Chapter 10: Ghost Story at the Camp

My school had an enrichment program for the Freshmen. I happen to select the ones which involve camping in the open and climbing mountains. The other one seems rather troublesome since it involves doing social activities like ones people volunteer too. The other had something to do with our respective religion and I wasn't exactly religious.

Various students of the same year and various majors were present in my team. The climb was quite hard and due to my fear of heights, I had to stop for a bit. Thankfully these people were quite understanding.

Eventually, as the daylight came to its end, we managed set up the camp and were actually the third team to arrive at the site. We had our own grounds and were located distances away from the others as not to disturb the intimacy.

I forgot how did they set the camp. I probably didn't help much. What I remember was, the girls slept in the tent while some of the guys slept outside, with the ground blanketed by carpets and I, like the others, used our bags as a pillow.

Before that, we chatted a bit. I was usually the one making bad jokes, but since the topic came to ghost stories, I could only listen. It wasn't exactly a ghost story, but well, the vibe's kinda similar.

At first, they talked about female bus drivers; how some of them, in our country, kind of gotten a bad stigma.

On how such female bus driver's reckless driving had brutally murdered a high-school girl.

In the big city, our roads had two lanes; one for other vehicles and a smaller one for the public bus. Yet, due to the mass of traffic and people wanting a 'free pass', few drivers took over the public bus lane; disregarding the law. This resulted in occasional accidents which caused deaths at some point.

One day, two high school girls went on their motorbike. Probably for the same reason as the others who took the public bus lanes, they also went in.

The female driver at that time didn't seem to focus on the road. The bus slammed headfirst at the motorcar; throwing the girl sitting in the back to the side. The impact was painful; as if all bones in her body were breaking.

In her line of sight, her friend was still glued to the motorcycle; unknown whether she's still alive. The bus, instead of stopping, actually went and ran over both the girl and the motorcycle.

She witnessed her friend's body getting crushed into a lump of meat.

The trauma caused her to stay for long periods at the Hospital, even after she fully recovered from her injuries.

We did not exactly know how the incident was dealt with, nor what happened to the female driver afterward, but for the survivor--she--at first she was unable to talk at all.

...but when she recovered, she seems to become someone completely different.

Before the incident, she was a quiet girl who did not stand out much, but now--she was all cheerful and friendly.

One noticeable thing was her tendency to talk at the thin air.

..as if her friend were actually there.