Chapter Text
Third Person Omniscient
The day started like any other, Pony got up with his brothers, brushed his teeth, greased his hair and walked to school. He went through his first two classes, leaving early second period to get on the bus for the field trip to the nature museum. it was assigned seating, which, as much as he hated the idea, it was good that the Socs weren’t congregating too much.
He sat next to a nice, middle-class girl and some jerkoff soc, who seemed to have a complicated relationship at the least. The two were handsy, and obviously liked each other, but no matter how much the girl looked at his lips or mentioned kissing, the dumbass just wouldn’t kiss her. Even Pony was that smart. she seemed to be getting annoyed with the guy and instead turned to talk to Pony about the museum, how a couple of the guys heard of this super old plant that the Indians in the area used to crush up and snort to get visions. He wasn’t paying too much attention.
He was starting to get annoyed. The guy and girl—Dana something—had swapped seats so she could talk to her friends in the seat next to them, who were also crammed three in a seat. Man, if Pony thought this guy was a jerkoff before, he sure as shit hated him now. He was talking to the guy in the seat behind him about the girl, who was unfortunately tuned out of him and into her friend. This Soc—Rick, maybe?—was talking real nasty about Dana. it’s clear he had no romantic interest in her, but damn, did he talk about fucking her. something about stretching her wide, real gross shit. Dana only turned back once the other guy started laughing loud and talked about plowing her, but never used it. “Hey, who’re you talkin’ about?” she asked, over and over, but just got ignored. She looked like she felt sick. She knew.
Soon enough, they made it to the museum, the kids loaded off of the bus and sorted into their respective groups. He was one of two greasers, and the other guy was a senior whose name he didn’t even know. They explored the museum, the Socs got their drugs, and met back in the courtyard outside for a late lunch. Most kids bought something from the stores there, he had a sack lunch from home that Sodapop had made, a PB and J on whatever bread was cheapest, and a Pepsi from the DX that Soda always got half off. He ate across from the other greaser in silence, not looking at each other, just there in comfortable silence with someone who knows what the other is going through, instead of being thrown to the wolves the Socs and their half-time partners of middle class kids.
They finished lunch quickly, but the Socs seemed all too interested in the last exhibits, wanting to stay as long as possible to avoid the rest of the school day. The chaperones finally get all the kids on the bus, bribing them by letting them pick their seats. They board the bus and file into their seats laughing and joking. Pony settles into a seat alone near the back, the far back seats taken by Rick and Dana and a few of their friends, the teachers sat up by the front to tune out the loud, inappropriate conversations of the kids in the back.
One of the boys, a friend of Rick—maybe Colum?— begins to grab a couple things from his bag, bragging about grabbing the plant. He begins to de-flower the plant, crushing the seeds up into a yellow, snortable powder. he takes the first hit, then passes it to Rick, then it goes to some other guy, and on and on until it’s gone. Nothing happens at first which leads to Rick and a couple kids yelling at Colum, but after a while, Colum seems to ignore his surroundings, zoning out, drooling, then coughing up blood.
Third Person Limited - Ponyboy
Something’s wrong. That blond guy- fuck, is that blood!? Pony thinks as Colum begins spluttering up blood. He grips onto Rick’s arm tight enough for him to yelp out a “What the hell, man?!” and tug his arm away, Colum groans, the blood draining from his face and out of his mouth and eyes. Rick yelps and falls back into the aisle of the bus, earning a “Hey!” from a chaperone. Pony’s well and panicked now, a knot of disgust twisting in his gut at the sight of so much blood. He thought of Bob, of the stab wound, of the blood blossoming in the water and spilling down the side of the fountain. “Dude, something’s wrong!” one of the other boys yells, with a snappy response of “Oh, can it! you can wait till we get to the school.”
Colum’s eyes begin to fill with blood, earning a red hue to his sclera. He growls and lunges at a Soc girl, bashing her head against the window, clawing open her skull and greedily eating from it like some type of delectable forbidden fruit. Dana screams, ripping away from Rick and over into Pony’s seat right behind him. Ponyboy feels saliva well in his mouth and bile in his throat. Rick begins to turn next, lunging at another guy, this time only biting him.
