven, I had guessed. His damp black hair clung to his forehead from the rain, and his pale, angular face was staring down at me as I blinked up at him.


    "Hello, there," a smooth, youthful voice started. "This seat taken?"


    I blinked again, then used the corners of my eyes to glance around the many empty seats on the bus. He didn''t seem to notice any one of them. "Um. Sure. No. I guess not."


    "Thanks." Without hearing my hesitation, the boy gave a wide, white smile and sat down on the seat next to me. I sat my bag upright so that it wasn''t lying on my lap and at the edge of his space.


    I sighed discreetly, annoyed. There was a row of empty seats just behind me and in front, and the boy had no doubt ignored that so he could sit next to me on purpose¡ªto talk, most likely. I thought about how quickly and seamlessly I could put my earbuds on as he sat beside me in case he began talking whatever nonsense he found too interesting to keep to himself, while I had to sit there and pretend to be interested.


    I wondered if I really looked that interesting for a stranger to initiate a conversation with, but feeling how bruised my self-esteem already was, I knew that wasn''t true.


    "Do you mind answering a small question for me?" the boy started before I could reach into my pocket. He was crossing his legs and sitting far back and wide in his seat than even I was before he had come to bother me.


    I blinked. "Um. What?"


    "Do you mind telling me how old you are?"


    I continued to sit there, blinking like an owl. "Eighteen," I replied still.


    The boy gave a small laugh. "You''re the same age as my brother," he replied. "His name is Allan. That would make me Zayne. Zayne Shen. What''s your name?"


    "Um. Arden, I guess." I started reaching into my pocket slowly to get my earbuds out.


    But a pale hand placed itself over mine as I was just opening the case, stopping me from drawing them out. I froze. I made sure to track it unbelievingly down its arm to the certain someone who had taken the particular seat beside me to see if he truly had the audacity to directly place his hand on mine so he could continue to bother me¡ªand clearly, it was still him: Marches Tao, as I remembered.


    My eyes ran up from his hand and arm to look into the expression of someone who precisely wanted to keep bothering me but he didn''t look fazed at all.


    "Let''s keep talking, Arden," he replied smoothly. He had yet to withdraw his hand over mine. "You''re in high school?"


    Stumped, I slowly slid my hand away from his, watching him warily.


    "Yeah."


    "I see," he withdrew his hand from my area and ran it down along the contours of his jaw. He stayed quiet for a second, contemplating. My mind was alert all of a sudden.


    "When''s the last time you''ve been out of this city?"


    I paused to look at him directly in the eyes if he was speaking straight with me for a moment, before replying, "Two years ago."


    "Where to?"


    "Out of this city."


    He let out a small laugh, and instantly I was jealous of how many girls would''ve swooned listening to that sound, and how easily it came down from his lips. I had already wished my laughs sounded half as attractive as his. Well, it would someday, but I wished it would happen sooner.


    "I''d like to know more about your last trip out of this city, actually, if you don''t mind."


    I did not mind and I had no real reason to be going along with his quirk of starting conversations with someone in the bus of all places, but I pushed myself to continue the conversation in the hopes that it''d satiate whatever idea he had in mind to start it with me as soon as quickly as possible.


    "Somewhere out of this country. Beaches. My cousins have an apple orchard up in the highlands. Stayed there for a while. Learned about apples."


    "Apples," he prolonged a breath of it as if had just remembered them at that moment. He smiled. "Best fruit ever, am I right? To imagine an orchard filled with them¡­ I bet you had lots of fun being able to pluck out from the tree so easily and eating them, huh?"


    My mouth hung open without words in between them for a while, unsure of what to say, my mind too confused to further reason any tangible causes as to why he had opened a conversation with me.


    "Sure," I told him.


    "But you haven''t left the city after that, haven''t you, Arden?" he asked. "You said that the last time you left this city was four years ago. What, has it just been school and homework since? In this dump of a city?"


    "Yeah."


    "Don''t you get tired of it? I know that I would be."


    "Yeah," I replied, glancing straight at him. "I don''t know."


    "You know," he said, "you remind me of my brother, Allan. He just studies and studies in his room all day, all hunched up in there. Do you ever think about getting out once in a while? Out of this city, I mean. Experiencing something new again, like those beaches and that apple orchard you told me about?"


    Oh my God, I thought inwardly. My suspicion began to rise, and I wondered what his intention with me was heading towards¡ªand had he fit more within my idea of the type of strangers I wouldn''t like talking to at first glance, I may have gained some semblance of an idea of their intentions to start a conversation with me. No, he was sleek and polished as an idol (if drenched by rain), about my age, and the exact kind of looker girls in my school would''ve been changing their hallway routes to pass a glance, or a chance to be glanced at, which made him all the more curious and strange.


    "I don''t know."


