JANUARY 12, 2013

Jesús Miguel "Soos" Ribera whistled to himself as he drove his bus through the cold winter morning. The sun had recently risen over the horizon, and it shone calmly down on the bus.

Soos was in a cheerful mood. He was on his way to Gravity Rises, his hometown, to pick up Mason and Mabel Pines and take them back home to California. The trip would take all day, so Soos was picking them up in the morning, and they would have to leave town sooner rather than later. But Soos was ahead of schedule, so maybe he could stay in town for just a bit. Maybe he could see if Melody Ramirez was still there. . . .

He stopped whistling so that he could grin dreamily as he thought about Melody. What a woman. He didn't get to see her much these days, since his bus driving job took him all over the western half of the country, but he thought about her a lot. He missed her. Was she still working with Stanford Pines? Since Mason and Mabel were staying with Stanford, Soos wanted to take his bus straight to his museum and say hi to Melody before leaving with the kids.

The beautiful winter sun lit up the trees around him. Soos started whistling again. It was a nice day, and he was going to a nice place, and he would hopefully see a nice friend. It was enough to make anyone happy.

In his happiness, Soos didn't notice that anything was wrong until the last second.

Suddenly, with a rush of adrenaline, Soos slammed on the brakes. "Woah!" he cried out. He yanked the wheel to the side, and his bus turned and came to a stop in the middle of the road.

Soos's heart was pounding. What on earth. . . ? He shut off the engine and cautiously got out of the bus, stepping onto the empty road. He wasn't worried about his bus getting hit; if any cars came along, they would see him in plenty of time to stop.

He walked slowly down the road, his eyes glued to the scene in front of him. After only a few steps, he stopped and simply stared.

Gravity Rises was gone.

Where the town once was, there was nothing but a huge crater. Not only was the town gone, but a large portion of the forest was gone with it. Soos could barely see the trees on the other side where the crater ended and the remaining forest began.

His eyes must be playing tricks on him. Right? This couldn't be real. He had been here just two weeks ago, and the town had been absolutely fine.

He carefully descended into the crater and shuffled a few steps down the moderately steep dirt incline. The crater seemed even bigger now that there were no trees lining his vision. It extended for miles with nothing but dirt and broken pipelines on its floor.

Soos stared for a long, long time. His brain couldn't process what he was seeing. Finally, he climbed back to the road, where his bus was waiting for him. He slowly got back into the vehicle and settled into the driver's seat. With a turn of the key, the bus's engine rumbled to life.

He looked once more out the window. The crater was still there.

Soos shifted the bus into gear, turned the bus gradually so its back tires wouldn't slip into the crater, and drove away. His eyes drifted to his rearview mirror, watching the crater as it disappeared from view.

What had happened? How could an entire town, not to mention most of the forest, just disappear?

He had to tell someone about this.

AN: Yep, this first chapter is really short. None of the other chapters in this episode are as short as this one, but they are all notably shorter than in the last two episodes.

Please take a moment to go back to the last chapter and read the content warnings for this episode. The final three episodes of Gravity Rises will all have content warnings, though they will vary a bit in topic and intensity. Once I finish writing an episode, I will update the title card chapter and add the content warnings for that episode.