The Infinity Express

Nica was beyond confused when she saw a woman identical to her sleeping in one of the train compartments. She checked the compartment and realized it was the same one she woke up in a few hours ago. She still had no memory of how she ended up on this train. She didn’t have her bag or any of her belongings with her, except for her phone which was dead. She didn’t even have a train ticket! She had been roaming around the train for hours but it seemed deserted. She appeared to be alone, up until now. She approached her doppelganger thinking maybe they would have answers. Suddenly, Nica jolted awake. She had the weirdest dream. She was on a runaway train all alone. She closed her eyes trying to remember the rest of the dream but the harder she tried, the faster it faded away. She gave up and opened her eyes. She took in her surroundings and realized her dream was coming true. Or was she still dreaming? Even worse, was she trapped in her dream? “Get a grip, Nica!” she thought to herself. She walked out of her compartment and had a weird sense of déjàvu. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement on her right and quickly turned her head. It was a blonde woman but she couldn’t see their face clearly. As she approached, the woman slid into the compartment nearest to her. Nica ran towards that compartment, lost her balance as she kicked something and almost fell. That woman must have dropped it. She picked up the phone with the intent of returning it to the woman. She was about to enter the compartment but stopped when she realized it was her phone. She quickly checked her pockets. It was empty. She had nothing on her. Not even a train ticket. Nica checked her phone and it was dead.

Pocketing her phone, she entered the compartment to confront the woman for having her phone. There was no one in there! Baffled, Nica walked out and began to explore the train. There was no one around and she started wondering if anyone was even controlling the train. All of a sudden, someone struck her from behind. Clutching her head, she turned around to see her attacker but she could only make out the blonde hair as she was losing consciousness. Nica jolted awake. She had the strangest dream. In the dream, she woke up on a train with no memory of getting on it and she didn’t even have a ticket. Then a blonde woman who had Nica’s phone attacked her. Still feeling shaky from the dream, it was a minute or two before Nica realized that she indeed was on a train. She immediately checked her pockets and found her phone. It was dead. But the blonde woman had her phone in the dream. So many things didn’t add up. She didn’t know why she was on a train. She has never taken a train before. She checked her pockets again, but there was no ticket. Thinking maybe she could get help from someone, she walked out of the compartment. At that moment, the part of her dream where she saw the blonde woman out of the corner of her eye flashed in her mind. Expecting to see the woman, Nica turned right but there was no one there. She walked around and started checking each compartment. Her panic was rising the more she explored the train because she came to the realization that she was alone and this was a runaway train. She was walking along the compartments again after a few hours of exploring the train and stopped dead in her tracks as she was caught by surprise. Nica was beyond confused when she saw a woman identical to her sleeping in one of the train compartments. She checked the compartment and realized it was the same one she woke up in a few hours ago. She still had no memory of how she ended up on this train.  She didn’t have her bag or any of her belongings, except for her phone which was dead. She approached her doppelganger thinking maybe they would have answers. Suddenly, they jolted awake. Nica got scared and ran out of the compartment. She didn’t stop until she was a few compartments away. Running with her phone in her back pocket was uncomfortable so she took it out to put it in her jacket pocket. At that same moment, her double came out of her compartment and Nica panicked. Her double saw her and started approaching. In haste, Nica accidentally dropped her phone and entered the nearest compartment without retrieving it. That’s when Nica realized that the blonde woman had her phone earlier because she dropped it now. She was the blonde woman. The blonde woman had hit her on the head before. Does that mean that Nica has to do the same thing to her double that would come in here any second now holding her phone? No, wait! Before this, when Nica entered the compartment of the blonde woman, it was empty. Does that mean she would disappear when her double comes in here? What the hell was happening? Is she trapped in her dream? And is it repeating? Is this a time loop? How is it possible for her past, present, and future self to be in the same timeline? Nica had so many questions and was questioning her sanity.

She saw her double walk into the compartment just as she successfully hid under the seats. She waited and watched as the legs of her double walked out of the compartment slowly. Nica emerged from under the seats and she knew what she had to do. She had to hit her double on her head because that’s what happened earlier to her. She also wondered what would happen if she didn’t follow that. Pondering that, she walked out of the compartment just in time to see a blonde woman strike her double on the head. So, it wasn’t her. It was another her! Nica immediately ran in the opposite direction to get away from her triple. Her head was pounding, threatening to crack open. She was bewildered; she didn’t know from where to even begin to think. She stopped running as she came across a compartment that she didn’t notice before. She entered and gasped loudly. There were so many of her inside. She lost count after twenty. They were all dead, slumped against each other. That’s when she realized this time loop had happened more than twenty times. So each time a Nica dies, a new Nica appears. In order to break out of this loop, she has to survive. Or any one of her doppelgangers has to survive. Why were they even attacking themselves? Fear, perhaps. But something wasn’t right. There’s more than one Nica running around the train now. The ones that she was sure of were herself, her triple, and the new Nica that would have just woken up because her double had died. That means either the First Nica didn’t die or the Second Nica appeared before the first died. So, it’s also possible for a new Nica to appear without a Nica dying. She closed her eyes trying to make sense of this revelation. As the blade penetrated her back, she inhaled sharply. Her double or triple or quadruple, she didn’t know who, pulled the knife out of her back, turned her around, and stabbed her a few more times before kicking her hard. She fell onto the pile of dead Nicas. Suddenly, Nica jolted awake. She had the weirdest dream.