Dark Train's Impetus

The glass floors of the train station were miniature hazards with the mixture of fresh and melted snow. The multitude of people streaming through the enclosed station’s opened doors allowed great and cold gusts and small white puffs of snowflakes to fall through undeterred, almost defeating the purpose of a sanctuary from the freezing temperatures. Though there was a reason for the large congregation of people flooding through the double doors.

Many moving bodies did their best to not slide and fall from the slickness of the wet floors, some less successful than others. People were jovial, and happy enough to stop in their tracks to not trample those who fell halfway or fully onto the ground; some even helped those that couldn’t find their correct orientation standing in time. It was the holidays and people returning to families or leaving town and escaping their restricted lives to go to more warm and less work-related areas of the nation. And their ability to go to their respective spots of enjoyment and relaxation would be made possible in little to no time this very day.

Many people who couldn’t tolerate or even afford drive or flight commutes would rely on busses, taxi services and even train commutes as appropriate substitutes. Though even for the people who have adapted to these forms of replacement travel forms, they will also be a part of the demographic who know that sometimes these trips were excruciating given how much time one stays confined in a given space. But a certain train station, finally becoming open to the public and no longer an exclusive privilege to the wealthy, would be able to completely nullify these worries for all train riders.

As people acclimated to the slippery floors, an intercom came to life overhead a masculine and flamboyant voice sounding through the speakers.

“Welcome all to the grand public opening to Miracle A Day Inc. bullet train commute! Everyone please continue to practice safely traversing the inside of the station platform and stay bundled up, the snowfall is going to keep up till we get about nine whole inches of snow with a massive drop in the temperature due to wind speeds increasing to seven miles per hour later tonight. A normal everyday for winter here, a nightmare for a southern boy like me!” This last comment got a light chuckle from a majority of the individuals, others too distracted with keeping balance and staying warm to notice the ongoing messages provided by the intercom.

As more information regarding the heating system and how it would be provided to all on the train and which areas to leave non-carry on luggage so that it could be placed in the hold area of the bullet train, a person of lithe build and dark bushy hair made their way through the crowd. Despite the floors, this person moved with near expert precision and care as a professional ice skater. Though they most definitely noticed how friction wasn’t a familiar concept to the ground currently and constantly thought of how thankful she was of her past as a hockey player. The many days out on the ice almost seemed to prepare her for this very moment. Somehow gaining enough energy to stop on a dime and move in a given direction only to pivot on the spot and switch directions of their chaotic but controlled movement forward yet again. Gaining closer to the sliding doors off the train, the swift figure finally found why they were looking for.

"I'm here! I made it!" She exclaimed excitedly, already shifting her weight to transform her sliding performance into a jump. Her feet left the ground as she crossed the last distance in a single leap, and soon she was falling through the air into the arms of her older and larger brother.

Despite the girl's small build, the impact made the older sibling emit a sound of the air nearly being knocked clean from his lungs. "Well someone's excited." He rasped still trying to collect himself. The young man gently placed his little sister down and brushed a lock of black straight hair from her face.

"Well duh! We not only get to meet up with family at the vacation home, but we get to do it in style." She said in a jubilant cadence that matched her nearly uncontained body expression. The older of the two could only shake his head in amusement, other passengers becoming lighter in mood due to the sister's contagious positivity.

Moving from the area near the doors, the brother led her down the hallway to their compartment area.

"Welp." He said, getting to the door marked with the number ' 218 ',

"This will be our area of eating, sleeping, hanging out, and all the other stuff till we get to our destination." Under his raised arm which had opened the sliding door, his sister dashed in and marveled at how well sized the room was. One side of the room had a red clothed couch with dark gold gleaning patterns that were spread throughout the entire length of the seat. Its entire body was suspended by metal beams that were expertly cut and colored to match the appearance of the wooden walls that made up most of the room and the hallways of the train.

The other side held what looked like two giant drawer handles stuck to a beige colored wall. The little sister looked quizzically at this and wondered out loud where the beds were. The brother went towards the protrusions in the wall and pulled lightly on the top most handle. A bright green light emitted from some component in the wall where the handle was connected to. The sound akin to a balloon being blown up came from the wall as a thin but sturdy metal board extended from the same area the handle just was. A rolled up air mattress released itself afterwards and became fully inflated in a matter of seconds.

The brother could only chuckle as he watched his sister gawk at the intuitive construct that formed from the wall. The brother repeated this with the lower handle and fully revealed the bunk beds the two would be using.

"This is so cool." She said plainly, but the amazement that danced in her wide eyes spoke her true feelings.

"Yeah, make sure to thank mom and dad for getting us these tickets. The train station may have gone public, but they said they had to fight tooth and nail to even get two. They'll be taking the plane so we'll actually be seeing them a day or so after we get there." He said, taking his small backpack off and placing it on the lower bunk. The sister did the same, and placed her coat on a nearby hook. The train's warming features truly were impressive.

