Seda had been waiting at the bus stop for what felt like a long time.


    She wasn’t sure when she had arrived or how much time had passed. Buses came and went—green ones, yellow ones, crowded ones with people pressed against the windows. But none of them were the one she was waiting for.


    The bench beside her filled and emptied in waves.


    An old couple sat there for a while, their hands clasped tightly, staring into nothing. Teenagers came next, laughing, their music a tinny hum escaping through their headphones. Schoolchildren with backpacks dragged their feet. Workers slumped against the signpost, their faces lined with exhaustion.


    Seda watched it all unfold like a play, distant and unreal.


    The sun had been shining when she first sat down. Warm air brushed against her bare arms, the kind of heavy heat that clings to the end of summer.


    But then the light shifted. She couldn’t say exactly when. The golden warmth drained from the sky, replaced by something pale and colorless. Clouds rolled in, thick and silent.


    When the snow began to fall, Seda hardly noticed.


    The world around her softened under a layer of white. The bench beside her was empty now. The laughter, the hum of the music, the shuffle of footsteps—all of it was gone.


    She didn’t feel the cold, though she could see her breath misting faintly in the air.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    At last, a bus appeared in the distance, its headlights cutting through the falling snow. It pulled up to the stop without a sound, its wheels leaving no tracks behind.


    It was white, completely white—like the snow, like the sky.


    The doors hissed open, and the driver leaned toward her. He was an older man, his uniform crisp, his smile warm.


    “Come on,” he said gently.


    Seda hesitated. “This isn’t my bus.”


    The driver’s smile didn’t falter. “Everyone says that at first,” he said.


    “But they’re always wrong.”


    Seda turned her head and looked through the bus’s fogged-up windows.


    Faces peered back at her—calm, expectant faces.


    And then she saw them. Her father sat near the front, his hat perched at the same angle he used to wear it. Further back, her grandmother smiled faintly, her hands resting in her lap the way they always had when she told stories by the fire.


    Seda’s heart tightened.


    The driver watched her patiently, as though he had all the time in the world.


    Seda rose from the bench, her movements slow and uncertain. She climbed the steps of the bus and stood there for a moment, her fingers trailing along the edge of the door.


    She looked back once. The stop was empty, the bench covered in a thin layer of snow. The world seemed frozen, silent.


    With a sigh, Seda moved deeper into the bus. She slid into an empty seat and looked out the window.


    The driver closed the doors, and the bus pulled away, its wheels gliding soundlessly over the snow.


    Seda didn’t see where they were headed. It didn’t seem to matter.


    This had been her bus all along.