Eve and Valerie had been best friends since they were kids. Everyone at school knew them. They weren’t popular popular, but they were known always together, always laughing in the back of the classroom, whispering during lessons.

You and Lorenzo were the same way.

Best friends since forever. Trouble makers. School was a joke to you both, and somehow that only made you more popular. Loud, confident, always getting away with things.

None of you really talked to each other.

Around mid-semester, your class went on a school trip to an old, boring city. Nothing special about it—quiet streets, old buildings. The teacher gave everyone an hour of free time before heading back.

You and Lorenzo wandered off, laughing, not even checking the time.

When you finally returned to the bus stop, your smile faded.

The bus wasn’t there anymore.

At first, neither of you worried. Maybe it moved. Maybe it was late. But then you noticed Eve and Valerie standing a few steps away.

Valerie was laughing about it, trying to make it seem like no big deal. “Guess we missed it,” she joked.

Eve wasn’t laughing.

She kept checking her phone, then the empty road, then the time again. No signal. Her hands were shaking. “They said six,” she muttered. “The bus was supposed to leave at six.”

The city felt… off.

The streets were empty now. Shops closed. Streetlights flickered on one by one, buzzing loudly in the silence.

That’s when you realized something worse.

There were no other students. No teachers. No sounds from the city at all.