Cyprian's Pov
The wheels caught something—maybe a rock, maybe a ditch—I don't know. The van lurched, the ground vanished beneath us, and the whole world tipped over on itself. Windows shattered. Metal screamed as we slammed into something—a tree maybe, hard enough to make the earth itself feel crooked beneath us.
We flipped.
Once.
Twice.
And then—
Silence.
The crash rang in my bones. My head slammed into the side of the van. A sharp burst of pain cracked through my skull, and warmth trickled down the side of my face—blood, fast and hot. My left arm throbbed deep, the kind of sharp, slicing pain that feels almost alive. Each breath came jagged, uneven, but I was still breathing. I was still here. For now.
The van groaned around me, metal twisted and broken, the weight of it pressing into the muddy earth. My ears rang so loudly I could barely hear the world outside the buzzing panic in my own chest. I blinked. My vision blurred, black spots swimming before my eyes.
My stomach—God—the pain there tore through me every time I shifted. I could still feel the ghost of the man's boot where he'd kicked me earlier. But pain meant I was alive. And I needed to move. Now.
I twisted onto my side, every movement sending hot flashes of agony through my ribs. The air in the boot was thick, suffocating—smoke, dust, sweat, blood. It pressed in from all sides. I didn't stop to think. I didn't check for the others. I just knew one thing: I had to get out.
The boot door. It was damaged from the crash, hanging crooked, not fully latched.
I shoved my palm against the floor, metal shifting weakly under my weight. I planted my feet against the far end of the van and kicked. Hard. Pain exploded in my gut, but I didn't stop. I kicked again. And again. The third time, something gave. A sharp snap—the latch breaking clean.
I pushed the door up with both hands, teeth clenched, breath caught in my throat. Cold air blasted over my face, sharp and clean. For a second I just lay there, the wind on my skin, my lungs dragging in the air like I'd been drowning. Then I pulled myself out, hands scraping over torn metal until I dropped onto the wet grass.
I hit the ground on my knees, the impact jarring, but I barely felt it. My heart pounded wild and terrified. My arms shook. I was out. I was alive.
But then I heard movement.
Panic jolted through me. I turned back fast, heart stuttering. But it wasn't the men. It was the girls.
They were still alive.
Without thinking, I crawled back, half-falling into the wreckage. Smoke stung my eyes. The smell of gasoline and burned rubber clung to the air. I reached for one of the girls—her skin clammy, breath rapid. She blinked at me, her eyes wide with shock, but she was breathing. I pulled her free.
The second girl was already trying to crawl out. I caught her wrist and hauled her through the jagged metal. It felt endless—my fingers slipping, my chest screaming from the pain—but I kept pulling until we were all out.
We collapsed on the grass, coughing, gasping, bruised—but alive.
I didn't look back. I didn't wait to see if the men were still breathing. I grabbed one of the girls' hands, the other stumbled beside me, and we ran. Without thinking. Without looking. We ran like animals torn loose from a cage. Into the trees. Into the open. Into whatever came next.
Because anything was better than what we had just left behind.
We didn't stop until the smoke was gone, until the air felt cooler, until our lungs burned and our legs felt like they would buckle. Only then—only when the wreck was out of sight—did we slow.
The bush stretched out ahead, endless. We were deep in the outskirts, somewhere between nowhere and nowhere else. Wet grass slapped at our legs, slick and cold. The smell of rot and piss clung to the dirt. My stomach ached worse with every step, but I pushed through it. We all did.
Finally, we hit the clearing. Our feet stumbled onto gravel. A lonely stretch of road. Empty. No cars. No houses. Just a long straight line of faded asphalt under the crushing heat of the sun.
I bent over, hands on my knees, breath sawing in and out of my chest. The girl who'd been in front of me in the bus was holding her bleeding arm, her face pale but steady.
"So… what do we do now?" she asked, her voice rough but calm. We were all scared, sweaty, yet somehow hopeful.
I straightened, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and forced myself to breathe slower. "We keep moving," I said, voice hoarse. "We pray someone drives past before they find us."
She gave a single nod. Then, almost shyly, she said, "Nina."
I blinked, then gave her a small breath of a smile. "Cyprian. But most people call me Cy."
The taller girl, the one with blood drying on her lip, wiped her mouth. "Rukky," she murmured.
We nodded—three strangers bound by nothing but desperation, fear, and the raw need to survive.
And then we started running again. Down the lonely road, feet pounding gravel. No words. Just breath and motion.