"Speaking of mom and dad," she began, turning to look at her brother, who was retrieving a smartphone from the deep crevices of his carryon. He stopped halfway, raising an eyebrow to his sister's question that was yet to be asked.

"When's the last time you called them?" The following silence and continued rummaging through his bag spoke volumes to her. She inwardly sighed at this and placed herself down on the crimson colored couch.

"I talked with them yesterday while I was packing up and getting ready, they haven't really heard from you in, well, months now." She said, bringing her hands together in her lap, her view to the ground as she didn't want to see her brother's face at the moment. She knew well of what reason her brother chose not to talk with their parents.

How long has it been since they both had to move up north to live with other relatives due to their parent's financial habits? How long had it been since her and her brother had gotten used to the long commutes they made with each other to their new highschool, being middle year transfers, having to say goodbye to their old friends, and significant others, just to keep on going on life? What did that path look like now seeing that the family now we're millionaires due to their mother and father taking that dare in the realm of stocks and actually striking out rich?

Could such decisions that ultimately affected the lives of one's children be forgiven? Did the ends really justify the means?

The sister held no real answer to this, even after their parents had told them both how wealthy they were now. But, the brother's mind was already made up, the indignation he felt, one that formed by his life being controlled by the gamble his parents made that flipped his and his sister's life upside down, was not going to just die so easily.

"I'll get on it." He deadpanned. The girl only rolled her eyes at this before plucking at a pocket of his satchel, retrieving a dark bag that held his wired headphones. She held them with a bemused look, before her brother half jokingly and forcibly snatched it from her.

"Okay. Obviously this call will happen before we get off the train, right?" She followed, less of a question and more of a suggestion. The young man only rolled his eyes and proceeded to play his music through his connected earbuds. Before he could place them in his ears and mentally retreat, the sister snatched the device from his hands along with the trailing headphones. This immediately earned her a look of great irritation from her brother. A sight that was all the much daunting as it was familiar. She was a younger sibling this was not the first time this expression was seen, nor would it be the last.

"Right?" She said again, louder to add emphasis whilst holding his beloved technology just out of reach.

"What is your deal? It's just a freaking call to Mom and Dad. You know, the people responsible for putting us on this planet." She said in a condescending tone that only wore at the younger man's patience.

"It's more than that and you know it." He said, his pale face quickly becoming flushed as he lunged forward from the edge of the bed towards the hand his sister held his smartphone. His attempt was a failure as his sister had predicted his movements and threw the phone into the air, catching it with her other free hand.

"Can't we just bury that crap for now? We're on vacation! This time of relaxation and no snow and cold and slipping on random patches of black ice are not going to be ruined because you can get out of your head!" She snapped, her face turning a bright crimson. The brother only responded by clenching his teeth down harder, making them feel as if they would shatter under the pressure at any moment.

"Of course you would say that! Not smart enough to graduate on time, and now not smart enough to even comprehend what our goddam parents did to us, made us go through, just because they couldn't stand working nine to fives!" His words were dredged in venom, the sister feeling the cold sting of each word. Even as her face emulated the shock she felt from the cruel words her brother spoke, he continued his onslaught of unwarranted words.

As he finished, short of breath and his face so heated that he felt feverish, he finally saw the deluge of tears falling from his sister's lids. Just a moment ago he thought each syllable he spoke held complete and unquestionable logic. That feeling melted away like the snow that fell and stuck to the heated window of their compartment.

Their argument was so intense they didn't notice the muffled noises of the advanced bullet train's plethora of mechanisms coming to life. The lengthy vehicle's departure from the station started slow, but gradually built up in speed. The sluggish movement becomes preternatural in velocity within a matter of seconds. Inertia control systems and momentum regulating materials within the train made the departure seem all the more indistinguishable than a gust of wind.

All passengers marveled and cheered at the beginning of the departure to their corresponding destinations. All passengers, except the young man's sister. She didn't want to be on the train anymore. But as she witnessed the city turn from a dark stretching blur against the speeding train into a tiny black dot against the horizon, she decided that not being in the room would be a better substitute.

Leaving the phone where she was sitting, she gingerly picked herself up from the couch, feeling as if she just completed a hockey training drill, and proceeded to the room's door.

Her brother impatiently called for her to sit back, following up with a myriad of apologies of his behavior and words. None of them reached her, as if the distance his words had to travel rivaled that of the distance the train had to the station they just left.

She closed the door behind her, making sure not to slam it. She wouldn't allow her current feelings of indignations and emotional agony to spill out. Not until she could find a space that she could have all to herself.

The mental flood gates almost came undone as she walked into someone hard enough to make her stumble backwards. How ironic that a prodigal ice skater was nearly knocked on her ass from a small collision like this.

