CHAPTER 163: WORSE THINGS THAN THOSE INSIDE

LUCAS POV:

I went to the waiting room, trying to breathe. Trying to think. My thoughts were spiraling—panic scratching behind my eyes like rats in a box.

So much for my fucking escape.

But then it hit me—what if I didn’t fly out? What if I could cross the border by bus, and then take a flight from the next country over? Maybe there was a crack in their perfect little trap. Maybe the bastards hadn’t locked down the land routes yet. The hope burned in me like a lit match in a gas-filled room.

Hope flickered. Not a flame, but a spark. And in a place like this, even a spark was blinding.

I got up fast—too fast. My legs were still sore, my muscles tight and bruised. But I didn’t care. As long as I got out.

Out. Out. Out.

This time, I hailed a taxi. The city was waking up around me, a cold sun rising over buildings that felt too still, too quiet—like a stage set, waiting for the actors to return. It didn’t take long to find another cab. The cab that stopped was driven by a woman—slim, maybe in her mid-twenties, with dark circles under her eyes like bruises. Her skin was pale, but not unnaturally so. Still, there was something off. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, and she moved like her bones ached from something far deeper than fatigue.

"Where to, champ?" she asked, a tired smirk on her lips.

"Any bus traveler’s agency that runs cross-border," I said quickly, shoving myself into the back seat.

She snorted. "So the plane was canceled, huh?"

"Yeah. All outbound flights. Apparently." I didn’t like where this was going.

That earned a dry, mocking laugh. It wasn’t amusement—it was bitterness soaked in something darker. "And you still think you can get out of here, huh?"

There was something behind her words. Like she knew something I didn’t.

"Yeah..." I replied, wary.

"Well," she said, shifting into drive, "better start praying then."

Her voice was calm, almost amused—but bitter. Too bitter for someone just giving rides.

I looked at her again. Really looked. She was young, maybe twenty-five. But her eyes were older. Exhausted. Her body was thin, bones peeking where they shouldn’t. A dark patch peeked from under her shirt collar—something circular. A bite mark? A tattoo? Hard to tell. But she was definitely trying to hide it.

"Is this your home country?" I asked.

She sighed. "No."

Figures. She didn’t look like the locals. Not the impossibly perfect ones with porcelain skin and unnerving smiles. She looked real. Human.

"Have you ever gone back?" I asked.

She gripped the wheel tighter. Her knuckles went pale, and for a second I thought she’d snap—tell me to shut up and mind my own fucking business.

But then:

"Yes. I did. Once. To say goodbye."

I didn’t ask any more questions. I didn’t need to. The silence that followed was heavy—grief and trauma thick enough to choke on. But part of me still burned to know how she’d done it. How she managed to leave at all. And even more confusing—why the hell she came back.

But she beat me to it.

"I know what you’re thinking," she said softly, eyes fixed on the road. "And the answer is: they don’t give you a choice."

My throat tightened.

"It’s either you return without saying a word to anyone, or they kill the person you tell. And not quickly." She blinked hard.

"Besides," she added, eyes glassy, "who would believe us? A country ruled by creatures of the night? Vampires, werewolves, things with no faces? They’d lock us in a psych ward before they listened. And I... I couldn’t risk my mom and little sister. I was the one who applied. I chose this place. I couldn’t let them pay for my mistake."

She paused. Her voice broke just slightly.

"It was either me, or my mom and little sister. I was the one who wanted to come here. So I came back. Quietly. Alone."

A single tear slipped from her eye, and she wiped it away before it fell to her cheek.

"And here we are," she said, pulling up to the bus station.

I stared at the building—so normal. So mundane. But dread sat in my gut like lead.

"Hey, champ," she said, turning in her seat. Her eyes were red now. "If you don’t make it out... you’ll have to learn the rules. In this place, humans are the bottom of the chain. Pets for sex. Cattle for feeding. Entertainment. You don’t matter unless you bleed pretty or scream loud. If you want to live long enough to see photos and videos your family sends... keep your head down. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t go out after sunset."

No.

No.

NO.

I’m not going to live like a reared animal. Like I was born to be used.

But I didn’t say that. I just nodded, paid her, and got out.

She rolled the window down just before leaving and called out:

"And kid... make sure the sun doesn’t set with you still outside. There are worse things than what you saw at the university. The ones out here... they don’t play by rules. They don’t feed to survive. They feed for sport. There are worse things out here than the ones inside the university."

