Alice sat at the bus stop buried in her phone. In front of her, traffic wizzed by, taxis honked at one another, the occasional car stopped illegally in the bus lane to let passengers out or in. Behind her, people pushed by hurriedly, some shouting into their own phones over the noise. Alice paid no mind to the chaos around her.

The approaching low rumbling of a large engine, and squeaking of poorly maintained brakes, stood out from the city's white noise. Alice looked up. The bus had arrived, but her brother was clearly late.

Where are you? she texted to her younger brother, Zack. She wanted to hurry home, like everyone else. And Zack could ride the bus alone, if needed. But it was habit, or perhaps tradition, for them to wait for one another. She checked the text send time: 3:02.

She remained seated, and the bus pulled away without her. But she was still looking up. As it pulled away, she saw a mass of black robes, topped with an empty hood, facing back at her from the other side of the street.

For a moment, she couldn't breathe. Surely, she was seeing things. This wasn't meant for her, not at her age. Another bus passed in the other direction, and the robes were gone. Her brother stood in their place, waving back at her with his left hand while cradling a few books in his right.

Zack didn't have a walk signal, but, judging traffic was light enough, stepped out anyways. He had done this many times in the past at this intersection without fail.

This time, Alice stood and approached the edge of the street.

Starting from the far side, he crossed one lane at a time at irregular intervals. In a few effortless hops, he was at the wide median. He paused to look back at her. She smiled weakly back. He assessed the roads again.

He stepped into the first lane, then quickly shuffled into the second as a card passed. In doing so, he dropped a book, which tumbled into the first lane. Then, forgetting the chaos around him for a moment, he turned back to pick it up.

Alice ashed forward. A car honked to her side. She ignored the danger. She crashed into her brother, who was positioned on the near edge of the lane. Then she threw him forward across the entire length of the lane, into the median. But that alone consumed all her strength, and her momentum, and now she was standing in the middle of the lane.

In her final moment, she saw a pickup truck, whose speed hadn't changed, barely graze her brothers legs.