Appearing before Silas was something he had never imagined he'd see.
The figure was tall, humanoid in build, and dressed in the familiar garb of a railway worker—high-vis jacket stretched across broad shoulders and a dark cap perched neatly on its head.
At a glance, it might have been mistaken for an ordinary ticket collector, the kind who ambled down carriages like some listless drone.
But then Silas' gaze climbed higher.
Its entire face was not flesh. Instead, it was an assembly of smooth metal plates and jointed seams, with no mouth, no nose, only two round, glassy eyes glowing faintly like dying coals. The joints in its cheeks whirred faintly as it shifted, the expressionless mask catching the dim carriage light in a dull sheen.
"Well, hello there." The figure spoke at last. Though the line representing its lips did not move, they curved into a subtle smile. "You don't look like the typical passenger here. I wonder… how you got on?"
Again, the figure spoke. The voice, shockingly, was not cold or distorted, but smooth—too smooth. The voice of a young man, warm in tone, entirely at odds with its mechanical visage.
In return, Silas tried to open his mouth, to force some kind of response, but nothing came out. His throat tightened, the sheer absurdity of the situation threatening to crush him.
"W-what is this? Where am I?" He managed at last, words tumbling out in a hoarse whisper.
"You don't know?" The ticket collector tilted his head with a strange, birdlike jerk. "Tsk. That's a first."
The figure rapped his metallic knuckles against the frame of the train.
Cling!
"This beauty right here is called Charon. It travels the myriad planes of the universe, taking along with it those… unsavoury souls."
Silas' eyelids twitched, his eyes narrowing. "What do you mean, unsavoury souls? The announcement mentioned Limbo—is that… hell?"
"Hell?" The figure let out a sound that was almost a laugh but came out more like a rasp dragging across rust. "I suppose that's what mortals call our final destination."
Silas swallowed hard. He wanted to ask why his first question remained unanswered. But realised that any answer would be of little use to him.
"There must be some mistake. I'm not dead. I shouldn't be here. Is there a way to get off?" His questions spilt out rapid-fire, desperate, each one tripping over the last.
The collector paused. The half-kind face he had worn before drained away, twisting into something uncanny, stretched too wide and far too still. The faint glow in his eye-sockets dimmed, then flared with a pale, unhealthy light.
"Mistake?" The word slithered out, heavy with disdain. It chuckled, but not with laughter. It was a mirthless metallic croak that reverberated like broken clockwork. "Charon makes no mistakes."
The sound of it crawled beneath Silas' skin, gnawing at his nerves. His stomach twisted as the collector leaned closer, voice low and sharp as a blade.
"I admit, you look… odd. But that is no reason to pretend to be mortal. None of them were brought here willingly."
The metal hand extended, gesturing toward the pale, mumbling silhouettes in the carriage. Their indistinct faces turned, just barely, in his direction.
Silas' heart thundered in his ears, but before he could protest, the collector's grip clamped down on his shoulder. Cold. Heavy. And, inhumanly strong.
"You heard the announcement." Its words were quiet, but the menace in them made Silas' skin prickle. "Charon's about to depart. Go find a seat."
Its grip loosened—but not before delivering a final, almost mocking pat. Then, with one violent shove, Silas was thrust forward into the carriage's yawning maw.
As Silas stepped into the main body of the carriage, his stomach twisted violently. The pale silhouettes scattered across the seats did not move, did not speak to him, yet he could not shake the sickening impression that their hollow eyes trailed him, circling him like vultures over carrion.
Understanding that what was to come was inevitable, Silas, with trembling legs, stumbled to a vacant pair of seats and dropped onto one with a dull thud.
He felt everything too vividly: the faint give of the cushion beneath him, the constant murmur of ghostly chatter, the oppressive presence of the idling machine at the front of the carriage.
But none of it distracted him.
Ba-dum! Ba-dum!
The pounding of his heart thrashed in his ears, a drumbeat of panic that only grew louder.
