Taking the Bus

=
''Author's Note: This story does not promote that you take any sort of illegal drugs or misuse drugs of any sort. Hallucinogens are powerful drugs, and although I have never had any experience with them, I do not advocate use of them in any way.'' =====

“I mean, Joan, all that effort renting it, cleaning it, work-shopping it up and doing the best the guys and I could to make it all glossy, and what was it for? To get stuck in the damn limo on 39th Street because somebody apparently decided that the one thing cars don’t need to function is gas!”

13 year old Brian yelled this as he walked alongside Joan on the cold, dirty sidewalk, using the moonlight in order to properly see.

Joan turned blue and shape-shifted into a giraffe as Brian watched the moonlight become much too bright for Brian to keep his eyes open anymore.

Brian, eyes closed, realized that he didn’t have a limo, nor a friend named Joan.

What sort of drug was that, Brian thought to himself.

Reopening his eyes as colors were starting to leak into his mind, he took notice of the humanistic frogs quietly strolling in the street as he began to slowly arise from the now orange sidewalk. He kept floating for quite a while, noting that the sky was now a dull red color with streaks of bright violet.

It was almost peaceful for that one moment until Brian felt himself slam against what appeared to be a glowing bus, plainly stopping in the middle of the sky.

Suddenly, everything went black except for the glowing bus. Brian, staying as calm as he could to get through this mess, felt himself touch the ground, but looking down at the wheels of the bus, there didn’t appear to be any visible surface.

The bus doors opened, changing the original illuminating light into a blinding orange glow. The light eventually died down a bit to allow Brian to continue to see. He took quick notice of the bus driver, who, in this case, was a small, three-armed cyclops.

Unfazed, Brian heard the cyclops utter complete gibberish as he pointing to a watering can in the bus. Assuming that this was indeed the place where money was collected, Brian took some crimson, fluffy coins, a yellow pocket knife his friend had given him, and a Superman action figure out of his pocket. He watched as his tentacle put the objects inside the watering can, which casually hopped away after the payment.

Brian walked in the bus and turned to look at the other people on the bus. The people on the bus waved at him with their plastic hands before disintegrating into about 4 foot mountains of powder with googly eyes. Brian sat next to one of them, carefully adjusting the snake to go over his waist.

The powder next to him took note and made sure to change into a jade-green mannequin in order to appear more presentable (at least, that is what Brian thought).

The mannequin asked lightly, “What have you done?”

Brian began to speak in reply, but his voice sounded more like that of a chorus of dolphins. Nonetheless, Brian attempted to say, “What?”

The mannequin’s smile stretched and continued to grow until it became a huge noodle of lines all across the room. The piles of powder were either not there or covered by the smile.

Suddenly, the string of the smile rumbled as Brian heard a booming, gruff voice exclaim, “Welcome to the circus that will never end.”

Brian then felt the bus bump and suddenly begin to fall. As the bus descended, Brian watched the mannequin fall through the floor before Brain himself passed out.

---

Brian jolted up out of a small puddle on the floor, eyesight blurry. His last memory was being with a friend late night, taking some sort of drug, starting to walk home, boarding an odd bus, and then passing out.

Brian’s eyesight, now less blurry, gave him a bit of relief, as he was still on the bus. However, there was nobody in the passenger seats, and the windows were all closed. The only source of any light was a dim glow from the ceiling of the bus.

Looking out the windows, all Brian saw was a dark, blue tint.

Brian then realized that he was trapped in a bus on the bottom of an ocean, and that if he opened the windows or opened the bus door, he would surely drown.

There was some water leaking in anyway, but it would be a long while until it flooded enough for him to have to swim and eventually drown. Since his parents couldn’t afford a mobile phone for him, his best chance was to wait and pray to god that the police would find him. If he was never found and going to drown, he would take a chance and try to get out.

Brian then realized that the bus driver was still in the bus. Looking over him to see a bald, middle-aged man, he noted that the man was unconscious.

Before he could do anything to try and make the guy conscious once again or check to see if he had a phone in his pocket, a loud ringing flooded Brian’s ears.

Covering his own ears, Brian watched as flashy colors began to swarm over the bus. The bus driver next to him was phasing in and out of reality before seemingly turning into the mannequin from earlier.

The mannequin, as the chaos got louder, mouthed, “What have you done?”

Brian kept his ears covered, hoping to god that the noise would stop. Just as he thought that, he heard the familiar gruff voice say, “Welcome to the circus that will never end. Welcome to the circus that will never end. Welcome to the circus that will never end.”

The voice kept repeating the line, over and over, as the overall noise was starting to make Brian’s ears bleed. At this point, he would have gladly drowned to get relief from the pain he was experiencing, but the bus around him now appeared to be a classroom with no windows or doors.

The only constant was a hopping watering can. Inside, among the coins and other objects, was a pocket knife.

Brian thought long and hard about what he was to do, but as things just got louder and louder and the visuals got more blinding than ever before, he knew he needed relief.

Running quickly over to the watering can, Brian dumped the contents on the shiny gold floor. He lifted up the silver pocket knife and, thinking once more of his parents, shed a tear.

He slit his own throat before collapsing, with the tears falling from his face to the floor.

---

''In news today, 13 year old Brian Fillins was found with his throat slit in a bus. Nobody else was in the bus except the bus driver, Jacob Collins, who claimed to have been unconscious at the time of Brian’s death, only remarking that, being a friend of the family, he had offered to drive Brian home as nobody else was on the bus at that time at night. Brian was previously sleeping over with his friend Victor Jenning at the Jenning’s house, and it is unknown what caused Brian to leave the house as of right now, though Victor and his family are being questioned.''

''After Mr. Collins did wake up, he immediately contacted the police. Once the police arrived, they found the bus not too far from Brian’s home, having accidentally been driven into a ditch. Brian’s suicide occurred only about a half hour before the police arrived.''