I don't know how I end up at the bus stop, not the ones that lead to mundane places like Walgreens, Starbucks, and Olive Garden, but the dangerous bus stops. The ones that don't lead to anywhere in Rolling Hills. The ones that lead to foreign cities and foreign people. This bus stop was right in front of the local park; kids in yellow-and-black soccer uniforms running through the field and evergreens as a gentle-faced woman in a designer jumpsuit lazily blew her whistle from the stands, flipping a page in a magazine.

People like Mrs. Burnsby used to exclaim how absurd it was to have such a danger in front of the park of all places as if a five-year old could suddenly decide they hated Paradise and take a bus out to Santa Monica. In fact, just the idea of even wanting to leave was some kind of atrocity because Paradise was where everyone wanted to be, nestled in tudor homes and blinding greenery, safe from all the "horrible city jungles" that lie around it.

I don't think it's absurd to want out. I'm just not allowed to.

Or at least that's what I thought.

The idea, like a big, blurred, inviting light in the middle of the ocean, had emerged, dancing around me like fallen leaves in Autumn. It had come to me in The Wolf's den last night but now it had reappeared like a song of 'What if's,' and 'Just maybe's.'

Maybe I wasn't stuck here. Maybe I could escape, jump on to the first bus that stopped, and get away.

As if some unknown force had heard my contemplating, a bus whizzes around the corner at that moment, slowly rolling on it's gigantic wheels towards the very dangerous bus stop I sat upon. It was a dark blue, the words, 'Sunny California,' and the number, '55,' printed in bright, summer colors on the bus. The windows are dark and tinted but I can still see the driver, a heavyset woman with wispy, blonde hair and a beet-red face staring blandly at the road in front of her.

When the bus stops, the driver doesn't look at me, nor the passengers that hurried off the bus with their hefty luggage in tow. I watch the passengers in awe, mostly because they all look so different from the people that reside in Paradise. They don't dress in preppy jock ensembles like the Orc and his friends, nor the good conservative Christian look of every adult in Paradise. They are all exotic Californians in their own right, wearing suits, torn jeans, flappers, and of course, one tie-dye t-shirt with the numbers,'420,' printed across.

They all file out like a show of rainbows and dizzying concepts and I can't help but wonder where they're coming from.

"Hey, kid, you coming or not?"

The wispy-haired bus driver regards me with a snappy voice that doesn't reach her grey eyes which are glazed over as if she isn't even the woman in the bus, the woman limply gripping the wheel and staring at me as if there is nothing inside of her. I realize she's like me, like the Orc, like The Wolf; the living dead. I wonder what killed her in the first place.

"Hello, I don't have all day!" She yells hoarsely and I shake my head and avert my eyes.

The bus doors start to close, making a painful screeching sound, as they did and I fiddle with the black sketchbook in my hand. If I open it, flip through the pages, then I'd be opening myself up to it again; the Orc and his shaking fists that had been around my throat but hoping to squeeze the soul out of his own.

I think that's how I found the bus stop, it was the closest thing that counted as the farthest thing from Rolling Hills, the only place I could escape to without an elastic band snapping me back if I lingered too far from the beautiful, teal house.

"Wait!"

The bus doors nearly crush a man squirming his way out of the vehicle before they quickly open with another loud whizzing sound. Dark red luggage bags fall on to the sparkling sidewalk and the bus's victim curses. However, the bus driver doesn't say a word, simply looks down at the man stumbling to get his things with almost a tired expression before closing the doors and slowly whizzing back on to the street.

The man gathering his luggage on the sidewalk is like the other passengers, wearing a black flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows with mismatched buttons, rings on every finger, and bearing a tattoo of a ship on his wrist. He looks like one of those risky, upscale car dealers that you had to think at least ten times on to make sure he isn't a scam.

He gives me a helpless look as if to say, 'Jesus, the buses out here, am I right?' before getting to his feet and whipping out a Samsung from the pockets of his grey trousers, moving to stand near the 'Go-Green,' ad for a bus stop.

I wonder where he comes from, imagining somewhere like Arizona or maybe even Manhattan, because wondering about strangers was all I had to keep myself from opening the sketchbook in my lap, opening Paradise when all I wanted was to just escape. Even if that wasn't exactly possible.

"Hey - yeah, I know I'm late. Took the wrong bus, ended up in Redondo, and had to take another bus to Rolling Hills," I hear the man explain to someone on the phone. His dark brown eyes examine the silver rings on one of his hands that were balled into fists as if he could just punch himself for such a mistake.

If I ended up in Rolling Hills by accident, I'd punch myself too.

"I'll have to call to see when the next bus arrives. " The man decides and walks a few ways from the bus stop to face the park where the kids playing Soccer had diverted their attention from the spiraling ball to surround the coach. The coach still wielding her magazine as she blows her whistle from the stands.