Desperate for escape, Silas turned to the window. He immediately regretted it.
The platform was gone. In its place sprawled a writhing sea of fog, blackened yet faintly luminous, as if it were alive. It rippled and twisted, sprouting shapes that pressed against the glass as though eager to crawl through.
One instant it became a screaming, eyeless face, its mouth opening wider and wider in eternal agony; the next, it shifted into the snout of some beast with jagged, unending teeth, its maw snapping shut just shy of the carriage. Behind each fleeting image lurked hundreds more, silent witnesses, distorted shades of grief, despair, and hunger.
"What is this…" Silas mumbled, clenching his fists so tightly his knuckles blanched.
Anger.
Frustration.
Bitterness.
A tide of emotions clawed against his fear, devouring it.
'Why is this happening to me?!' Silas screamed inwardly. He had been enrolled at a prestigious university in Breton. He had a complete family. Ahead of him lay a bright, ordinary future.
And now?
He was being dragged on a journey to hell. A journey he may not return from.
As he drowned in the haze of memory, long nights hunched over textbooks, dinners with his parents, the faint warmth of his childhood, an eerie silence fell upon the carriage.
It was broken by a low groan.
Crrrrrk!
The floor beneath him trembled. The entire train then shuddered to life. It jerked forward with a mechanical jolt. The sound of the train moving was alien to Silas. Less the clean rumble of modern rails and more a guttural shriek of rusted metal dragged across stone.
The ghosts around him went quiet. All eyes were fixed on the ticket collector, who stood proudly at the front.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" The figure gave an exaggerated bow, metallic joints squealing faintly as it dipped. "My name is Lethe. It is my pleasure to welcome you aboard Charon." His voice was smooth. "Our first stop will be Limbo. As a reminder, the price for this journey will be…"
He smiled, a twisted mimicry of cheer across his steel mask.
"…Innocence."
The word hit like a hammer.
The ghosts erupted. Their hushed murmurs became screams, shrieks, and guttural wails. Dozens of figures flung themselves against invisible restraints, clawing toward Lethe with wild, feral desperation. Their arms thrashed in vain, but unseen chains bound them, dragging them back into their seats.
Silas flinched, shifting nervously in his place, only to feel the same invisible force locking him down. His limbs refused to budge, as if shackled by some unseen hand.
"What did he mean by innocence?" Silas bit his lip, whispering to himself. "He can't mean… my virginity?" His face twisted as he glanced at the metallic entity at the front of the carriage before furiously shaking his head. "No, no. That definitely isn't it. But then…"
What was it?
The latter half of his words remained unsaid.
Meanwhile, Lethe strolled casually through the aisle, utterly unfazed by the hysteria.
He stopped before one of the passengers, a middle-aged man, his spectral form ragged and broken. His eyes were bloodshot, his clothing torn and smeared with dark stains, his face lined with guilt.
Lethe reached out. His cold, metallic fingers tapped the man's head.
The ghost froze. For a heartbeat, silence.
Then—
"No! No, why?! Why do this?!" the man howled, thrashing violently. "I didn't mean to hurt her! It was an accident! I already went to prison for it! Who are you to judge me again?!"
His cries echoed, sharp and raw, but fell on deaf ears.
Silas' hands dug into his thighs. Every word drilled into him like nails. 'What did Lethe do to him…?' His body trembled, the realisation dawning that his turn was inevitable.
Lethe moved on, tapping each ghost in turn. The chorus grew uglier, more frenzied:
"Damn it, you tin can! If I get out of this I'll grind you to dust! I'll kill you! I'll kill your family! I'll kill every last one of you freaks—HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Sorry! I'm sorry! Please don't hurt me!"
"Kill me! If you have the guts, just kill me! It's not like it's my first time dying!"
The words slammed into Silas from every direction, a storm of daggers stabbing at his sanity.
And then, it was his turn.
Lethe loomed over him, with a now familiar grin etched into steel.
"Ah," the machine crooned. "And what will you show me, I wonder?"
