The interstellar train glided noiselessly along the tracks, and outside the window there was never-ending darkness.
Simin leaned back in her seat, her Tang Dynasty sword "Manju Shahua" resting on her lap, the blood-colored lines on its sheath glowing faintly in the dimly lit compartment. Her breathing gradually stabilized, her eyelashes lowered, and she fell into a long-lost slumber.
Dreams came like a tidal wave.
She saw the attic of the orphanage, its tin roof hammered by torrential rains; she saw Ferya tiptoeing to reach the clockwork bird in the ventilation ducts, the wisteria hair strings slipping out of her hair; she saw the bronze-armored soldiers shoving crying children into incubation pods while she herself deadened the wooden crate hiding Ferya with her mechanical prosthetic limbs...
Her forehead rested against the cold window, the indentation of glass lingering on her skin. Outside the window, a thick gray fog churned like a pot of boiling lead, occasionally revealing a few withered tree shadows that were quickly swallowed by the mist. The fog was not static, but undulated like the breath of some living thing, leaving sinuous water marks on the glass.
The air in the carriage was murky, a mixture of leather, dust, and some kind of sweet, putrid odor. Simone straightened up, her cervical vertebrae making a slight "click". Her right hand subconsciously touched the Tang sword "Manjushahua" at her waist, and the dark red lines on the sheath glowed in the dimness, like veins soaked in blood.
The carriage was unusually empty.
She distinctly remembered that there were at least a dozen passengers here when she boarded the train. In the front row, the businessman in the camel-colored coat had been polishing his gold-rimmed glasses; across the aisle sat a young mother with a baby in her arms, who hummed a strange lullaby when the child cried; and in the back row there were two schoolboys sharing an old book with a gold-stamped cover, with dried petals dropping out of the pages from time to time.
Now, all of these people were gone.
The merchant's glasses rested on the seat, a greasy mist covering the lenses; the baby's rattle rolled down the center of the aisle, the drum stained with a suspiciously dark red; and the old book lay flipped open in the corner, its pages rustling without wind.
Sifu's fingertips brushed over the hilt of the knife. A subtle tremor came from the blade, like the low growl of a beast that smelled danger. This blade never signaled an alarm for no reason.
As she stood up, the tip of her boot kicked against a metal object. Looking down, she saw a brass pocket watch with the words "To my dear Irene" engraved on the case. As she picked it up, the glass dial cracked into a spiderweb of lines, and the hour and minute hands began to spin wildly, finally coming to rest at 3:07. The movement of the watch made a dying "click" sound, and then came to a complete standstill.
"Damn..."
Simin threw the pocket watch back to the ground and walked towards the next compartment. The moment he pushed the door, the sweet, putrid odor became even stronger. In the dining car, a dozen sets of cutlery were neatly arranged on a table covered with a white tablecloth, and in front of each seat was a bowl of steaming thick soup. Pale chunks of meat floated on the surface of the soup, and those tissues were slowly stretching, like the writhing of a deep-sea creature awakening.
On the nearest table, half a cup of coffee was still steaming. Szell reached out to touch the wall of the cup, and the temperature coming from her fingertips was incredibly hot. The moment she retracted her hand, the ceramic cup "snapped" and cracked in half, the hot liquid spreading across the snow-white tablecloth, forming a string of skewed words:
"Don't get off."
The dark brown coffee stains suddenly turned a dark red, and Szell took half a step back, watching the liquid swim through the fabric fibers like it was alive, finally coalescing into a larger word:
"Escape."
There was a muffled thud outside the window.
Sifu turned his head sharply, and there was a complete handprint imprinted on the right window - five fingers open, palm lines clearly visible. What was even more terrifying was that dark red liquid was oozing out from the edges of the handprint, and that liquid was slowly sliding down the glass, tracing branch-like marks on the window surface.
She looked down at her right hand. The palm was smooth and dry, without any blood.
"Attention all travelers."
The sudden sound of an announcement made Simi tense up. The sweet voice of the announcer carried an eerie tremor over the current murmur:
"This train is about to arrive-"
The voice ended abruptly. It was replaced by a sharp whistling sound that sounded like countless fingernails scraping against glass, or like the wail of some creature being torn alive. Szell covered her ears, but the whistling sound burrowed right into her skull and vibrated deep within her medulla.
As the whistling reached its peak, all the windows of the car burst at the same time.
There was no sound of shattering glass, no splattering of debris - those windows disappeared as if they had never existed. Thick fog poured into the car like a tidal wave, and Szell saw countless blurry humanoid silhouettes in the mist, which maintained their running postures but stayed in place.
By the time the fog cleared, the view out the window had changed drastically.
Crooked spired churches pierced the sea of fog, their rusty crosses swaying in the wind; dozens of black-uniformed ticket inspectors lined the platform, wearing ghastly ceramic masks, each maintaining the exact same smile; and even further away, colorful fudge was squirming behind the glass in the window of a candy store.
But a split second later,
The church with the spire was already golden, with hymns lingering on the cross, all the ticket inspectors lined up on the platform had changed to a signature smile, as if they were modest gentlemen, and in the candy store in the distance, colorful fudge was lying quietly, emitting a tantalizing glow.
Simin looked down at the ticket in his hand. The original clear words "Behemoth Station" were dissolving, and the ink was turning into a glittering gilt liquid that fell drop by drop onto the tips of her boots. As the last bit of ink disappeared, small, previously non-existent letters appeared on the face of the ticket:
"Welcome home, Szell."
Below the words was a faint palm print, indistinguishable from the size of her right hand.