    I continued withdrawing my earbuds out of the case again when his hand stopped me. Again. I didn''t bother masking my annoyed glare at him, but his hand had not just pressed itself over mine but gripped itself around my skinnier wrist. A tight grip.


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    He continued to smile at him and acted as if he wasn''t holding my wrist. He withdrew eventually, though. I continued looking at my wrist, freezing slightly.


    "What are you doing here anyway, Arden?" he asked. "We''re in a bus at this hour, with all these miserable adults around us. You got off from somewhere?"


    I sighed and turned my gaze slowly to the rainy mirror beside me, making sure to watch his reflection on there in case he was trying to skank me. It seemed less like he had anything interesting to say that he just had to drop someone, and more like someone who couldn''t catch a social cue for the good of the people around him. And for me, in particular.


    "I got off from my job."


    "A job? From where?" he asked, smiling. "The whorehouse?"


    Processing his words slowly, I felt the bewilderment and the irritation build up to an impulsive muscle through my hand to get him off my seat. He had asked it so genuinely and curiously, I had a much harder time identifying if he was trying to joke or piss me off, and that left me more confused and irritated.


    I sighed tiredly. "An Italian food restaurant," I told him.


    My head was completely turned away from him by then, eyes still darting to watch his reflection in the mirror. The whites in his eyes looked too clear for him to be high.


    "I see," he rubbed his chain again in thought, unfazed by what he had said. He didn''t apologize for his earlier attack of a joke or an insult. "What kind of food is Italian again? Spaghetti and pizza? Lasagna, too, right? Pasta, definitely¡ªare risottos Italian, as well? Mmh. Hey, Arden, are your managers Italian? Do they really pinch their fingers together and say stuff like "Mama Mia" all the time? That''d be pretty funny to see."


    I didn''t reply, half-suspecting that he really was just a fool trying to be a nuisance at this hour. I glanced around the bus to see if there were any other guys around his age¡ªhiding away in the corner, giggling, as they had dared him to talk nonsense around me¡ªbut there was no one else but tired millennials and homeless-looking old people.


    "I never liked Italian food," he babbled on. "I''ve always preferred Indian."


    I looked down at my earbuds again and watched him warily in the reflection, staring ahead of me, licking his lips in imagination. "I could eat a good Indian right now. You know any restaurants for good curry open at this time of the day? I think I''ll pay a visit once I''ve finished my business here."


    Fucking weirdo, I seethed. He had to know how tired I was and was just playing around to piss me off so he could masturbate to some sick fetish of seeing anxious, sweaty people be more miserable after a long day of humiliating themselves. It made me sick; and I simmered around the thought of telling him off¡ªeven more politely than I should have been to someone bothering me in the bus at nine o''clock, if that was all that my courage and slight meekness could pool for my rationale. I turned my head away from the reflection, words only half-forming in my head as my mouth was opening when he spoke again.


    "I''ve got a knife in my pocket, you know."


    The only thing that came out of my mouth was a startled little gasp weak enough to feed into whatever strength he had in coming out like that. And suddenly, the alarms that had been flaring in the corners of my mind since the moment he had seated down numbed quietly as it became clear to me what colour they were.


    He remained sitting there beside me, as if he were a school friend, the sharp lines of his profile smooth as he looked straight on ahead, with only the glance of his eyes turning around to look at my reaction.


    "Don''t worry," the tone of his voice never faltered from its smooth timbre. "I''m not going to rob you or anything crazy like that. I''m just telling you that I''ve got a knife in my pocket. The best thing you can do right now, Arden, is to just let it stay there. It''ll be good for both of us. I don''t want to hurt you. You don''t want to hurt you. It''ll work out!"


    Beads of sweat began tightening around my body. My breath grew short and my eyes glanced around rapidly around the bus to see if anyone had heard him, but most were on their phones, wearing earbuds, or dozing off. I eyed his slacks down discreetly to identify the shape of the knife he had talked about in his pockets; and it was there, of course, hiding as a foldable weapon in the pocket of his right leg.


    "What¡ª" my voice failed for a moment before I began again, "what¡ªwhat are you doing?"


    He turned his head to look at me properly this time, an irritating smile on his mouth. "Don''t worry about the knife, okay? Just ignore it. It''s not there. Now that I think about it, I guess it was pretty stupid of me to even bring it up¡­ but as long as you don''t overreact like the other guy I talked with earlier, it won''t matter here."


    He withdrew his gaze and drew a hand into his blazer, reaching out a roll of antique paper from a hidden pocket and a quill pen. That had stumped me even more.


    "I need you to do me a very small favour, Arden," he said, glancing up at me again as he offered the roll of paper and the quill in his hands towards me. "I need you to fill this form out for me¡ªwell, for you, actually. It''s, uh¡­ it''s an enrollment form. That''s all there is to it."


