Tarrin stood at the train center, the air thick with movement and noise. Vendors shouted over the hum of conversation, hawking last-minute tickets and overpriced food.
Footsteps clattered against the polished floors, a constant rhythm of travelers coming and going.
He checked his phone. Almost time.
Four hours had slipped by in a blur, and now—standing here, surrounded by people who had no idea what waited beyond the Isles—reality finally caught up to him.
He wasn't just another face in the crowd anymore.
He was a soldier.
A man destined to die, forgotten.
'Damn it. I haven't even left the Isle, and I'm already thinking about dying. Talk about positive thoughts.'
Tarrin exhaled, shaking the thought away.
Around him, a handful of recruits stood in uneasy silence—five, maybe six.
Most clutched their freshly printed military IDs like lifelines, their families gathered close, whispering last goodbyes.
Mothers clung to sons, fathers gave stiff nods, some siblings put on brave faces. Tarrin had no one to see him off.
A shrill crackle burst from the overhead speakers, followed by a flat, automated voice.
"The Loop will be arriving at Lane Four-C shortly. Repeating, The Loop will be arriving at Lane Four-C. Please do not step on the rails."
A few beats later, it arrived. No thunderous roar, no dramatic entrance—just a hulking mass of obsidian metal, gliding to a stop with eerie silence.
The Lunarian Union's banners were plastered across its surface, too many of them.
No cheers. No fanfare.
Just a one-way trip to war.
The station fell into an unnatural hush. Vendors stopped calling out their deals, conversations died mid-sentence, and all eyes turned to the machine.
They knew what this train meant. Everyone did.
The Loop of Death.
No one spoke its name, but the weight of its reputation hung in the air like a thick fog. People had heard the stories—watched others board, but never return.
Now, they simply stood there, staring. Silent. Waiting.
Tarrin tightened his grip on his duffle bag, steeling himself to step forward.
But just as he did, his gaze caught on a boy near the edge of the platform, clutching his mother's hand. The kid wasn't crying or waving, just... watching.
His eyes, far too knowing for his age, locked onto Tarrin with something close to recognition.
Like he'd seen this moment before. Like he already knew how it ended.
'Why the hell is that runt looking at me like I'm already dead?'
Tarrin exhaled sharply, shaking off the thought. Without another glance, he stepped onto the train.
A conductor stood by the entrance, silent, impassive. He barely acknowledged Tarrin before motioning toward a machine beside him. A dull screen flickered to life.
INSERT MILITARY ID.
Tarrin slid his card in. A mechanical whir, a brief pause—then the card spat back out. No fanfare, no welcome. Just confirmation that he belonged to the system now.
Pocketing the ID, he moved down the narrow aisle, stepping into one of the carriages.
Rows of seats stretched ahead, the space clean but lifeless. A handful of recruits had already settled in.
Some stared out the windows, their eyes filled with something close to wonder.
Excitement. Anticipation.
Like they were heroes heading off to war, not bodies waiting to be buried. 'Fools.'
Tarrin dropped into a seat near the back, his duffle bag hitting the floor with a dull thud. He let his head rest against the cool glass, eyes drifting over the crowd outside.
The moment had already passed. The station buzzed back to life—vendors shouting, travelers rushing, families laughing. Just another day. The young recruits, their supposed sacrifice, were nothing more than a brief interruption, a fleeting moment soon erased by the pull of routine.
Ten minutes crawled by before the train shuddered and lurched forward. The city of Merlen blurred past, fading into the distance.
A place he might never see again. Just another piece of his past, slipping away.
He watched as the train spent the next few hours stopping at each city of Isle B4, every time pulling new bodies to fuel the slaughter of the mainland.
After hours of travel, they finally reached it—the barrier. Tarrin had never seen it before, only heard about it in passing.
Each Isle was encased in a massive atmospheric shell, a so-called bubble, shielding it from the Void's endless abyss.
At the very edge of every Isle stood the Union's last line of defense—a towering wall, built to hold back the unknown.
'Hah. And they said I never paid attention in school.'
A crackle from the intercom cut through the low hum of the train.
"Cadets, prepare yourselves. We will exit the safe bubble in two minutes. Ready your minds for Void exposure."
