Suzanne once again stood outside. A few others had followed her out and stood beside the bus with her. They all looked towards the distance, along the road that had somehow been a wall a moment ago.

"Hey," she heard someone say behind her: Cecil. They looked at each other. He and she, along with Marvin, had so far had the most "experience", if you could call it that, with this strange place after their meeting earlier with Mike, the "servant". Compared to that, a mutating road seemed less weird, she thought, but now the entire group would find out that they were in a place where things were far from ordinary. It worried her a bit; we’ll find out in a moment how the rest will take it, she thought.

She walked forward, following the road. Cecil followed, and they were walking side by side. For the moment, the rest of the passengers seemed content to watch them. After a few steps, they saw the road change as it had before, just in reverse: it inclined slightly, as if someone was lifting the land in front of them up gently but inexorably. She glanced sideways at Cecil, who clearly was seeing it too. They continued. With every step, the incline increased until they stood before a gray wall again. It wasn’t just the road that had folded up: the land beside it had gone vertical as well. Dry desert soil reached into the sky, although now it wasn’t exactly the sky. When she looked up, she could still see the horizon as it had been before, but instead of being in front of them, now it was above them. The effect was disorientating.

"Can you go any further?" A voice Suzanne didn’t recognize shouted behind them. She turned around and saw a bespectacled middle-aged man with a shock of gray hair and a short full beard. A few steps behind him stood a sullen-looking younger man who resembled him strongly.

"No, the road’s just a wall here. We’d have to climb straight up to get any further," she shouted back.

"From here it looks like you’re standing on a rising road," came the reply from the older passenger. He walked up to them, with his younger companion following. "Well, blow me down. This is quite something, ain’t it?" he said, his head tilted far back, staring up into the sky/horizon. The younger man did the same and swore crudely, at which the older man slapped him hard in the chest with the back of his hand. "Rory! Watch your damn tongue!" he shouted, then turned to them and said in a normal voice, "You’ve got to excuse my son. He forgets his manners sometimes." Suzanne had seen Cecil wince at the sudden violence. "And I’ve forgotten mine as well, it seems. The name’s Fleisher, Tobias Fleisher. This here’s my son, Rory. Rory, say hello to the nice people." Rory looked at the floor and mumbled something. He looked to be about twenty years old, certainly not older than twenty-five, but his behavior and the way he held himself made Suzanne think he was less mature than his biological age would indicate. Rory was a lanky six-foot tall, a head higher than his slightly paunchy father, but seemed smaller due to his slightly hunched posture.

"Nice to meet you, Mister Fleisher. Hi, Rory," Suzanne said. Cecil said a quick ‘Hi’ as well.

"Hi," Rory mumbled, not looking at either of their faces.

Fleisher (Suzanne couldn’t think of him as ‘Tobias’ for some reason) approached the wall/road and poked it with a finger. He shook his head.

"I know I’m not dreaming, even though this sure feels like a nightmare. How is this possible?" Fleisher said to the group. Suzanne shrugged. Cecil shook his head slightly. Suzanne noticed a few more people coming up from the bus now, Marvin among them. She walked to the edge of the wall/road where the concrete turned into sandy vertical ground. Her hand dug into the soil slightly, and she grabbed a handful of it. It fell down, which was "her" down, toward the ground she currently stood on. She entertained the idea of following the ground/wall to search for an exit for a moment, but pushed the thought away. They were being kept here by effective but totally inexplicable means, and whatever was going on here was centered on the strange city, Haven, and the creatures that called themselves servants that waited for them in the empty houses. Suzanne was convinced now that if there was a way out, it would be somewhere in the city, not out here. Maybe they could figure it out if they had more people looking at the problem, meaning everyone on the bus, not just her and Cecil and Marvin.

"I don’t know what’s going on either. But there’s something we saw in the city earlier that could help explain this," Suzanne said. Cecil frowned for a moment, but he seemed to understand that they had no other choice but to come clean to everyone.

"Ah yeah? What did you see?" Fleisher asked. Marvin and the rest of the bus passengers arrived. Suzanne rubbed her tired eyes for a moment. It had been a long day already. She took a deep breath, and addressed the gathered group.