Fractious Reverie

Alright. How would you like me to begin?

“Let’s begin from you waking up.”

What would you like me to say about it? It wasn’t anything spectacular—I really don’t think that it’s a good place to start.

“Well, what do you remember from the point that you woke up? Was there anything memorable about it—“

Oh. Well, um, I do remember that my neck hurt; I guess that I had been sleeping in a weird position—like with my head pressed up against the window, or something. I had one of those jerk things—

“A hypnogogic jerk.”

Yeah, yeah, sure, one of those.

“What do you remember first seeing?”

The sun was coming through the window (right into my eyes), and since my head was already against it, I think I just looked outside.

“What did you see?”

A lot of trees—like a forest or something—were like a hundred feet from the train. I don’t know if it was actually a hundred feet; maybe that was an exaggeration or maybe they were even further away—I’m not great with distances.

“That’s okay—those aren’t the details that I’m interested in.”

Oh… okay. What details are you interested in?

“Well, for instance, how did you know that you were on a train? You didn’t get on a train, right?”

I kind of just knew and didn’t question it. I don’t know how I got there, no.

“So, what did you do next?”

Well, I didn’t remember getting on the train, so I started looking for a ticket in my coat and pant pockets.

“Why?”

Oh, uh, I don’t know—you need one to ride, so I just instinctively started looking to see if I had one in case the conductor (or whoever the ticket person is) came around.

“I get the need for a ticket to ride a train—I do—but what about that was instinct for you? Have you ever ridden a train?”

Mmm… not an actual train, just, like, around a park once; like a small train just meant for fun.

“So why was it instinctive?”

I guess maybe because that’s what I’ve seen other people doing in movies that I’ve seen? I don’t know what to tell you—it just made sense to look.

“Okay, see, that is interesting to me and something that I’ll be happy to have on the record from you. Did you ever find a ticket?”

Nope. My pockets were actually empty.

“What did you do?”

Well, I started to look around me. I was in a cabin with those seats that look at one another, so it was pretty small.

“And the ticket wasn’t in there?”

Well, I was looking around me and was about to look around the rest of the cabin, except that there was a girl that was cowering in the corner. She was balled up in the corner and was kind of crying (it sounded like) but it was like she was trying not to cry so it was quiet, so I hadn’t noticed her before that. It was awkward, though, because we were the only two in there, and I was never all that good at comforting others or in situations like that: I just never know what to say.

“Hmm. How old was she?”

She must’ve been like sixteen, maybe seventeen.

“Was she pretty?”

Ew, no, that’s weird.

“You’ve only just turned nineteen… That’s not a large gap. What is weird about that?”

Oh, well, if it was actually me, then that would’ve been fine, but I wasn’t actually me.

“What do you mean? Who were you?”

I don’t actually know, but I was like fifty, and in my fifty year-old mind, she just looked like a child.

“Okay… Alright, so you didn’t talk to her at all? What did you do, then?”

Uh… I didn’t talk to her at first, at least, for like a half an hour. I was just looking out the window, waiting for the next stop (to see where we were). I was looking out, and we started getting into this town and were coming up on the station, except that we didn’t stop.

“When? At the station?”

Yeah, at the station. It wasn’t terribly big, but it was a good sized station, and there were a ton of people that I could see from the window, so I just assumed that we would stop. But we didn’t! We came into the station and then left without even slowing down. I don’t know how fast we were going, but, if I were one of the people at the station, I would’ve been terrified.

“How did the people react?”

Well, umm, they didn’t, really. They acted like they didn’t even see us come through. But in a brick building like that, and with how tall it was, our train must’ve been so loud, so they must’ve noticed—they had to.

“So the train didn’t even slow down?”

Nope.

“And nobody reacted?”

No one.

“Not even the girl?”

I actually don’t know what she did. Um… I was looking out the window the entire time, just, like, watching the people go by and wondering when we were going to be stopping. But! When we were out of the station again, I was so confused that I needed to get out of the cabin or talk to her or something, so I turned back to her then.

“And?”

And, well, she was still kind of crying and didn’t look like she had moved at all, really.

“So what did you do?”

Well, that’s when I tried to talk to her at first. I just cleared my throat kinda loud and she looked up at me finally… I don’t think she knew that I was there.

“Why do you think that?”

I mean, she seemed pretty startled. She looked up so fast and her hands shot to her side and her eyes got pretty wide. She was already distressed, though.

“Do you know why?”

Yeah… yeah… [whew]… So, I was about to ask her where the train was going—or something dumb like that—but I saw the shadow of someone standing outside the door. They weren’t facing the door, though, it was like they were walking down the aisle and then stopped in their tracks outside our cabin.

“How long had they been there?”

I don’t know… The girl crying was so awkward that I hadn’t even noticed that the shade to the window was down, much less that there was a shadow in it.

“Okay… and…?”