Then she drove off.

I stood frozen in front of the station, her words bouncing around in my skull like wasps in a jar.

Worse things? Than the university?

The university that bred monsters with human faces? That used students like chew toys and bedwarmers? That bit and broke me?

That was the safe zone?

She had to be kidding.

She had to be.

...Right?

******

I was stupid to hold on to hope. Stupid to think that maybe—just maybe—I was different. That I could slip through the cracks of whatever cursed trap Memoville had become. Even after the warnings, even after both cab drivers practically spelled it out for me, I still clung to the fantasy that I could escape.

Delusional. That’s what I was.

I stepped into the bus station, still praying for a miracle—that some rickety old vehicle was warming up, ready to take passengers across the border. That some loophole, some oversight, had left a backdoor open in this place’s suffocating grip.

The place was dim and almost empty, lit by flickering fluorescent lights that buzzed overhead like flies. A long, scratched-up bench sat against one wall, and an old vending machine blinked "OUT OF ORDER" in aggressive red.

But the moment I saw the woman at the front desk, I knew.

She looked at me the way someone looks at a wounded animal that won’t survive the night. Her lips twitched into something that might’ve been a smile—or maybe an apology. Her eyes were soft, but hollow. Like she’d seen dozens just like me walk in here, full of hope, and leave with nothing but the slow crushing weight of reality.

"I... I need a ticket. Cross-border. Anywhere," I said. My voice cracked halfway through, but I didn’t care. "Please," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I’ll pay in cash. I’ll pay double."

She didn’t type anything. Didn’t even glance at her computer. She just sighed.

"I’m sorry," she said, almost too gently. "All outbound routes are closed. The highways have been shut down... until further notice."

A silence stretched out between us. My pulse throbbed in my ears.

"Closed?" I repeated, hollowly. "Like—detoured? Blocked?"

Her mouth twitched, like she wanted to say yes. Like she wanted to lie.

But she didn’t.

"No, sweetheart. Closed. Like they don’t want anyone getting out. Not right now."

I took a step back, cold blooming in my gut. "What about another city? Can I—?"

She shook her head slowly. "Doesn’t matter where. No buses are running. It’s... lockdown protocol. Quiet, unofficial. Happens this time every year."

"Why?" I choked. "Why now?"

She glanced over her shoulder, lowered her voice even more. "Freshmen intake."

My blood turned to ice.

She knew.

And I wasn’t special. I wasn’t the first desperate soul to come through this station, begging for a ride out.

"I’m sorry," she whispered, and I could tell she meant it. "I really am."

Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. I stood there, frozen, barely hearing the rest of her explanation—something about a ’security lockdown,’ ’transport embargo,’ or whatever excuse they were spinning today.

But the truth was clear: there was no escape.

The cab drivers knew better. They didn’t lie. They couldn’t lie. They just gave me little slivers of truth, dressed up like mercy. Tips on how to survive. On how to be food. On how to not die too fast.

And I... I smiled. Nodded. Thanked them like their warnings were just folklore. Like I still had a choice.

I should’ve known.

I turned away from the counter, stumbling backward like I’d been shot. My chest was tight, my breath coming short and sharp. The walls of the station seemed to press in around me, the flickering fluorescent lights humming like an insect swarm in my ears.

This was it. The end of the line.

I wanted to scream. To punch something. But what would that change? I’d been warned. They told me this place was a cage dressed like a castle. A pretty face hiding a monster’s grin. The cab drivers—both of them—had laid it out plainly: We don’t leave. Not really. Not unless they let us. And they never do.

The worst part? The people working here—humans, maybe, or things that used to be human—weren’t even surprised. They didn’t try to comfort me or offer a solution. Because they knew. Everyone here knows.

You don’t get out of Memoville.

Not unless you belong to the things in charge.

I sat down on one of the cracked, plastic chairs in the waiting area. My limbs were heavy. My bag slid off my shoulder, thudding against the floor. I stared at the ceiling and thought of home—of my mom’s cooking, of my dog’s bark, of streetlights that flickered normally, not in sync with some ancient pulse beneath the ground.

I had been trying to escape monsters. But maybe... this entire country was the monster. Alive. Sentient. And it had already swallowed me whole.