“Long ago, the world was corrupt and destroyed. Everywhere, people would beg for food and water. Those who had food and water were too selfish to share. Life was hard, even for the rich, and nobody was safe from the The Dark One...”
Those were the last words my grandpa said before he died. "Its a heart attack," the doctors had told me, when I had waited in the hospital, tears running down my face, my heart racing, and wishing for the pain to go away...
I personally believed that he died from another force. His last words...
I have a feeling The Dark One doesn’t like people knowing about him...
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That was 6 years ago. Now 19, I still recall my grandpa’s final words, and remember them as the shadowy figure steps onto my bus. He is hooded and silent, exactly how I imagine The Dark One to be.
“Where too?” I ask him.
He provides no response.  Instead he points an accusing, bony finger at me, like the grim reaper, and says: “You know too much...”
That’s it. Just those four words, and then he makes his way to the back, where passengers are clearing a way for him.
I shiver.
“No!” I shout, remembering my 13 year old self, watching in slow motion; my grandfather die... He had stopped breathing. I hadn’t known what to do. We had been home alone. So, only 13, I got in the car, and drove him to the hospital.
Something else is tugging me, pulling me, begging me to remember.
Now, a boy, who, by the looks of it, is about 13, tugs at my shoulder.
“What!” I yell.
Unable to think.
“Watch the road!” he shouts. I turn quickly, right as I am about to crash into a tree.
I yell a four letter word, and swerve my bus around. The hooded figure who once was on my bus is now standing in front of me. He opens his arms and the bus is thrown back, hitting a truck. An ACME truck. Everything explodes... I am thrown to the ground, my heart racing, sweat on my face. Everyone around me is dead. Except for the boy, and an old man in the back. He hides his face with a robe. From what, I don’t know. He mumbles to himself. I hear some words: “Story...rockingchair...grandpa...dead...driving...car...dark...”
“A hitchhiker!” I shout.
Now; I remember, the night I drove my grandpa to the hospital was the night when I first shook hands with death.
A shadowy figure had stepped into the car, hooded and silent, exactly how I had imagined the Dark One to be.
“Where too?” he had asked me, laughing.
I didn’t answer. Instead, by instinct, I unbuckled and sat in the back seat with my grandpa.
I shiver.
“No!” I shout, as I break into the present. There is no longer a bus, just a corrupt and destroyed world. I look around. Everywhere, people are begging for food and water. I reach for my backpack where I have a sufficient supply of water, but, then, think better of it.
Why should I share, when I can have it all for myself.
I hear laughing; it’s not mine.
I turn around and see the hitchhiker. He is in a car, and driving with a sick grandpa in the back seat. Next to the grandpa is the 13 year old boy who had tugged my shoulder on the bus. He looks like... Me.
Then everything vanishes.
I am sitting in a chair now, looking down on a boy, by the looks of it, about 13.
“Tell me a story, grandpa!” he says.
“Long ago, the world was corrupt and destroyed. Everywhere, people would beg for food and water. Those who had food and water were too selfish to share. Life was hard, even for the rich, and nobody was safe from the The Dark One...” I say.
Then I fall to the ground. I stop breathing. The boy cries. We were home alone. Only 13, he picks me up and sets me in the backseat of the car, and drives.
The car is blue.
The bus was blue.
I am dead.
I have a feeling The Dark One doesn’t like people knowing about him...