"I'm so sorry honey!" A warm and effeminate voice sounded as strong but gentle hands grabbed the girl by her shoulders to prevent her fall, dusting off her shoulders more in a sense of showing his care for her well being than actually removing any form of detritus from her long sleeves.

The girl responded in a hushed tone and her flushed skin made the worker notice she was distressed.

"I'm fine, um," she said quickly, shaking her head, closing her eyes trying to restrain the warm tears from falling. She took a deep breath through her nostrils, collecting herself before speaking again. She spoke, but vigilantly caught herself as she heard how hoarse and melancholic her voice sounded.

"Do you know where I can have a few moments to myself?" She said, finally letting the words escape her lips. The worker nodded his head and gestured further down the wooden hallway to a door with a unisex bathroom symbol on it, illuminated green against a black wooden door.

She gave a quick thanks and hastily proceeded to her temporary sanctuary. Even before halfway down the hall, the multitude of emotions came flooding out, her form shivering violently as she stifled a sob. The train empire employee could only watch as the despondent passenger finally ducked into the restroom.

The room was large enough to hold a black colored toilet and a black sink to match. The walls were a clean white tile, each square contained tiny two dimensional painted red trains, unmoving gray smoke billowing from their chimneys.

Though the sister's attention wasn't on the cozy design of the restroom.

How many minutes, or hours, had she spent crying into her hands. In a train where no motion could be felt, the time seemed so compressed. But she definitely had her fair share of time to lacrimate in the restroom. This was signaled by a sudden vigorous banging on the restroom's locked door.

"Just a second!" She called out to the person who stood beyond the door. As she picked herself from the toilet seat and dashed her face with cold water, she prepared to face the person who will see her current visage, the residual sadness still felt on her heavy eyelids. And she was unsure of how she would respond if she opened the door to her brother's face.

Shaking her hands of the water she used as a makeshift remedy for her reddened face, she turned to the roll of disposable paper towels. She pulled for a few sheets of the drying paper but this turned into nearly ten sheets pulled as another set of powerful and urgent rapps on the door. The girl repeated her previously spoken words again, with less patience in her tone this time. She shook her head in disbelief and went to pick up the fallen paper towels, simultaneously drying her hands with ones she deemed hadn’t been too in contact with the restroom’s checkered patterned floor. Yet again, the knocks on the door were now a drastic banging sound, and the girl’s irritation slowly morphed into morbid curiosity and dread. Shaking away her worries along with any residual tears, she proceeded to fling open the train’s restroom door. She was about to prepare a very brusque response to the person’s insistent knocking, but there was nobody on the other side. She stood baffled for a moment, was it someone playing a trick on her, with her luck probably. But this thought held a few holes in its logic.

“Where did-” She began, looking down either of the train’s corridors. Nothing but fancy wood coupled with fancy light fixtures. They couldn’t have gone into another room that quickly, without making a sound either. The banging wasn’t her imagination, nor could it have been the sound made by someone knocking on a door on the same side this one was on. She knew it was her door that someone was trying to get open, she clearly remembered seeing the wooden boundary shaking with the repeated slamming of someone’s fist.

Before she could continue on the inquiry, something else more alarming finally caught her attention. There was a small drone that rang down the hallway, from the door that led towards the train’s dining cart. It sounded like… screaming?

No, not just screaming, people’s distinct voices could be heard from down the hall as well. Some were in anguish, others were pleading, there was even one person who screeched as something unseen happened to their loved one. The girl was mortified by the lack of context that any of this had, but this would all begin to make even less sense with the following events.

A sound, like metal groaning, emitted from the wall right in front of the opened restroom. She was halfway within and out of the boundary separating the hallway from the small space, easing herself back into its confines when she turned and looked to the area that the odd sound came from. There was something wrong with the wood in that section of the wall, but she couldn’t comprehend what. Or maybe it was that she didn’t want to.

The coloration of the wood within the hall was dark bronze and had a glossy film; a common color theme within the train, but this part of the wall was dull in coloration and false luster. No, it was continuing to lose color, what was at first a slight pale brown was now completely gray. Differing shades of gray, suddenly taking over the stripes of brown and black that the wall initially had, fragmenting; forming into multiple spots of black, white and even more incomprehensible shades of gray.

The younger sister could only watch in horrid amazement as these spots began to move in chaotic motion whilst continuing their proliferation. The wall took on the appearance of soundless television static, persisting for a few moments before the sound of metal tearing and wood splintering suddenly filled her senses and color returned to the spot in the wall.

But it was the wrong color. What was before a patch of murky gray was now a blur of greens and a constant shade of an overhanging blue. It took her a moment to realize what she was looking at, and in that same moment the difference in pressure ripped her from the confined space of the bathroom. She was staring at the outside of the speeding train.

