BAM!
He slammed the door so hard the frame rattled.
Without looking back, he hurried down the corridor, tugging at his rumpled shirt, his face twisted with irritation.
Behind him, muffled sobs faded the farther he went.
At the bus station, he dropped onto a bench, breath hissing through clenched teeth.
He glanced at the black suit he wore, creased and wrinkled, but he barely spared it a thought.
There was nothing he could do about it anyway.
Instead, he plunged a hand into his breast pocket, rummaging for something he couldn't find.
He checked his trouser pockets, scowling deeper when they came up empty.
With an urgent curse, he slung his old-fashioned laptop bag around and yanked it open.
A flurry of documents slipped out, fluttering toward the ground, but he snatched them back before they fell.
Still searching, he barely noticed the blaring honk of an arriving bus until it echoed through the station.
He turned sharply and saw the bus waiting at its bay. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one trying to catch it.
Cursing under his breath, he crammed his scattered papers into the bag and lunged toward the bus, shoving anyone in his way without hesitation.
By brute force and sheer momentum, he finally secured a seat, ignoring the indignant glares of the passengers he'd elbowed aside.
'What the hell do they expect me to do?' he thought, scorn twisting his mouth.
'Fucking hypocrites, always preaching selflessness when they'd do exactly the same if it suited them'
He didn't realize how much tension he radiated until the bus pulled away from the curb.
A woman beside him hesitated, then lightly tapped his arm.
"Are you okay, mister?"
He turned to look at her, dark eyes glittering, then swiveled back to stare out the window at the road ahead.
His fingers wandered to his chest again, restless.
After a moment, he turned back to her and asked, voice rough:
"Got a cigar on you?"
He was practically bouncing his foot on the floor, grinding his teeth as though chewing invisible grit.
She blinked at him, then tilted her head upward toward the signs posted above the bus railings.
He followed her gaze and saw the bold lettering: NO SMOKING ALLOWED.
A humorless grin twisted his face as he ground his teeth even harder.
"I'm definitely not fine now."
She stared at him, a flicker of awe or perhaps wariness in her eyes, before she offered a tentative smile.
"You do know smoking kills, right?" she said gently.
"Yeah, right," he scoffed.
"That's only true for people who can't afford the consequences of their actions."
She tilted her head, studying him.
"Pardon me, but… You don't look like someone who can afford those consequences."
He gave her a sharp glance, assessing her with an irritated scowl.
She was young maybe twenty-one or twenty-three, slender, fair-skinned, dressed with careful elegance.
Definitely someone he might have fallen head over heels for… if only he were ten or fifteen years younger.
"Don't judge a book by its cover," he muttered, turning away to signal the conversation was over.
But instead of dropping it, she fired back softly:
"That only applies to people who can read between the lines."
He said nothing more, fixing his gaze ahead, foot still tapping out a tense, restless rhythm on the bus floor.
"You don't seem too well," she went on, ignoring his silence.
"And judging from your looks, you're a hardcore smoker. It's written all over your body."
He didn't bother replying.
"Red eyes with eyebags… probably insomnia. Or maybe depression."
Still silence.
"Tan skin shows you're either working hard… or living hard."
'And now she's racist'
He thought, but kept his face blank.
"The leftover spittle by the side of your lips… and the darkening of your lips, that's not natural. It means you're either fighting chronic malaria… or you're a long-time smoker."
'God, did I make a mistake asking for a light? If not for…' His fingers twitched.
'...I'd have smacked this itch across the face for spitting heresy' he thought.
"And lastly, your breathing. It's irregular. You're dying, mister."
That finally snapped him out of his silence.
He turned to glare at her, looking as though he might erupt in a full-blown tantrum.
But before he could speak, she added quickly:
"I know this because I'm a doctor. And doctors aren't always wrong."
He paused, blinked at her in disbelief… then relaxed slightly only to get irritated all over again.
A young girl like her… a doctor already?
It grated on his nerves.
'She's definitely privileged' he thought
"So what? Everyone's going to die eventually. Doesn't mean I should live my life any less happily," he finally shot back.
To his surprise, she barked:
"That's a lie and you know it!"
Realizing her outburst, she flushed and lowered her voice.
"I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. I guess I have a hero complex or something."
'Definitely privileged'. He thought, rolling his eyes.
'Wish I could just have a damn smoke.'
The bus shuddered to a halt, and the speakers crackled as the driver announced the next stop.
The young woman shot to her feet.
"That's my stop, mister. Here..." She pressed a business card into his hand.