I thought that the person might be the conductor or someone coming around. At this point, I didn’t even care that I didn’t have a ticket: they had some explaining to do with what happened at the station. So, I was about to cross the cabin to get to the door, but the girl started getting up and in my way and she was waving her arms and… well, she looked horrified. I still didn’t know the gravity of the situation, I guess, and I asked her, ‘what?’. I was a little too loud, though, and the shadow heard me, so, even though the girl pleaded with me through shushes, it was too late—the door began to open.

“Was it the conductor?”

Uhh… of sorts. It… well… It wasn’t even human (at least, I don’t think it was). The thing had legs and arms and a head like a human, but no features—no eyes, no mouth, no nose, not even finger nails. It was like a shadow of a person was made 3D and given a bag of pink skin to walk around in. It was tall, and wrinkly, and awful to look at. I… I didn’t know what to do. The thing was so disgusting. The girl—she was smart—she ran [ha]. She ran right around it and she was gone. And I was frozen.

“Umm… how did it hear you if it didn’t have ears?”

I don’t know.

“Did it do anything to you?”

Well, nothing physical, yet. It had just come into the cabin like a step or two and then it let out this shriek like a beast or a banshee or something.

“Again, not to nitpick or anything, but, if it didn’t have a mouth, how did it ‘shriek’ at you?”

I don’t know!

“Alright… alright… continue, I guess.”

Uh… well, the shriek really snapped me out of it and I freaked and ran around the thing too and into the hall and in the direction that the girl had run. I could hear the thing running behind me, which freaked me out even more. But it wasn’t running like a regular person runs: it was running like moving in a faster awkward shuffle that people learning to walk do, so I was able to get some separation from it.

“Where were you running to? You didn’t know where the girl had gone, right?”

No, I didn’t. I was running by a bunch of cabins just like the one we had been in, and she could have been in any of those cabins, but that thing was following me and I didn’t know what it would do if it caught me, so I just wanted out of the car altogether. I got to the end, and (thankfully) there was another car at the end I was at, so I just hurried out of the one and into the other. It’s funny, though… I don’t even remember the process of moving between cars, it kind of just happened. Like, is there a passage way that goes between cars? How is that safe? I couldn’t tell you anything about the process of moving cars, all I remember was being in the one with the thing coming at me and then being in the other, with nothing in between.

“So the details are hazy?”

Everything that I do remember I remember so vividly. It isn’t anything that changes the story.

“Okay… alright… it was just a question, no need to get defensive about it. Let’s keep going, alright? Was this car like the last?”

No, this one was wide open and dark. There were a bunch of wooden barrels in lines in this one; I don’t think we were supposed to be in this one. And the barrels were big too, like up to my chest and pretty wide. I thought that, maybe, the girl was hiding in here, so I started looking around. I didn’t know when that thing would figure out how to get over to this car, so I was keeping pretty low. And I was right—the girl was hiding in there—she was in a ball again behind one of the barrels, and I guess she thought I was that thing, because I scared her pretty good again. After she saw it was me though, she calmed down a little and I crouched down next to her behind the barrel.

“Did you talk to her then?”

Yeah, I was telling her sorry for scaring her, and I was (for the sake of honesty) freaking out pretty bad too. She shushed me a few times again, and then, when I finally calmed down, I asked her, ‘what was that?’

She, whispering, said, ‘I don’t know.’

And, I, trying to figure out how to escape from it, asked when the train was going to stop, and she told me that the train never stopped. Now, typically I would have tried to use reason and would’ve argued that she was being dramatic and that the train had to stop, but it didn’t even slow down at the station we went through, I had no idea what the skin-bag guy was nor how he let out that god-awful sound without a mouth, and I didn’t know who I was nor how I got on the train, so nothing was making sense anyway. And she just seemed so serious and sad and grim that it was hard to see her lying in that moment.

So I started freaking out a little again and was trying to think and I had nothing… absolutely no ideas. I asked for input from her and she seemed a little exasperated, honestly. She told me that the only way off the train was to jump off of it.

“Off of a moving train? That doesn’t seem smart. Why not get to the engine and ask for it to stop or see when it was stop or (I guess if it came to it) slow it down yourselves?”

[hah ha] Yeah, that was my thought too. She said that there were only three cars and no engine… That seems ridiculous saying that now, but that’s what she told me. One car was just seats, one (the middle one and the one I woke up in) was cabins, and the third was the one we were in. And then she told me that we (me, her, and skin-bag) were the only ones on the train—no other passengers, no engineer, no one else.

“And you took her word for that?”

Uhhh… yeah…

“Why you two? Who was she?”

I was about to ask that, but it was clear that she was looking past me and her face went pale, so I looked behind me, and the thing was mere feet from me. I don’t know how it snuck up on us… we didn’t even hear it come into the car.

“What did you do?”

