I sat alone on the bus, but it was as if I was sat in a crowd of people. There was a lot of tension. It was as if the windows had been blacked out, but it was just the darkness of the night. It had been minutes since Mrs Wilson and George had left the small bus in search for help and I was getting anxious. It felt like hours. I reached my hands down for my bag, gripping it tightly and pulling it onto my lap. I unzipped it slowly before sliding out my sketch book. I flicked through the pages looking at my drawings, in my mind they never were really what I wanted them to look like. I sighed, placing the book on the seat beside me. I stood up, walking to the front of the bus. I stared out of the windscreen for seconds, my eyes fixed on the blackness. That’s when something white flashed across the screen making me jump back in fright. The bus door which Mrs Wilson had left open rattled for a split second. That’s when I felt something brush past me, sending goose bumps up my left arm. There was a sweet smell in the bus at that moment; it smelt musky. I was glued to the spot, I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. There was scratching noise from behind me, right up the aisle of the bus. I held my breath tightly; everything was happening so quickly, the air rushed past me once again forcing me to fall sideways into the driver’s seat. The bus doors banged shut, leaving me completely alone. It took me minutes to get the courage to move, I was rigid. I slammed my hand onto the horn, gasping for the sweet air. The horn ripped through the air, echoing around the forest. I lifted my hand off of the horn and stood up slowly. I walked slowly down the aisle and back to my seat, muttering to myself.
“It’s alright…” I knew this wouldn’t help my fears, but I still said it. As I was about to sit down I screamed. The words ‘they don't think about the pain they are causing’ were carved into my sketch book, by nail… or knife maybe. It was messy handwriting; I think that was deliberately to scare me though. I had had enough, I ran down the aisle of the bus and straight out of the doors, into the blackness of the night. Panting, I ran down the bendy, uneven, country road. I knew I was going to be in trouble for running, but I didn’t care, I was terrified.
        Who or what had been in the bus? Who had scratched those words into my sketchbook and what did they mean? Who was causing pain and why… 
        I ran for seconds before stopping and collapsing by the side of the road, sitting in the snow. I didn’t realise how cold it was until my breathing returned back to normal, the wind was lashing through the trees behind me like horses. You could barely see your hand in front of your face. I looked all around me, but I could see nothing, not even the bus. The cold air nipped at my face as I closed my eyes tightly. Snow fell from the sky and landed on my head. I breathed slowly through my nose, my heart pounding, I was listening for any noise, but all I could hear was the wind. I lay back in the snow, exhausted, my hands and feet already numb. I turned on my side, all my energy leaving me. It was so cold, so, so cold. I lay my cheek on my hand, my palm resting against the snow. Maybe I was being dramatic, not getting up and trying to find the bus, but I was too scared to go back, too frightened of the sweet smelling devil. 
           Things had started going wrong for me every since my father had disappeared on my birthday, seven years previous. Nobody knew what had happened to him, he just disappeared. The police put up missing persons posters all over town, but no one came back with any news. The police didn’t have the faintest idea of what had happened to him or where he was. I was in a state of depression from then on, so was my mother; Hayley and Ella were too young to remember, of course. My father and I hadn’t been that close, he was always down at the pub, drinking all his money away, drinking all of our money. But ill always remember him as a kind man. He came home at nights, always drunk, but he was never abusive, he never argued with my mother, never violent and he always stuck by his family. He worked in the day time as a painter and a decorator; he got home at five o’clock in the evening, sat down for dinner with us and then was off to the pub. He only got Saturdays off and he spent some of the day with me, down at the park or out in the garden keeping me company. We had a dog too, called Floyd. He was a German shepherd and he was great fun. My dad had had him for six years; he had found him running about on a railway line covered in white paint. My father had worked in the signal boxes in a small town, just outside of where we lived called Stonehaven. 
               It was a beautiful little town, half of it built on the side of a slope, right beside the sea. I remember my father taking me there when I was younger to go fishing in the harbour. I remember how blue the sea had been that day, the waves gently lapping over each other onto the sand. A chilly breeze blowing in my face, the smell of salt around me. I remember walking down the harbour looking in all the creels for starfish. I never found any after a brief look; they were letting off a horrid smell.
               My father stopped the all the trains in the area just to rescue this poor dog wondering around on the railway tracks, lost. He took him home and gave him a scrubbed and begged my mother to keep him. She gave in after a while, though she was furious about the new family pet, she warmed to him soon enough.
               Ever since my father died its been one tragedy after another, the tantrums started three years previously, but they were more then just tantrums and mood swings, they started off as me and my mum arguing, then it got violent, if she hit me, I would hit her back. I would regret it after though.
                Consciousness was slipping away as my whole body went numb; there was a shooting pain through my head due to the cold. Would I die like this?