The night was supposed to be over. The barbecue had wrapped up hours ago, the parents now lounging outside the rusted buses of the school bus graveyard, their voices a soft murmur against the midnight air. Smoke still lingered from the dying embers of the grill, mixing with the scent of dewy grass and old metal. Inside one of the abandoned buses, the SBG kids huddled together, panic thick in the air.

Tyler lay sprawled across one of the worn-out seats, his face pale, drenched in cold sweat. His shirt was torn where the jagged wound ran through his side—an injury that didn’t exist in the human realm, but the pain? That stayed. Every shallow breath he took sent a fresh wave of agony through him, his fingers trembling against the bloodied fabric.

“Aiden, what do we do?” Ashlyn’s voice was barely above a whisper, her usual confidence shattered by the sight of her friend barely holding on.

“We need to stabilize him—pressure, something—” Aiden’s hands hovered uselessly over Tyler’s wound, his mind racing for a solution. “Ben, hand me that—”

A sharp, choked sob broke through the chaos.

“TYLER!”

The sound of Taylor’s scream pierced the night, raw and terrified.

Outside, the parents’ conversations fell silent. Heads snapped toward the bus, eyes widening as the muffled sounds of panic carried through the cracked windows—shuffling, urgent voices, Logan cursing under his breath, Ben shouting for something, Taylor’s cries growing more frantic.

Then, movement. Fast. Uncontrolled.

Ashlyn’s dad was already on his feet. “What the hell is going on?”

One by one, the parents rose from their seats, confusion flickering into something closer to fear as the chaos inside the bus escalated.

And then, in the dim glow of the moonlight, the bus door slammed open.