PERHAPS, I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED?

Blood. Blood! Blood?

Why was there blood on the bus? There was a body in front of me. I couldn't tell whose it was because of the darkness. I was scared, and my hands were shaking all over as the blood dripped from it. What was going on? Or rather, what had happened. There couldn't have been an accident, could there? My brain refused to accept it. I had dismissed the possibility. My intuition had been...

I paused for a second, I was alive and that's all that mattered. Since Lana was not in her seat, I had to assume that she was probably outside with other survivors. I just had to go outside and look for her. She was alive, I convinced myself. My legs' functionality was returning. I struggled to stand, my head feeling dizzier than ever. I had hardly taken a step when I heard a voice speak.

"No, please. If you do that then you'll all die..."

Silence.

I turned, my body shaking all over. "Alex?" I called as I went to his seat. His eyes were still staring into nothing. I checked his pulse. He was still alive. I then shook him to try to force him to wake up. "Hey, Alex, are you there? Wake up, man..." I tried, my voice leaving me. My mind knew it all to well - that there was a possibility that everyone else was dead and I, and potentially Alex, were the only ones left alive. The possibility was tiny... no, there was a possibility, and it could as well be true, just like the accident.

"I'm alive?" He spoke while panting. Was he in shock? "I'm alive. I'm alive? I'm alive! I'm..." He kept at it, as if he couldn't believe it.

"Relax, dude..."

"Mark, is that you?" He didn't wait for my answer. He jumped and hugged me, taking both my balance and self-esteem out. Where did all this come from, I wondered.

"I thought I was a goner after the dra..." He let go of me and began looking around. "Where are we?"

I wanted to send a retort at him, but I stopped myself. We had neither the time nor the resources for it. "We are in the school bus. We were going camping, remember?"

"Camping? I thought we were f..."

"I don't know what you were dreaming, but now we have to get out of here and find if there are survivors," I said, not ready to listen to his weirdness.

He helped me up, and thanked me for whatever reason. I hoped we weren't the only ones who survived since I couldn't imagine having to survive with him. I mean, the boredom would obviously kill me before the beasts in the forest do. I regretted why I refused to carry my phone... "Huh? Phone, right."

"What?" He asked, probably wondering why I was talking to myself.

"Where's your phone? We should try to call for help." I told him, hope beginning to rise in me.

"But..." For a second he seemed hesitant. "Sure." He fished his phone from his pocket. I waited patiently, staring at his now illuminated face.

"What?" I asked after noticing him growing more hopeless. He gave me his phone. There was no signal. "We are probably in the forest right now, that's the only thing that makes sense!" I shouted, trying to convince myself.

He turned his phone towards the window. I could see a lot of trees. "Well, we might be in the Krimis Forest. Though it still makes me wonder, there should be at least one bar…"

"Over thinking won't do us any good, right now. Let's go out…"

"Is someone conscious still inside?" A voice could be heard from the front. It was the doctor's. We weren't the only ones alive.

"Yes, Ma'am. There are two of us here," Alex replied. He turned his phone's torch on and illuminated the front of the bus. We could see her walking towards us, her blouse partly torn.

"Are you injured anywhere?" She asked softly as she inspected our bodies. "Let's go out and meet the other survivors."

"Wait, other survivors?" I asked, my heart rate increasing rapidly.

"Yes, there are roughly 40 others who've survived. We've just set up emergency tents outside for treating the wounded.

"Is a girl named Lana one of them?"

"I think I treated someone called Lana. You'll just have to wait till you can confirm it yourself."

"Thank you."

We walked towards the door, as I took not of the ones that died. There were more empty seats so I figured most of us survived. At least Lana was alive. We were about to leave when Alex called. "Hey, doctor, I think these two are still alive."

Without even speaking, she turned and began walking towards Alex. I followed her, dismissing my previous thoughts. If I could save someone then Lana could wait - at least she was alive and not in immediate danger.

One of them, who was seated at the tenth row on the left of the bus, had a branch that had gone through the window skewering through his left arm. "Tell me, what's your name?" The doctor asked as she began to attend to him.

"Luther Davis... It hurts so much!"

"I know, Davis. But bear with it for a while. It's going to end in a while." She turned to us with a stern face. "The two of you, go attend to the other. I'll be there in a short while. If they're bleeding, try to stop it. Tell me the situation after you've got there."