She screamed as she managed to grasp for the door’s handle, her feet kicking wildly as the suction threatened to send her spiraling out of the new and dangerous opening in the train’s side. Fresh tears peeled from her eyelids, flying into the crudely made hole in the wall. Along with used and unused paper towels, and the roll of untouched toilet paper streamed past her like a paper thin serpent hastily slithering away.

As if her demented situation couldn’t become much worse, she felt the very door that prevented her from flying out into the bright void that was the outside come undone. The combined force of the suction, her weight and the door’s intrinsic heaviness were tearing at the hinges that kept it in place, screws becoming stripped and flinging out of the train at high speeds,with its respective hinge following suit.

In this moment, as she wailed with her given situation, the cries of the other passengers a distant memory now, something else crowded her mind. Her own memories.

Her life was flashing before her eyes, even in this moment, her vision was being overcome with all of her core memories. Her first tricycle and how she broke it, her first bouncy castle she got for her seventh birthday, her first kiss, her last failed exam, her mother, her father, her brother, her ice skating…

Wait! She thought to herself. If anything could get her out of this situation, she would have to take that chance. All the maneuvers she could pull off while skating freestyle, at the speeds she could pick up when sliding on the ice, who’s to say she couldn’t emulate that now in this moment. The door was now angled diagonally to the ceiling, on its last screw and hinge, the girl focused and began throwing her center of weight towards any direction away from the hole. She counted, braced herself, flexed every muscle she knew and others she rarely used, and with the door losing its last grip on the wall, she threw herself down the hall. The force of the suction still drove her towards the other side of the hallway, but she forced herself out of the way of the destructive path where outside met inside. She slammed into the wall, her back aching from the pain as her head swam from the concussion; but she still felt the solid floor under her body, she knew she made it. Steadily she picked herself from the ground and groaned from the pain. The vacuum effect had gone away, the door that had been violently ripped from its hinges now plastered over where the hole in the train appeared.

How fast is this train going?

Turning around to quickly run down the hall, putting weight on her left foot proved impossible as pain shot up her leg like a bolt of lightning. She bit her lip and persevered. She may have been mad at him because of the things he said, and of the things he just didn’t understand, but she needed her brother to feel safe. She needed to make sure that he was alright, and let him know that she was too. She ran back to the room and flung open the door, only to see that he wasn’t there.

She was horrified, was he in the area of the train she heard those people’s screams from? She could only hope not, but he couldn’t possibly be anywhere else that made sense. Unless, that destruction of the side of the train… could it happen to people too?

She shook her head at the idea and closed the door. She couldn’t think like that, not if she wanted to keep the strength that she had left. But from the argument to her nearly losing her own life, the girl was reaching her limit. But she needed to push forward, to at least make sure that her brother was safe, and to see that they all made it off this train before the same thing happened to anything, or anyone, else.

Passing the still wall stuck door, she made her way to the dining component of the train. Opening the door, she was met with an unsettling noise. Absolute silence, it hung in the air like a dampness. But was it just the silence that made the air feel that heavy? She didn’t want to ruminate on this long and continued to limp further into the cart. Opening up another door, she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the person she was looking for, and someone else. No, something else.

Her brother was suspended off the ground, being held up by his neck with long and spindly fingers clasped. The figure that held him so unceremoniously was adorned in what could only be described as moving shadows. They were towering in height as well as appearance, the back of his head shrouded in a hood of the same mysterious material of their mantle. Their grip on her brother tightened, the thin fingers betraying their actual strength as the older brother gasped for air. In an attempt to stop the assault on her brother, she tried calling out to cease their action, but could only muster a pitiable cry of defiance.

In a sudden series of motions, the figure's hooded head noticeably crooked to one side with a loud and wet snap. Then the back of the hood revolved around, revealing a ghastly face. Their visage was pale, gaunt and sickly, dark trails of some oily substance pouring from their eyes and nose. But what was horrifying wasn’t just the fact that their head faced the younger sister while the rest of their body faced the still restrained young man, or the mysterious liquid that poured continually from their orifices, but the unnerving smile that the being flashed at her.

“Ah, little one.” The figure spoke in a bone chilling voice, as if it was straining to speak every syllable.

“Would you care to join us?” They said, blindly bringing a single pale finger to her brother’s forehead and tapping it slightly. The brother went limp and began to transform into muted static. She stared in horror as the figure abruptly dropped him, his body vanishing before it even made contact with the ground.

“Join us, in darkness?” The figure said, finishing its question.

The walls of the dining area then became drowned out in that same quiet static, the walls giving way to the outside world. Wind nearly threw the young girl from her feet, but she clutched hard on a bolted dining chair, marooned to the spot.

Their form then drifted quickly towards the sister, arms outstretched to embrace her in the darkness of its form. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t even back away in horror. Her paralysis seemed almost unnatural, but not total.

She couldn’t move a single muscle, no, all she could do was scream.