A phone vibrated.
The name on the screen read: John.
A boy in his early twenties stared at it in silence. Sweat clung to his skin. Even the cold wind drifting through the bus windows did little to calm him, and his breathing came in short, uneven bursts.
With trembling fingers, he answered and lowered the volume until only he could hear the voice.
"Hello," he whispered, glancing around to make sure nobody was listening.
A deep, almost mechanical voice came through the line.
"It's happening."
Silence followed.
The boy turned toward the window. Outside, the bus moved along a narrow two-lane road cutting through dense forest. Above it stretched a clear blue sky, scattered with stratocumulus clouds and drifting flocks of birds.
Everything looked normal.
Too normal.
He leaned slightly closer to the glass, scanning the sky once more before pulling back into his seat.
"Not here," he murmured.
"Not yet."
"It'll start soon," John said after a brief pause. "Be careful. You already know the consequences, right?"
Markus opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out.
He only nodded at the screen, forgetting that John could not see him.
"Markus! Are you listening?" John's voice suddenly thundered through the phone.
The shout jolted Markus back.
"Y-Yeah… yeah, I'm here."
"You weren't a moment ago," John said, his tone roughening slightly.
"Sorry," Markus replied weakly.
Even through the static, John understood him.
"Sorry isn't the response I expect from you," John said coldly. "This is exactly why I doubt whether you're qualified for this."
A brief silence followed.
"Sometimes I think it would've been better if I'd done this alone."
Another pause.
"You and your sis—"
A violent burst of static ripped through the phone.
The call disconnected.
Markus froze.
He understood what had happened.
For several seconds, he kept the phone pressed against his ear, staring blankly at his fractured reflection in the bus window.
Then he slowly leaned back into his seat.
The bus carried on normally. A few passengers talked quietly among themselves while someone laughed near the front. The sound felt distant.
Meaningless.
Markus lowered his gaze to the phone in his hand.
What was the point of keeping it now?
Without warning, he hurled it toward the open window.
CRACK.
The phone struck the edge of the glass instead, shattering the window before bouncing back onto the empty seat beside him.
Every passenger turned in shock.
Cold air rushed violently through the broken glass.
Markus stared at the phone for a moment, more annoyed that the throw had failed than by the damage itself.
Then he quietly stood, picked it back up, and walked down the aisle toward another window near the front of the bus.
Nobody spoke.
This time, he tossed the phone out more gently.
It vanished into the forest beyond the road.
Markus did not even bother watching it disappear.
He slowly looked around the bus.
Six men sat scattered across the seats, most of them in their thirties, while two older passengers looked to be in their fifties. Two women sat beside their husbands near the middle of the bus. One of them held a sleeping newborn against her chest.
Near the front stood the conductor and the driver.
The conductor was already making his way toward Markus, gripping the overhead rails for balance as the driver slowed the bus and pulled it onto the roadside.
The entire bus had fallen silent.
"What the hell was that?" the conductor shouted.
Even then, Markus noticed the man glance first at the shattered window, as if instinctively calculating the repair cost before anything else.
The passengers remained motionless, watching Markus carefully. None of them knew whether the boy had simply panicked or completely lost his mind.
The husband sitting beside the woman with the newborn quickly stood and guided his wife toward the exit near the front, keeping the child close to her chest.
Even the driver had stepped away from his seat now.
A nervous tension spread slowly through the bus.
Near the middle row, one of the passengers quietly pulled out his phone and began recording.
Markus looked at them with quiet pity before slowly closing his eyes.
"It doesn't matter now," he murmured tiredly.
A rough tug suddenly jerked him forward.
Markus opened his eyes to find the conductor gripping his collar tightly. The man's face burned with anger — not only at Markus, but with years of exhaustion and frustration finally spilling over.
"Have you lost your mind?!" the conductor snapped.
The driver quickly stepped between them and forced the conductor back.
"Calm down," he said firmly before turning toward Markus.
Unlike the conductor, the driver's voice remained controlled.
"What exactly happened here?"
Markus looked at him silently.
He wiped the sweat from his face with the bottom of his shirt before rubbing his damp hands against the back of his trousers.
Then he finally spoke.
"The glass doesn't matter."
His eyes drifted slowly across the silent passengers before stopping on the man recording the incident.
"None of this matters anymore."
The bus grew even quieter.
The driver exchanged a brief glance with the conductor. By now, he was convinced Markus had lost his mind.
Even so, Markus did not look dangerous.
He looked exhausted. Shaken. Ordinary.
"Sit down," the driver said cautiously. "And tell me what happened."
Markus pressed both hands against his face and took a long, uneven breath.
The calmer Markus became, the angrier the conductor looked, though the driver kept stopping him from moving forward.
Several seconds passed before Markus finally lowered his hands.
"When the sky tears apart," he said quietly, his trembling voice barely audible, "the whole world will drown in red light."
Nobody on the bus spoke.
"Heaven will fall onto the earth… and crystals of different colors will descend from the sky."
His breathing became uneven again.
"Avoid the others if you can. Find the green ones."
Silence.
Markus looked around the bus and realized nobody understood a word he was saying.
"The world we knew is gone," he stammered. "Just focus on surviving… and whatever happens, don't think this is a dream."
Then, without warning, he climbed through the shattered window and jumped out of the bus.
The passengers screamed.
The moment Markus hit the ground, a deep crimson light swallowed the entire forest.
As the crimson glow spread across the horizon, a violent shockwave tore through the woods.
BOOM.
Every remaining window on the bus exploded inward instantly.
Passengers screamed as the force slammed through the vehicle. Both elderly men were thrown onto the floor, one coughing blood across the aisle. Several others froze in shock, too stunned to even move.
The newborn began crying violently.
Its mother had collapsed against the seats, barely caught by her husband before hitting the floor. But the moment he looked down at the child in his arms, terror flooded his face.
Thin streams of blood were running from the baby's ears.
Outside the bus, Markus wiped the blood dripping from his own nose, though he barely seemed to notice it.
His eyes remained fixed on the sky.
The driver slowly pushed himself upright, unable to process what he was seeing.
Then a strange smell drifted through the air — burnt, metallic, unnatural.
The wind began to rise.
Passengers stumbled out of the bus one after another, helping the injured as every eye turned upward.
And then they saw it.
A massive black crack stretched across the sky like a wound carved directly into reality itself. Crimson smoke poured endlessly from within it while flashes of red lightning erupted deep inside the darkness.
The sky itself looked broken.
Then the crack pulsed again.
This time with purple light.
Markus's expression changed instantly.
"GET OUT OF HERE!" he shouted. "THEY'RE COMING!"
Before anyone could react, Markus turned and sprinted toward the distant crack.
Far above them, dust-like crystals of different colors began drifting silently from the sky.