The whistle is like a shrill beckoning except it comes from the sketchbook in my hand, almost demanding me to open it.

And I do, Paradise swirling around me like a cloak of light enclosed in darkness, the woods caving in with its scents of lions, tigers, and bears, and even The Wolf's and suddenly I am forced to remember; The Orc, the den, the past and the present. It all attacks me from my perch on the green bench, a horde of monsters erupting from the woods and chasing the ball that rolled aimlessly through the field.

For a moment, it seems as if the ball is rolling on its own sort of axis, steadily rolling right towards the goal, and if it made it, if it just made it, if only it could...

The ball rolls towards the goal with the swift kick of something menacing - maybe the monsters or maybe life itself - and instead of rolling softly near the net of the goal, it skyrockets into the net before bouncing at least several meters from where it even began. Then it's kicked, kicked, and kicked again. I am kicked, kicked, and kicked again, hitting the net and bouncing like a never ending melody before someone finally shouts, "Goal for Team Two!"

I finish the sketch; lazy, blurry outlines of soccer balls and monsters emerging from the shadows. The sketch could pass for one of those purposely horribly-detailed stylistic kinds of work if it wasn't for the two gigantic tear stains that nearly drowns the Orc's form, his heart drawn icy blue.

I rip the drawing out of the sketchbook, crumple it up, and aim for the nearest trashcan that was yet another ad for 'Go-Green.'

Why go green when the half of the world didn't even know how to go be a decent human being?

I throw the crumpled piece of paper, I throw it with all the might I could muster, all the force the Orc had used to leave the bruises that marred my face now. I throw with anger and clenched teeth, blood and stupid tears, and yet I feel so empty.

The crumpled paper misses the go-green trash can and by some intense, almost impossible gravity, it hits the suspicious car dealership guy in the back.

He turns around with a small, "What the..." and I turn away but it was too late. The foreign possible-car-dealer had seen me and I can hear him grunt as he picks up the crumpled paper and hesitantly examines it.

I start to get up, beads of sweat from the hateful Summer sun trickling down my face like incoming rain drops but the foreign possible-car-dealer strolls towards the 'Go-green,' bus stop, delicately clutching my crumpled drawing as if he'd just won a prize.

He regards me with an easy grin that made him look like a sinister, modern-day Captain Hook. "Is this yours?"

I am afraid something pathetic will come out instead of an answer so I simply nod.

His grin grows wider and he nudges the drawing towards me.

I take it and stuff it in the pocket of my jeans, promising to discard it in the trash as soon as I was alone. The drawing's shit and needs to be where it belongs after all.

The strange, Rolling Hills-foreigner raises an eyebrow when I get rid of the drawing, tsking as if he's about to scold a naughty child. Which, to anyone else here, I pretty much am. He moves towards me and then promptly pulls the crumpled drawing out of my pocket, no fucks given about the rules of keeping your hands to yourselves.

The action makes my skin burn achingly cold with goosebumps.

The man holds up my sketch, the cracks and creases from being folded a gazillion times marring the horribly drawn field and the monsters that invaded it. "I'm gonna tell you somethin' okay? And when I tell you this, don't dismiss me as some random, creepy, old fart who's lost his mind - even though that's exactly what I am."

Another simple nod because the guy seems nuts.

"Listen carefully," He instructed. "Don't. Throw. Ah-way. Your. Work. " He hands me the crumpled piece of paper with a shake of his head, his silver rings reflecting off the relentless sun. "I don't care how crappy you think you it is, I don't care if a dog literally poops on it. Don't throw away your work unless it's some kind of evidence that can send you to jail, then get rid of it all!"

I want to say that he had no idea how much evidence lay enclosed in my journal, a crime scene left by the indention of pencil against paper. The evidence had already sent me to jail; a hazy one where there was nothing but light, dark corners either whisked away or already hurriedly claimed. But I don't say a thing. I just nod for the third time.

The man stares at me unblinkingly. He stares and stares and stares until I notice the bags from sleepless nights underneath his eyes.

The soccer coach perched on the bleachers blows her whistle.

The kids in yellow-and-black uniforms come soaring across the field.

The man finally blinks. "What's your name?"

"Lucky Grant."

"Do you consider yourself an artist, Lucky Grant?"

'No,' hangs on the tip of my tongue because art wasn't just a hobby. Not to me at least. It wasn't like singing where all you wanted to do was get better so that you could cash in on the glorious checks. It was just an escape, a dark corner among the bright light that embraced Paradise. The only dark corner that neither The Wolf nor anyone else could invade.

But still, I say, "Yes."