The other, seated at the twelfth row on the seat closest to the window on the right, had a huge branch right through his stomach. He was facing us to mean that he had probably been sleeping while resting his back on the bus' body below the window.

"I...don't...want...to...die..." He muttered.

"Thomas?" I whispered, too shocked to move.

"An approximately 10-centimetre branch through his stomach, ma'am." Alex yelled the details back to the doctor.

"Try to keep him awake until I'm done here." Luther's screams had filled the whole bus. Was she trying to pull his arms out.

"Mark, help me here!" Alex brought me back to reality. I quickly went to Thomas. He was really pale. He had lost a lot of blood, meaning this accident had happened a long time ago.

"Hey, Thomas. It's going to be okay." I tried to convince him... no... myself as I held his arm.

"I can tell by your eyes that it's not. I'm going to die aren't I?" I couldn't bring myself to answer. I couldn't find the best words to use. My ears were going blank from hearing all of Luther's screams - they were never-ending.

He continued, "It's so cold that it hurts..." He coughed a little blood and gave out a painful yell. "I... should...have... I should... I... Perhaps, I should have listened... listened... to... my..."

Screams.

From the inner me, and from the outside. I could hear them all, eating me away - Luther's and mine. And then silence, as if they were never there. I felt a hand pulling me away aggressively.

"Move!" The doctor threw me away as she ran to help Thomas. I landed on my back on the blood-soaked floor. All I could remember was his words and the face he had. He was in pain, and I could do nothing.

"He is dead, ma'am." Alex said nonchalantly, as if he didn't care at all... or perhaps was he just used to this... to death? Nonetheless, death was scary.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you..." The doctor said as she stood. "May you rest in peace."

I struggled up, my hair wet with blood. There were more people in the bus, all wondering what the screams were all about, but no one was in the mood. I, Alex, the doctor, and Luther alighted the bus with a depressing demeanour.

True to her word, there were a couple of tents set up outside. There were also a few torches lighting up the area. Most of the others were simply seated on the grass, talking to each other or to themselves. They were shell shocked, who could have possibly imagined this outcome?

"Mark?" I turned to see Lana jumping towards me, her arms wide. We fell down together, but she kept hugging me. "When I first left the bus, I thought you had died. I'm so glad you're alive." She was crying. I guess me almost dying ate her up so much.

"There's no way I'll die and leave you." I thought about witnessing someone's death. I remembered her words the previous day - she was probably expressing her fears. "Lana, from today, I will always protect you, come what may. I pro..."

"Please, don't say that. You make it seam like I would be in some sort of life and death situation. I also don't think you mean it, so I'm not going to let you make a promise you might not keep."

"I…"

"Lana! You should be resting! Why are you clinging onto him when you have life-threatening wound on your stomach," the school nurse interrupted me as she pulled Lana away from me.

"You're injured?" I asked.

"'Tis but a flesh wound," she said as she chuckled. She was optimistic even during times such as this.

"You need to rest," I told her. "We'll talk tomorrow, OK."

"Lucky for you Lana," the nurse said as she carried her away, "wounds have been healing relatively fast, otherwise you would have been... I guess the doctor really is amazing..."

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I later learnt that we had crashed in the Krimis Forest. The driver was assumed to be asleep when this had all happened, but they were not sure of the events since both drivers were all dead. Mr Smith, the Engineer, Ms Rachel Morton, the school nurse and the doctor were the only adults left. From my group of friends only Nick and Sean were alive. Most of them were seated at the backbench. In total, there were 45 survivors.

No one's phone was able to receive any signal so all they could do was watch downloaded movies and music, but no one really cared about that. Everyone was hopeless. When the one thing that was supposed to get you out of a situation such as this fails, then...

Mr Smith then told us that he would give us a speech (if you want to call it that) in the morning on our way forward, on what we would do to get out of this predicament. He said that the best we could do at the moment was getting some sleep and preparing for morning, however, of course, no one was that relaxed to sleep.

This was a forest. One that none of us had ever stepped into. One that is said to be habitat to many wild animals. No one could sleep with that in mind.

As I lay down, staring into the sky, thinking about all that had happened until then. I couldn't help but notice that the moon - with its crescent body, with the two bright stars above it - looked like a smiling face, as if telling us all:

- Welcome to the jungle, everyone -