Tarrin exhaled slowly, rolling the words over in his head. Void exposure. No amount of warnings could truly explain it.
Then the lights flickered red. The alarm flared. And they were out.
Darkness.
The vibrant landscape of Merlen vanished in an instant, replaced by an expanse of nothingness.
No sky, no horizon—just an abyss stretching in every direction. The only thing between them and the endless fall was the bridge, a colossal structure of some magical metal.
Tarrin turned his head, taking in the sheer scale of it. Multiple lanes, armored vehicles rumbling alongside trains, all moving in orderly lines toward the mainland.
'It had to be over two hundred meters wide. Bloody-bane.'
Tarrin scanned the carriage, catching the wide-eyed stares of the other cadets. If he was being honest, their expressions mirrored his own.
But then, something shifted.
A whisper, faint and distant, slithered through his thoughts like a half-remembered dream. He turned sharply, eyes darting around the dim carriage, but there was nothing. Just the flickering cabin lights and the steady hum of the train. He strained his ears, but the words—if there were any—refused to take shape.
So these are the Void whispers? Pretty damn underwhelming.
His gaze flicked to the barely visible barrier surrounding the train, its near-transparent shimmer pulsing faintly against the abyss. Guess I have this thing to thank for keeping me sane.
The journey stretched on, the only company Tarrin had was his duffle bag and the gnawing silence of his own thoughts.
Then—
A piercing alarm ripped through the cabin. Red emergency lights flashed, casting jagged shadows across the walls.
Tarrin snapped upright, his heart pounding. He twisted in his seat, eyes darting to the others. No one knew what to do. Panic bled into the air like a slow-moving toxin.
The fuck is happening? Don't tell me I'm gonna die before I even reach the mainland.
The other recruits weren't much better—wide-eyed, frozen, clutching their seats like it would somehow save them. Then, at last, the speakers crackled to life.
"Void-spawn sighted. Estimated grade: Two. Risk of breach: Minimal. Do not panic. I repeat, do not panic."
The mechanical voice did little to soothe the tension in the air.
Tarrin's fingers clenched around the fabric of his pants.
A Void-spawn? Grade two? His mind raced, images of the rampaging horrors that tore through cities flashing through his head.
Can this day get any worse?
A thick silence settled over the carriage.
Then—
Bang.
A single thunderclap of sound split the silence like a hammer through glass. Tarrin jolted, heart skipping. A cannon. No mistaking it.
He turned to the window, peering into the endless dark beyond the barrier. Nothing but void. No flash. No wreckage. No movement.
Was that it?One shot, and it was over? He didn't believe it. Not for a second.
Grade two doesn't sound impressive—but from what I've heard, one of those things could rip this train in half without breaking a sweat.
But no more shots came. No tremors. No warnings.
Just silence.
The only thing filling the cabin now was the shallow, shaky breathing of recruits too scared to speak.
The Loop kept moving—smooth, mechanical, indifferent. Like this was all just routine.
Maybe it was.
But for Tarrin, this was anything but routine.
Time dragged. Minutes stretched. Eventually, silence gave way to fatigue, and the hours slipped past unnoticed.
Until finally—
The next Isle came into view.
B-Three.
Color felt foreign, almost staged—like someone had turned up the contrast on reality just to mess with his head.
The Loop slid through the landscape, past outposts and minor ports, until the sprawl of Kaelis Port loomed into view.
Named after the river that cut the Isle in half, it was a name every kid learned in school—though few cared to remember.
Across the aisle, a recruit broke the silence with a low whisper. "They say the ships here are built from Void-spawn bones."
Another grunted in response. "Bullshit. My uncle works at Veliforge. It's just ore and dead men's sweat."
Tarrin barely heard them. The colors kept flowing past the windows, but his mind was drifting far ahead—toward Isle A-One, the military heart of the Lunarian Federation.
He'd seen the propaganda vids, the holoboards with marching soldiers and gleaming towers. All smoke and mirrors.
What did the place actually look like? How did it feel to stand on the soil where everything began?
Would it break him?
Faces flashed through his memory—some faint, some sharp enough to hurt. People he left behind. People he might never see again.
And still, the train moved forward. Relentless.