    His face betrayed no hiding amusement to consider all that he was saying a joke; the ease in his eyes mixing in with the polite half-smile on his mouth was all too sincere in its direction¡ªmade to encourage me, to take the piece of paper the stranger was coaxing me to fill out. I would have laughed at how absurd it was if I wasn''t already deeply confused and sweaty with the notion that that same stranger was carrying a knife just beside me. Foolishly, I withheld the idea of getting out of there and taking a seat next to an adult, and pointing out that some kid had a knife with him in his pocket and wanted to sign me off into the Mafia or something.


    "An enrollment form?" I asked instead, my voice thinning in between, as I berated myself inside for continuing to sit there and going along with him. "You''re¡ªyou''re trying to sign me up for something?"


    "Yeah!" he answered casually, almost excitedly, giving a perfect smile that perfectly reached his eyes. "Just write your full name on this piece of paper and your signature, and you''ll be set. You''d be doing me a huge favour, you know. You''re going to save a lot of people."


    I mustered up all the confidence to make my dismissal as firm as possible. "Oh. Um. No, no. I''ve got my own things going on. Sorry."


    I gave him a small, shaky nod across the other side of the bus to point him away from me, my heart beating rapidly, wondering what to do as he continued sitting there beside me, watching me, holding that piece of paper and the pen in his hands. I made sure to keep him and his right pocket in the corner of my eye as I glanced away from him. The digits of my feet slowly steadied upwards to lean out and stand.


    "Huh?" he said curiously. "Arden, you think I''m trying to coax you into a back-alley to harvest your organs for the Mafia or something?"


    He laughed in amusement, then reached down and grabbed one of my sweaty hands, held it firm as I tried to squirm it away, and then pressed the antique texture of the paper on my palm.


    "All I''m asking for is a full name and a signature, man," he said, pressing a finger on the paper he had passed onto my hand. "You do that in your dentist appointments, don''t you?"


    "Yeah," I told him, "but you''re not my dentist."


    He laughed again. "That''s true," he said. "I''m just a stranger, after all. But you really think a stranger old enough to still be in the same school as you is suddenly going to steal your Social Security Number just because you wrote your name on a piece of paper?"


    "I don''t know," I replied, darting my eyes nervously. "I don''t¡ªI don''t know anything about what you''re doing. You''re trying to sign me up for something, and I''m very tired, okay? Could you just¡ªI don''t really want to talk right now."


    He nodded at each word, smiling that same charming smile that would''ve slowed the breaths of the girls in my high school and intimidated me for how white and pearly it was, clamping his mouth shut for a second in thought after I had finished talking, just to nudge the paper and the quill for my further attention.


    "Just sign the paper, Arden."


    His words set me on edge.


    My hand trembled slightly beneath his, still trapped, holding the paper like it was a live wire. I could feel every ridge and fibre of the parchment digging into the shape of my palm. The ink in the quill''s hollow he handed me on top of the paper smelled wrong, metallic and thick, like rust mixed with salt.


    "Um, look," I said, the breath in my throat light, shallow. "What are you even trying to sign me up for¡ª?"


    "Arden.¡±


    He said my name as if he owned it. Softly, very softly, like a reminder of a reason I didn''t get. He wore a half-smile, his eyes seeming to look right at my pupils.


    "That doesn''t matter right now. Just sign it. Pretty please."


    Something seemed to shift in the bus¡ªI didn''t know what it was. A groan of metal on the floor. A hiss.


    I looked around again. Everyone else had gone eerily still.


    The woman with the grocery bag was no longer holding it. Her head had lolled to the side, her neck stiff and wrong, her earbuds hanging out of her ears. The man in the suit two rows up had stopped snoring. He was staring straight ahead, mouth slightly parted, unmoving.


    No one was blinking.


    I looked back at him, my heart rapidly beating against my chest. "What is¡ªwhat is going on?"


    "I know it''s weird now but it''ll all make sense," he said simply. "It''s just paperwork. Bureaucracy stuff. Enrollment. Well, not really. It''s just an unorthodox invitation. The real enrollment is a form you''ll be given once you actually get there."


    He laughed gently like this was some hazing ritual for a college club. Like I hadn¡¯t just realized everyone on the bus had suddenly fallen into some kind of trance.


    I looked down at my hand and lifted the paper higher to read it more closely. But it was all strange text. A foreign script I didn''t recognize, with flowy symbols lining horizontally to block out paragraphs of a language straight out of the archives of a linguistic fragment of the Old Ages.


    Near the bottom of the parchment was a straight line reaching across to the end of the margin, and below it was an area of space where I could put my signature into.


    I took the quill and looked at the boy with unease, glanced around the bus filled with wet, tired commuters that had suddenly tranced upright, perfectly still, eyes unblinking, as if waiting.


