The time was ticking, striking at 7:15. Mathew and Anais ran like half a mile away from their house just to get on the bus to take them to their school.
Well, surprisingly. While they were at the high-speed run, they also noticed some guy was also running in the same direction at them. That person looked like a guy that was beaten up or bullied at the school or threatened him for something that makes his face like a worth of trash. Actually, in reality...that how some personal life works. They just beaten up for money then left with their smile on their faces, and the guy was beaten was laying on the ground and crying like a child.
That hopeless...
However, both Mathew and Anais just ignored it normally. It was also awkward seeing each other running in the same way with the same uniform but never knowing each other.
Few more seconds of running and turning at each block, they finally reached the bus stop and the bus was waiting there for students to ride on.
Gasping with sweat, they finally entered the bus and sit down on free chairs inside. The stranger with them sat at the end of the chairs.
"Crap! I never ran like that before." Mathew was gasping and instead of sitting like a normal person does, he put his back on the chair and laying like he was on the bed or something. "Ahhh... I lost all of my tiredness, yet I feel lazier..."
Anais on the other hand didn't look tired. She wasn't sweating and gasping. She ran like half of mile yet she doesn't look tired at all. "You should exercise a lot! You are level zero and you have no ability to help you to do something like others... Why not exercise with me?"
"I don't want to. Exercising for me was like a waste of life, I should be focusing on studying-"
"Studying games huh?!" Anais suddenly speak and cutting his brother's words. "Oh...right..."
"What?" Mathew asked as he laying on the chair like it was a bed.
"Did you even take a bath? Or you just wet yourself?" At the end of her words, her eyes turn peaceful to murderous intent. Like she was very mad at his brother again.
"Ehh...?" He immediately sit up normally and out his hand up and covering his sight at his sister. After feeling the murderous intent aura, he was trembling again and sweating even more at his head that the air conditioner inside the bus was useless to stop the drop of his sweat. "I...I did... I'm just too fast for your mind to calculate my movement...?"
That's literally a lie. Mathew was level zero and doesn't have any ability inside his brain. Anais knew it and he always saying a made-up lie about being fast and story about having abilities every time that when he did something wrong, he definitely denying everything.
"You know...why don't you look at yourself in the mirror and reflect some lesson you saw at your eyes."
She said in a very madly low voice. She was keeping his angry low as possible since they were on public, also as his sister, she should be the one who corrects his wrongly doing so it's normal.
"We-well. As your brother, I need to keep myself with you when we're in public-"
"I'm not a child, and so you are! You're the one who's acting like a child! Grow up, you idiot brother!" She exhaled madly like it was steam coming from his boiling blood.
Then the bus without a driver rode by itself.
Since this city was far more futuristic than any other country. The main transportation of the city was a bus so the higher-ups decided to make these automatic and make it more safer than humans driving the bus.
The city problem was adults were overworked as their choice, including the driver so when they slept in the bus while riding it, it may cause more accidents so the higher-ups decided to make it automatic just to prevent any unwanted things happened.
Several minutes later. Anais was a bit uncomfortable with Mathew with her and he hasn't talked to him on a certain topic. She was also a bit sad and sometimes she regrets being mad with his brother. As her face looks sad all of a sudden and feels sorry for him.
Then, Anais decided...
"Uugghhhh!" She picked her backpack that lay in front of her feet and open the zipper on. She appeared that she was looking something that Mathew wondered. She finally found the one she was looking for in his bag and she pulled it out. "(I hate to say this)" She whispered as she turns her face away from Mathew. "Here, take this." The thing on her hand was a small container that has at least three sandwiches inside. "You haven't eaten a breakfast right?"
Mathew immediately wore his smile and takes the food that his sister gave. "Thank you, Anais!"
"Shut up and take it immediately! Makes sure you treat me an expensive-looking ice cream after school!"
Mathew was a bit disappointed and disgusted after hearing it while the sandwich was on his mouth, biting it like a rabbit.
"(What's up with that face...?)" She quietly said that, and surprised as he noticed his brother's reaction.
...
The bus has been running around 2 minutes and they both hoping that they won't be late and enter at the school in time.
Sun was rising up the sky but as the bus rode the pathway, the buildings nearby would block the early sunrise.
Anais seems bored so she decided while she was on the bus, she would look at her phone on social media app, or maybe have chat with her friends at school.
Mathew in the other hand enjoying the food that Anais gave to him and eating it like a rabbit, while he was watching the buildings passed by and people who were crossing at the pedestrian lane after the bus stopped as the automated bus notified it's by the traffic light to stop just to make these people cross the line. That was great actually, it just a communication but A.I to A.I without human working it on.
As soon as the traffic lights turn green, and there's no one left the lane.
The automated bus move it's way at the next designated location, it was Linotine High School that was written at the rectangular monitor above the bus. It was the school where Mathew and Anais studies.
As soon as he finished eating his food, he then wanted to have a conversation with his half-hearted sister, next to his seat.
He was feeling something odd that made him feel cold at the same time as he was looking at his sister with downcast eyes on her phone, instead of him that she was supposed to watch her brother for making a mistake. It was odd to him
"Umm..." He wasn't sure if he should make a conversation with his sister. She appeared that she doesn't want to be disturbed at some point.
"You know... Anais...?"
He then noticed the world was suddenly slowed down, even the papers was flowing with the wind from the air conditioner has been slowed down, before he even blink his eyes, he noticed everything.
The second turn to minute, the minute turn to an hour, the hour turn into a straight line...
Straight-line?
Even a single picosecond, a one trillionth of a second. He suddenly noticed his sight was turned black and white at the speed of light. It was not actually the speed of light, but it was probably the average speed of a person walking since the world has been slowed down before his eyes blink.
Split-second passed. A weird string-like white that wiggles like a wave that slowly turning a very perfect straight line has seen on his own eyes. It's like that string has-been stretched, similar to the strings of a guitar that tuning.
He knows it was fast, yet he saw it everything even it was a picosecond. But his mind, the bio-electricity was not that fast just to react before he closes his eyes.
As he blink. A ring of a metal like a pole hit a steel tingling inside his ears. It was the sound of the silence. It was a buzzing sound. It was tinnitus he was hearing.
Finally, his nerve has been reacted and so he did. He immediately open his eyes with the immediate rush of heartbeat. His blood was rushing through all over his body, like he ran a 100 mile non-stop.
He then realized, he was the only one sitting on the bus, inside the gray-ash world.