Chapter One
I was on a bus that just ran over a pothole, the impact sending my posterior lifting about a foot off my seat. A fluttery burst erupted in my heart, and I clutched my backpack closer to my chest. I shoved my face into the comforting fabric as every part of my body fought with my anxiety-riddled brain. At the same time, every nerve ending tingled. Each tremble in my gut became magnified tenfold. It felt like some kind of entity had slid its hand underneath my skin while its groping, phantom fingers gripped my insides and squeezed them mercilessly.
I lifted my face from my backpack and looked around at the other people on the bus. It took a lot of work to focus on them. My vision constantly felt like it was swirling, making everything look hazy. I suddenly missed my home. It had comfort. Safety. More importantly, it shielded me from the songs.
I looked out the window. There were three more stops until my block—just three. If I could make it there, then everything would be okay.
I took deep breaths to calm my racing heartbeat, but it didn’t work. It never really did, even though every psychiatrist and doctor I’d seen over the years told me it would. This anxiety, this debilitating fear, was not new. I’ve been battling it my entire life. They first started when I was a child, shortly after my grandpa died. As I got older, the panic attacks got worse.
This current one reached its crescendo. It’s apex. I could feel my heart in my throat, and my mouth go bone dry. Every little bit of sensory information might as well have been drills boring into my head. Every sound, no matter how low, felt like bombs going off.
I had to get off the bus. I had to get home. Home was safe. Home was…silent. Blissfully silent. Only two blocks left now. A part of me, a deep internal part, felt a bit of momentary relief. Just a tiny bit.
I turned away from the window, and when I did, my eyes met a woman’s eyes in the back corner of the bus. For a second, the pressure of all my fears eased to the point where it was disorienting. After feeling them so intensely and for so long, their sudden absence felt like being unable to breathe.
I focused on the strange woman more intensely. On her pretty blue eyes, which lit up whenever a stray shaft of sunlight hit them. On her dark brown hair that fell across her shoulders in wavy locks. On the mole near the tip of her right eyebrow. On her soft, sun-kissed skin. The more I focused on her, the longer my peace grew.
She finally noticed me staring at her. Once her eyes shifted toward me, I quickly jerked my face away. The second I did, that disgustingly familiar anxiety of mine came crashing back in like a hateful wave. I huddled again into my backpack and tried to keep myself as small as possible.
Then, out of nowhere, what I feared most actually happened. Only this time, it was worse than anything I’d ever experienced in the past.
It was the songs, but it wasn’t just one like usual. There were so many of them. Sixteen other people were on the bus. A total of nine songs started playing. Their abrupt sound was enough to force a shrieking howl from my throat. Everyone turned toward me as I clamped my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes as tightly shut as possible. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stop the songs from drilling into my head.
Their different pitches and melodies gradually picked up speed. They felt frantic. Urgent. I couldn’t pin them down either. Nine songs blared, and I had no idea who they were coming from.
Everyone stared at me, including the woman that captured my attention. Concern showed on her face. She even got out of her seat and began walking toward me. As she drew closer, my heart lurched. One of the songs definitely emanated from her. There was no reason I should’ve cared as much as I did. There was no reason why hearing a song coming from this complete stranger would fill me with such dread and crushing loneliness.
But it did.
Something was different about her. That’s all I could say.
Suddenly, the songs whirled and coalesced into a single piece. Their frantic, fevered pitch heightened and became faster like someone sped each one up. I knew then it wasn’t going to be long.
Minutes? Seconds, maybe?
I looked out several windows and then at the people on the bus with me. I tried desperately to find the cause of the songs. Because a disaster was coming, and when it did, those nine people were going to die.
That was the essence of the songs and their meaning. They meant that whoever emitted one would die within the hour. At times, it would be within a minute. Others took a little longer. All, however, stayed within that one-hour time limit.
The first time I ever heard one, I was eight. We were visiting my grandparents when a song that sounded like a weird blending of country and classical music started ghosting through their little house. I heard it so clearly it was maddening. But no one else did. I desperately tried to explain what I heard but was brushed off. Even laughed off. Those uncomfortable stares didn’t last long because my grandpa clutched a hand to his chest the second the song finished playing. His fingers dug into his shirt, and his face abruptly contorted with pain. He bared his teeth in a terrible grimace.
I remembered thinking he shouldn’t do that. Make that face, that is. Scrunching up his face like that made it wrinkle up so much it made him unsightly. Ugly even.
Then he collapsed to the floor and was gone forever.
His doctor said he died of a major heart attack.
After that day, whenever someone was about to die, I would hear their song playing right before they did. Of course, no one believed me about the death songs, but that didn’t stop them from coming. They always started slow, too. Every single one did. They were faint, too. So faint, they were more like ghostly tones at first. Then, as whatever event that would eventually cause their deaths drew closer, their songs would get louder and faster. The noise would be deafening in most cases.
Over the next few years, I did try to help people. I tried to stop their deaths from happening, but no matter what I did, I lost. Death would beat me to them. After an untold amount of failed attempts at saving these people, I became withdrawn, and depression set in. I tried to kill myself twice but failed both times. I don’t have any proof, but I’m pretty sure it’s because whatever lets me hear the death songs won’t allow me to die. I think they want me alive so I can suffer. So they can torture me.
It wasn’t long after the second time I attempted to take my own life that my parents “got me some help.” I spent four and a half years in an institution where doctors put me on several medications. They were laughably useless and did nothing to stop the death songs. It quickly became apparent that these professionals could do nothing for me. No matter what, the songs still came. They always came.
After much trial and error, I found that complete and total isolation was the only thing that stopped them from coming. I had to wall myself away from people. If I never interact with anyone, if I never talk to anyone, or laugh, kiss, play, dance, have fun, drink, eat, all of it, with anyone, then I wouldn’t hear their death songs. I wouldn’t have to watch them die, unable to change their fates. I wouldn’t have to feel like a complete failure.
I snapped out of my dark memories and huddled deeper into myself as I waited for the inevitable. It didn’t take long. There was a sudden, high-pitched squealing sound. My head jerked toward one of the windows, and I saw a speeding delivery truck hurtling toward us. The squealing sound came from its tires as the brakes tried desperately to stop the vehicle. However, the driver’s incredibly belated reaction did nothing to stop the inevitable.
The truck hit our bus a second later.