It escalates quickly, Dana crawling under the seat to escape, which only seemed to get her turned quicker, Colum crawling to her with bloody hands and slashing her stomach open, effectively turning her as well. Pony freezes up, watching as she goes onto bite and eat along with the others.
The bus soon becomes a blood bath, at least a quarter of the kids turned, unnoticed to gossiping chaperones and an unobservant bus driver, until a newly-turned-cannabalistic kid crawls up and grabs at a chaperone, crawling under the seat and grabbing the woman by the ankle, cracking her skull open and feasting like the others seem to be doing. Soon enough, Pony’s hiding spot becomes obvious to the freshly-turned boy across from him. He–It?--lunges at him, which affectively unfreezes Pony. His vision tunnels and the world slows down, giving him the cognitive skills to avoid the creature by diving under the seat, quickly crawling forward to get away. There’s nowhere to go. I’m on a moving bus. I’m gonn- theres nowhere- his helpless thoughts are cut off by the screams of the other teachers as they watch each other turn and die.
A zombified student grabs at his ankle, slicing through his ratty jeans and canvas off-brand converse, but managing not to get into his skin. Pony kicks at his classmate. He can hear the crunch of bone in the other kid’s wrist as it breaks, his hand still not releasing Pony’s ankle. He aims for his face, breaking his nose and jaw, when claws sink in further, shooting electric, burning pain through his leg. He kicks the kid loose, his classmate taking his tattered shoe in the process. He doubles over to grasp at his ankle, near-screaming in pain, it being the worst he’d ever felt. It felt wrong, not only was it too deep for human nails, it was burning and stinging, and it felt as if his soul was leaking from the wound.
The pain was so overwhelming and devouring he hadn’t even noticed the bus beginning to twist and flip. Ponyboy was shot easily into the roof, then back to the floor. He hid himself under a seat to minimize the effect of gravity, even if he could barely feel the pain of the slinging around in comparison to that in his ankle. The bus slammed down one final time before Pony blacked out.
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When Ponyboy finally came to, all he could see was black. He wriggled around and the ‘black’ crinkled like plastic. He felt around at his sides and front before finally finding a zipper. He unzips the bag and sits up, flinching at the contrast the bright sun holds in comparison to the body bag he was just- wait, body bag!? Why would they put me in a body bag- i-I’m not dead! he thinks to himself. He looks around to see dozens of other body bags surrounding him. Maybe ¾ of his classmates and teachers. He begins to breathe rapidly, at first, looking for anyone to help, but he quickly changes objective to get away. If they thought he was dead, they were either crazy, one of those things, or something was really, really wrong. He looks around the forest-covered road he and his classmates were laid upon, and steps out of the bag, consumed by unbearable primal hunger for blood and meat. He’s suddenly reminded of his missing shoe and torn sock as he feels the coolness of the pavement. He begins to walk down the road, eventually thinking himself into a daze as he recalls what happened on the bus over and over, until he freezes. He breathes in deeply through his nose before sniffing like a dog, trailing a short ways into the forest before finding an unburied corpse. He blacks out at the sight, and when he comes to, his hands are covered in old, oxidized blood, half of the occipital lobe of the corpse in his palm, and something gummy and chewy in his mouth. He chews at the thing in his mouth and all but moans. It’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. He picks out a piece from his mouth to know what this delicious substance is, and freezes as he sees the fleshy pink of brain. His mouth waters and his stomach lurches. He pukes up most of what he’d consumed, feeling sick again as he that he feels full, no longer plagued by the primal hunger he had earlier experienced while walking. He curls into a ball, rocks back and forth and sobs a little while.
He stands up in a daze as he continues to walk, he still feels nauseous, and he guesses he wasn't really laying down that long. The sun is in the same place, and nothing around him has changed much. Most of the walk back to town is a blur, but his consciousness seems to clock back in when he passes by the theater.