    "Make sure you include your middle name, too," he added. I drowned his voice in the tension within me.


    I felt stupid for even picking up the quill to sign a paper written in a language I couldn''t understand, but I could not shrug off the bad feeling churning within my gut, emanating from the same boy seated beside me. But I relented, and I steadied the bottom quarter of the paper on the flat of my hand to write the letters of my name as neat as I could.


    Arden Somera Langlis.


    By the time I had dotted the i I was slapping myself for being honest and writing my actual name, though I could not conceptualize how putting it down would kill me in any way, and for that¡ªconfused and lost¡ªI held onto the presentiment that this was just nonsense the boy had lettered to freak me out.


    ¡°Now sign it,¡± Zayne whispered again, cutting through my thoughts. His voice had become excruciating to me, intimidating and angering. I could not fever dream to come close to finding what his deal was.


    I hesitated again, but I signed it anyway¡ªa curt, jagged initial of my first name, flowing into curly, unrecognizable ribbons of my surname.


    He smiled and folded the paper in half, taking the pen, then pressing the paper on my hand. "Now keep that. Put that in your pocket, Arden," he said warmly. "Thank you, again. Really. You''ve made this a lot easier than I expected. I didn''t even have to bring the knife at all to threaten you!"


    Then just as suddenly as he had appeared, the boy¡ªZayne Shen¡ªturned away from me then walked down the aisle, and the moment he passed the midpoint of the bus, the rest of the passengers stood up in unison. Perfect unison. All of them. One by one, shuffling to the doors as if on cue for a trick to freak me out. As if they had all just remembered their stop at once.


    The doors hissed open, and I was still in my seat, stupefied with what I was witnessing. Too slow and confused and nervous to have blinked once during the whole ordeal, still clutching the folded parchment in my hand as I watched everyone stand up to leave me there. The pounded against the road, pattered on the windows. The streetlights flickered as the bus continued. The world outside the windows looked off, for some reason. Tilted, as if we were riding up a hill. But there were no hills in the city¡ªonly flat plains.


    The boy stared intensely at my direction, though not at me but towards something in the back of the bus, behind me, before he turned his eyes to meet mine and changed the intense expression he had worn on his face at that second into a smile, waving a small goodbye, as the bus door opened. Then he stepped off. And everyone else followed.


    The doors closed almost instantly, and the bus moved forward again. And I was all alone. Blinking widely. Lost.


    I shot up from my seat, acting finally, pulling down on the string to get the bus to stop. It didn''t. Rather, the bus sped up, far above the limits of the streets as if it were a country highway. The driver would get arrested for this, the bus would find itself crashing into a car or a slip from the wet pavement.


    I pulled the strings down and heard the sound automating through the bus about a dozen times, but the driver never slowed down, and the doors never opened. I held onto the rails with a death grip, stumbling forward to make my way towards the driver''s booth, pocketing the parchment into my jacket.


    Looking up, I was still fifteen minutes away from my house and the rain was still raining, the hour of the night still black. It scared me to think about walking back home on foot, in the rain, through petty, shifty streets that all cornered my house and thrown their delinquents into smashing our windows far too many times we could only afford to board it up with wood nowadays. But the entire spectacle that boy¡ªZayne Shen¡ªhad left me with was far too creepy to remain stuck in my seat for far too long, and the driver seemed to have lost it.


    "Excuse me!" I raised my voice louder than I had ever raised it against someone. "Excuse me! Hey! Sir, you''re driving too fast! You need to slow down!"


    I banged on the partition. The bus was still charging its way towards its grave¡ªmine and the driver''s. "Hey! Slow down! Open the doors¡ªwhat is going on!?"


    The volume of the bus'' speed drowned out whatever response I could''ve have heard.


    I moved closer, trying to peer through the dirty glass, until I caught the reflection in the mirror above the windshield. And I froze.


    The driver''s face wasn''t there. Or rather it was¡ªbut wrong.


    There was a hole in his face. Where his mouth should''ve been, where his eyes and nose should''ve been¡ªwhere the lines and bags of the old worker that looked just tired as I was should''ve been. A black, hollow cavity, dug out from the central planes of his face.


    He turned towards me as I stood there frozen.


    ¡°Get. Back. In. Your. Seat.¡±


    A layered voice, echoing, like a crowd whispering in unison.


    And then the bus lurched forward even faster, in furious speed already roaring before, as if surging on a country highway. Hurling itself through the city streets with an illegal, impossible curse.


    My feet slipped beneath me, failing to balance¡ªand I slammed into the seatbacks, gasping as my head hit the metal pole.


    Everything blurred.


    The sterile lights of the bus turned into stars, the streetlights panning down from the window into flares.


    My sight bent and cracked and folded, swallowing in itself.


    In my mind.


    In blackness.