Well, I was trying to get up again, but the thing, despite it’s awkward shuffle run, got there too quick and fell on me. The skin was so loose, so, when it grabbed my arm, I was able to pull a little, but it only pulled the skin and stretched it out and had no effect on its grip on me. I tried to push with my other arm on its face, but the skin again just pushed and wrinkled on its head and did nothing against it. Its grip was so strong, and it pulled me the rest of the way to my feet and continued pulling until my arm was where its mouth should have been. I didn’t know what it could possibly do… I mean, it didn’t even have a mouth. I tried to pull away as best as I could, but the thing was too strong and easily brought my arm all the way up and smashed it into his gooey skin. I didn’t feel anything at first, but then I felt this sharp, intense, pain in my arm, and then gashes began appearing and blood started washing down.

“But it didn’t have teeth…”

That’s well established. Still, it was eating into me somehow, and it… [whoo]… it hurt so bad.

“What about the girl?”

What about her?

“Where did she go?”

Well, I assume she ran at first, but then, when she saw the trouble I had gotten into, she eventually ran at the thing and shoved it pretty hard.

“Enough to knock it down for you to escape?”

Uhh… No. I assume it wanted her more than me for some reason, because it kind of just dropped me and came after her.

“And she ran again?”

Yeah, she tried to run, but the thing was between her and the door, so she couldn’t get to the middle car again without running right at it. It started shuffling her way, so I grabbed onto its ankle, which didn’t slow it down a ton, but I guess it annoyed it because the thing turned around, lowered itself to grab me, picked me up (with incredible ease), held me up to its face and shrieked at me, then hurled me toward the girl. The thing had horrible aim, but it did throw me a a good deal towards the back of the car. I was a little dazed, but the girl ran toward me and helped me to my feet, then we ran out the back of the car.

“So you were outside?”

Yeah, we were outside against the back rail, sometimes looking at the train tracks and sometimes looking back through the open door to see how close the thing was.

“What was outside like?”

Ummm… Well, it was bright, and it was hot.

“Did you see trees again?”

Nope, there was nothing green in sight. We were in the middle of some desert, but not like a desert with a bunch of cacti and weeds: it was just red dirt and was extremely flat, though there were some mountains in the distance to our left.

“How did you get out of this one?”

I asked the girl what she thought about jumping.

“That’s idiotic. Why not just run around this skin-bag thing if it was so slow?”

Well, the girl had said that it was the only way off the train.

“Okay, but why not wait until a place with some water? I’m sure you could’ve survived a little longer—maybe hide again or something.”

I don’t know… this version of me thought jumping then was logical.

“Did the girl think it was smart?”

No… she didn’t want to jump. She seemed about as scared of jumping as she was scared of the thing. I tried to convince her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She was in hysterics, and I didn’t know what to do—I wasn’t looking forward to jumping either.

“But you did jump?”

Well, we had taken so long trying to figure out what to do that the next thing I knew, the skin-bag was holding her by her throat and picking her up.

“What did you do?”

I didn’t know what to do.

“…So what did it do?”

[Whoo]… It turned her over and grabbed her by her ankle and held her out.

“…Did it drop her?”

…First it slammed her against the back of the train a few times. She was screaming when it grabbed her, and I… I don’t think it liked that. Her head was bleeding pretty bad, and she was limp, and then it dropped her.

“And, while it was doing that to her, you did nothing to—“

I didn’t know what to do!

“You could have ran at it like the girl did for you.”

I don’t know that that would’ve helped, and it might’ve thrown her from the train!

“…It dropped her head-first on the tracks from a moving train anyway.”

Yeah… it did… but…

“…but?”

Never mind.

“[tik]… Alright. So then you jumped?”

The thing started turning my way, so, yeah, I jumped.

“Did it hurt?”

Not really. I jumped to the side of the tracks a bit, so I just hit sand and crashed and rolled a little and it hurt, but not as bad as I would’ve thought.

“Interesting… Did you go back for the girl?”

Of course! She wasn’t too far behind, anyway.

“How was she?”

[Whew] Not good. She was bleeding from a myriad of places, had a bone sticking out of her arm, and something was wrong with her neck.

“…Did you help her?”

How?

“At all. Did you try to help her at all?”

…No… She was trying to crawl, and she was gasping for air, and she was in such bad shape that I couldn’t see her making it.

“So you did nothing?”

I’m not sure anything could’ve been done.

“…Well… Did you at least hold her and try to comfort her before she passed? Or did you talk to her to try and comfort her?”

Aww… No. Again, I’m not all that good in awkward situations like that.

“So you just left her?”

I mean, I stayed with her until she finally did die, of course. She did save my life, after all…

“So, you just watched her die?”

…Yeah…

“…How did you feel after that?”

I mean, my arm hurt and I was sore from jumping, but that’s it.

“I mean spiritually…”

Oh… uhhh… fine, I guess. A little freaked out, but I was alive, so I was good.

“…Gotcha… Whelp, I think you’re perfect. I’ll have to look over everything that we’ve discussed again with my supervisor, but I think it’s safe to say welcome to the program…”