Ficorpio
Chapter 1
After the National College Entrance Exam, our graduating class set off on a graduation trip. Two hours into the drive, the bus driver suddenly called out, “Could one of you take a look at my phone? The navigation system seems to be malfunctioning. Why does it keep telling me to drive straight?”
“Ma’am, we’re on a highway. Of course we’re supposed to keep going straight.”
“But I’ve been driving straight for two hours.”
I glanced out the window.
There were no other cars. No people. Just our coach bus and a highway that seemed to have no end.
I walked up to the driver’s seat. The navigation system was repeatedly broadcasting the same instruction:
“Continue straight in the current lane.”
On the screen, we were traveling along a perfectly straight road, with green blocks stretching along both sides.
“Ms. Hayes, we need to get back soon so we can check our exam results and submit our college applications. Please make sure we’re on the right road.”
I took her phone and fiddled with it for a long time, but I couldn’t exit the navigation system.
When I looked out the windshield again, I froze.
The lane ahead ran straight toward the horizon. On both sides, endless grasslands stretched as far as I could see.
It looked exactly like the map on the navigation screen.
I brought the message back into the coach, and an uproar broke out.
“Where are we? Did the driver take a wrong turn? I knew she couldn’t be trusted!”
“Well, this is kind of exciting! You know that feeling in disaster movies where something terrible is happening outside, but everyone inside the vehicle is safe?”
“Don’t say things like that!”
Everyone had been half-asleep on the way back. Now, they were wide awake.
“Stay calm,” I said. “Take out your phones and open the maps. See if anyone can get us directions.”
The result was exactly what I expected.
None of our phones had any signal. The maps wouldn’t refresh, and we couldn’t get through to anyone by phone.
Victor got to his feet and rummaged through one of the suitcases before pulling out a satellite phone.
“Good thing I came prepared. Claire, take it and see if you can get it working.”
He tossed the phone to me.
I spent a while calibrating it according to the instructions. At last, it powered on. A signal appeared on the screen.
I immediately called the highway emergency line.
A few seconds later, someone picked up. Instead of a dispatcher, a familiar, icy navigation voice came through the receiver.
“Please continue straight in the current lane.”
I hung up.
Everyone stared at one another. The color had drained from their faces.
The coach bus pulled onto the Emergency Shoulder, and we all climbed out to try to flag down a passing car.
Half an hour went by without seeing a single vehicle.
Blue sky met green grass at the horizon, while the straight highway stretched so far ahead that we couldn’t see where it ended.
The sunlight warmed our skin, but with every passing minute, the hope in our hearts grew colder.
Chapter 2
Jack Turner, the class’s athletic representative, had a short fuse. He rounded on the driver.
“Hey! Where the hell have you taken us?”
Margaret lowered her head. She said she didn’t know what was happening. She had driven this road many times before. There really was a stretch of highway that passed through open grassland, but it had never been this long. It was impossible to drive for two hours without reaching the other side.
That word—impossible to get out—set everyone on edge.
Two of the more timid students began to cry. Jack grabbed Margaret by the collar and looked ready to hit her, but the others pulled him away.
We climbed back onto the bus and spent a long time discussing what to do.
Finally, I said, “There’s no way a highway could have a perfectly straight stretch lasting two hours. I don’t think driving farther will get us anywhere. We should leave the highway and head across the grasslands. Maybe we’ll find a way out.”
Everyone agreed.
The coach bus smashed through the guardrail and rolled into the grasslands, leaving the highway behind. Within minutes, it had nearly vanished from sight.
The scenery outside the windows grew even more beautiful. The bus seemed to sail across a green ocean like a little boat.
But no one admired the view. We sat in our seats, staring out the windows in silence.
Half an hour later, another highway appeared ahead of us.
On one side of it, the guardrail had a gap wide enough for the bus to pass through.
The exact gap we had made.
The entire bus fell deathly silent.
Then a soft voice spoke.
“Have any of you ever heard the story of the Infinite Highway?”
Everyone turned in surprise toward Sophie Mercer.
I think that was the first time I had ever heard her speak without being spoken to first.
When I was little, I lived in the country, and my grandparents often told me this story.
Long ago, there was a young scholar who spent ten years buried in his books before finally earning the highest honors in the kingdom.
He returned home with a large procession at his back. But as they traveled, they noticed that the wheat fields on either side of the road never changed. They had not seen another person in a long time, either. It began to feel as if the road would never end.
The group tried every method they could think of. They traveled that road for countless days and nights, yet nothing worked.
In the end, only one guard managed to make it home. Afterward, he changed his name, disappeared from public life, and no one ever learned where he went.
Everyone else, including the scholar, remained on that road forever.
Chapter 3
Similar incidents were said to have occurred throughout history. Whenever someone unknowingly met certain mysterious conditions, they could find themselves wandering onto a road that never ended.
Even today, many people who vanish while traveling far from home are said to have entered that road, never to return.
When I was young, the story terrified me. Whenever I imagined walking down a road forever, never seeing my grandparents again, I cried so hard that I refused to play on the country lanes anymore.
As I grew older, I decided my grandparents had made it up to keep me from wandering off and getting hurt.
But later, I found stories about the same legend online. People in many different places had heard it.
And now, the road we were traveling on might just be that endless road.
When the story ended, two of the students burst into tears again.
“Shut up already!” Jack Turner shouted impatiently.
He strode over to Sophie Mercer’s seat.
“So you’re the one who brought us here, aren’t you? Otherwise, how would you know so much? Are you trying to get revenge on us?”
Sophie shook her head.
Jack grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her feet. He was just about to hit her when I coughed twice.
“Want to get out of here sooner?” I asked. “Then stop wasting time. I have a few ideas.”
As vice class president, I was fairly well-liked.
At my words, Jack stopped and waited for me to continue.
Sophie rubbed her scalp and glanced at me, gratitude in her eyes.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about what Jack had said.
Sophie really was strange.
All the teachers knew not to call on her in class. She was painfully shy. The moment a teacher asked her a question, she would turn red, lower her head, and be unable to force out a single word.
Because of that, a lot of people in our class bullied her.
At first, it had only been teasing. Later, it became something much uglier.
“You really never talk? Not even at night? I don’t believe that.”
Several boys burst out laughing.
Before long, rumors began spreading that Sophie did “special work,” that she had several boyfriends, and that she spent all night talking to people outside school because she couldn’t be bothered to speak to her classmates.
The girls who lived in the dorms with her were even more vicious than the boys. They mocked her body and claimed she kept sex toys hidden in her room.
Sophie never fought back. She never cried, either. She simply lowered her head and endured it.