The man goes 'aha!' as if he's just confirmed some grand discovery and yanks out a snakeskin wallet from his back pocket. "Today's your lucky day, Lucky," He says and chuckles at his word play as he flips open the wallet. He pulls out a wad of five dollar bills, stuffs it the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, and then whips out a thin, business card. "Something told me to take this with me today. Guess it's because its meant for you."

He tosses the card to me.

I miss and have to pick it up off the ground. The elegant, Times New Roman writing on the card dances off of the plastic like a jumbled animation; Jack Reynolds. Cambridge Talent Scout. Something stirs in my chest, not the monsters, but something great and grand and fake like a flash of a searing meteor before it hits the depths of space.

"I work at Cambridge Academy. It's a boarding school out in Santa Monica that's pretty much dedicated to kids like you. We have artists, actors, singers, writers, hell, you know that poet, Apollo Keaton, was discovered there!"

The searing meteor in my chest ascends across the stars, burning, spiraling...

"And you, Lucky Grant, you have talent.From that sketch alone, I can see you have your own kind of style. Very gritty meets fantasy and myth. I think there's a seat at Cambridge with your name on it-" He pauses and his grin turns into a tight smile as he leans forward and invades my private space once more. "That is, if you want it, of course."

He leans exaggeratedly close until he is bending over and I see flecks of light in his dark eyes. The flecks of light grow brighter, brighter than the sun, and a chorus of a song fills my head. A chorus of 'What If's,' and 'Just maybe's.' A vision replaces the flecks of light in Jack Reynold's eyes and suddenly I am on the floor in The Wolf's den, aching, bruised, and wallowing. Except in the vision, I get up and walk out of the beautiful, teal house towards a bright light. A bright light that turns into flecks in Jack Reynold's dark eyes.

The flecks of light is hope and the searing meteor in my chest rises above the stars, above, the sun, above the moon, until it is somewhere dark, shining its light across the universe.

But then the flecks of lights fade with the looming sunset and the searing meteor plummets.

"I don't think I can," I say to Jack Reynolds and I hand the card back to him.

His tight smile relaxes into an expectant frown. "Why not? This is a great opportunity! A very lucky opportunity! Cambridge only accepts the best and I think you have what it takes!"

"I can't. Sorry," is what I reply but what I really mean is 'I'm stuck.'

Jack Reynolds doesn't understand though. He takes a step back and analyzes me with his dark eyes, almost as if he were trying to puncture my soul and spew out the secrets within it. He strokes his brown stubble. "Let me guess; overprotective parents? I'm sure they won't care when I get through with-"

"It's not that. I just can't. Sorry." I blurt quickly, jam my hands into the pockets of my jeans, and start down the street.

Jack Reynolds yanks me back by my shoulder and my skin is achingly cold again. Panic swells up my throat and is caught in a web of mucus and fear and the monsters leap in circles around his grip, their sing-song voices setting my mind ablaze. I'm not sure what Jack Reynolds sees in my eyes but I hope it's not the panic or the monsters or worse; the truth.

His eyes are solemn and grave and he doesn't look like the foreign car-dealership guy who'd fallen off the bus. "Whatever's going on," He almost whispers and rips one of my hands from my jean pocket, slipping his business card on to my palm. "There's a way out."

I can't muster a word even if I want to.

"Do you understand me?" He demands.

I catch the soccer coach on the bleachers resting her icy gaze on us.

Jack Reynolds beckons my attention back with his eyes. "Lucky?"

I nod.

He pats my shoulder and lets me go. "Think about it, okay?"

Another nod.

Then I run. I run down the street and I don't stop. I run until my lungs feel as if they're bleeding. I run until my legs threaten to give weigh. I run until I am far away from Jack Reynolds, the soccer team, and the dangerous bus stop that lead to places other than Paradise.

The strange thing is, I don't know why I'm running. I don't know why I toss the Cambridge business card into a trash can, throw on my hoodie, and keep running. I don't know what I'm trying to escape.

Or maybe that's a lie I continue to tell myself.

What do you do when you're trapped? When you can't escape? When it feels like you're literally trapped in a closed, metal room, water filling up until it's in your lungs, in the soles of your shoes, and your head is barely above water? What do you do when it feels like you're screaming, screaming for someone to come help as you drown, but no one can hear you?

I used to think that was what living in Paradise was like but I was completely wrong.

The truth is, I didn't want anyone to know I was trapped. I didn't want to escape. I didn't want anyone to hear me.

It's not that they wouldn't help, it's just the mystery behind what would happen next.

What would happen when the little boy cried wolf? Would anyone come running? And if they did, if they destroyed The Wolf, would they turn their pitchforks on the little boy?

Like the monsters had? Like I had?

The answer is vague and depth-less, no answer in sight.

I keep running.