"I want to save every life I can. Call us if you ever change your mind. I'm sure you will."
And with that, she hurried off the bus.
Two or three minutes later, as the vehicle lurched forward again, someone else slid into the empty seat beside him.
He glanced down.
The business card was still clutched in his fingers, but he didn't bother looking at it.
Instead, he noted that his new seatmate was a man, an older man with a lined face and a relaxed demeanor.
Without preamble, he leaned closer.
"Got a cigar on you?"
The old man chuckled and fished one out, handing it over with a conspiratorial smile.
A moment later, they were helping each other light up, puffing smoke into the recycled bus air.
It took him a solid two minutes before he finally started to calm down.
Passengers behind them and across the aisle were already grumbling.
But an aura of elderly privilege seemed to shield the old man and by extension, him, from any real repercussions.
Only then did he glance at the card still in his hand and flip it over to look at the front.
LIFE Hospital.
And just beneath the name, in crisp print:
Levi Innovation For Everyone Group.
Apparently, the LIFE Group was the parent company, and the hospital was one of its subsidiary branches.
Down in the bottom-right corner, printed in elegant lettering, was her name: Clara Mark.
'Definitely privileged', he thought again.
"If not, who'd answer to a name that white?"
He muttered it aloud, but didn't continue the thought.
His attention was suddenly pulled forward as the bus driver slammed his palm on the horn.
At first, the honking came in spaced bursts, then grew urgent, blasting in frantic waves until even the horn seemed inadequate.
Then the driver's voice tore through the noise, shouting over the passengers' startled cries.
The sudden honking jolted everyone from their daze, necks craning to see what was happening.
From where he sat, he saw the driver furiously stomping the brake pedal, face contorted with panic as he shouted and slammed the horn.
But the bus didn't stop.
It kept rolling forward, steadily at first, then faster.
Momentum was building.
Cars in front were smashed aside, their metal frames crushed and flung like toys beneath the weight of the bus.
It was a traffic jam.
But that didn't make sense.
'There's not supposed to be traffic on this road' he thought.
'Not now, not at this frequency.'
Passengers braced for impact.
Those in their seats tightened their seatbelts; those standing grabbed whatever they could.
Ahead, drivers leapt from their vehicles, diving away from their cars as the chaos barreled toward them.
He didn't care about any of them.
Right now, he just needed to survive.
Then the driver yanked the handbrake hard and the vehicle lurched.
A violent jerk.
Tires screamed, and the bus spun.
And then Capsized
It rolled.
Once, twice, maybe more.
His vision blurred.
Screams mixed with metal shrieks.
His head slammed against something, then nothing, then something again.
Three seconds? Five? It was hard to tell.
All around, people were thrown like rag dolls.
His body rattled around, and yet… the old man beside him remained eerily calm.
Upright.
Unshaken.
Eventually, the bus screeched to a halt, sparks flaring along the asphalt as metal tore against the ground.
The final vibration trembled through the wreck like a held breath finally exhaled.
Silence.
Then coughing, groaning.
Shaky voices.
Surprisingly, no one seemed severely hurt outrightly
A rare, confused joy swept through the passengers as they looked around and confirmed their limbs still moved.
Then they saw what had stopped them.
A petrol tanker collapsed sideways across the road, rupturing, which was the source of the traffic jam.
And the thing that had stopped their death roll.
The very same thing spilling fuel across the ground like blood from an open vein.
And somehow, the sparks from their crash hadn't ignited it yet.
Some passengers hadn't realized the danger.
One of them was the old man seated beside him.
The man was fumbling with his lighter, eyebrows furrowed not with fear, but with the mild irritation of someone whose cigar had gone out.
The world slowed.
His instincts screamed.
"No!" he startled, lunging.
But it was too late.
The lighter clicked on the first try.
A tiny flame sprang to life.
The man relit his cigar successfully just as the protagonist slammed his hand toward him, trying to smother the fire.
The old man looked up, shocked.
But nothing happened.
The smoke curled harmlessly.
A wave of relief passed through him.
Then he looked up except "up" was now the ground.
The bus had rolled.
They were lying sideways.
And from the broken plastic of a shattered window, he could see the petrol pooling above their heads, gravity inverted by the flipped bus.
He saw it happen in slow motion:
The cigar slipped from the man's lips.
Fell into the glistening puddle.
The fire hissed, threatened to go off for a second before suddenly springing to life and spreading really fast
Then bloomed.
A blinding flash.
'They wouldn't even know what killed them'
That was his last thought before the inferno took him.