Silas' teeth ground together. His body locked in fear as Lethe's cold fingers pressed against his forehead.
Then—
The world around him dissolved into silence.
Memories. They flickered like film reels, flashing through Silas' thoughts. Conversations long gone. Transient thoughts. Fading faces.
Until one slowed.
Silas knew this memory.
It was from his childhood.
The memory soon appeared with greater clarity.
There he was, in a run-down neighbourhood. Its walls were crumbling with weeds splitting the pavement. The small playground he was in was abandoned, with rust climbing up the swings and slide. There were no other children.
His younger self sat there, swaying listlessly on the swing, his head lowered in loneliness.
Then, a shadow appeared.
The boy looked up. A man in his mid-thirties stood there, face gentle despite his exhaustion.
"Dad!" the child exclaimed, eyes lighting up.
The man knelt, smiling wearily. "Sorry, son. I haven't been around much. Work at the factory's been… hectic." He ruffled the boy's hair, guilt in his voice. "But once I get my paycheck, I'll take you to that theme park you've always wanted to go to. That's a promise."
The boy's face brightened. "Really?"
"Really." The man affirmed gently.
Next, the memory shifted as father and son played, taking turns on the rusted swings.
Silas' younger self kicked his legs wildly, trying to soar higher, his thin arms clutching the fraying ropes as though reaching for the sky itself. His father stood behind him, calloused hands steadying the seat, then letting go with a shove that sent the boy squealing with joy. The man's smile was weary, worn down by long nights at the factory, but in those brief minutes, it softened, almost radiant.
When the swing slowed, they traded places. The boy pushed with all his strength, tiny palms pressing into his father's back. The swing barely moved under the man's weight, yet he let out an exaggerated whoop, pretending he was flying. The boy laughed so hard he nearly fell over, clutching his sides, tears of mirth streaking his dusty cheeks.
The yard—crumbling fences, peeling paint, weeds sprouting through cracks—faded into insignificance. For that short while, there was only them, father and son, bound not by the place they stood but by the fragile warmth of their shared joy.
And then—it faded. Colours washed away. Sound dulled.
The memory crumbled into darkness.
"No!" Silas screamed, his voice cracking as he lurched forward, eyes wide and bloodshot. "Please, don't take it! Don't—don't touch that! You can't just strip it away from me!"
He panicked. As he tried to recall those innocent memories of childhood, all that remained was a vast fog in his mind.
His memories were gone. Even worse, as he tried to conjure those feelings of warmth and affection, his body filled with emptiness. It was as if he were stripped of the ability to indulge in the warmth and joy of any of his remaining memories.
Silas clawed at Lethe's metal arm, trembling with desperation. "It's all I have! Do you hear me? It's all I have! Without them… without my memories, without me—what am I supposed to be?!"
He could imagine it. If all the next stops were like this…
His anger flared, raw and unsteady, but beneath it was a pit of fear so deep it threatened to swallow him whole. Tears welled in his eyes, his voice breaking into a hoarse whisper. "I'm begging you… please… anything but this."
"Don't fret." Lethe's reply was sickeningly gentle, his metallic hand resting on Silas' head in mock affection. His fingers clicked against Silas' hair like cold pins. "It will all be over soon. Just eight more stops, and you will be free to go."
The pat was dismissive, final. Like a butcher consoling the lamb before the knife.
Silas collapsed back into his seat, his chest heaving, but no further words left him. The fire of his plea had burnt itself out, leaving only ash. His eyes dulled, staring into a reflection of himself on the black glass window—hollow, unfamiliar, broken.
Outside, the writhing fog pressed close to the train like a living tide. Shapes flickered within it—faces that screamed silently, beasts with empty maws, twisting limbs clawing against an unseen barrier. If not for the faint vibration beneath his feet, Silas would scarcely believe the train was moving at all.
'I have to escape,' he thought, biting down hard on his lip until he tasted iron. 'If I don't… the boy named Silas will vanish here. Either as an empty shell… or as nothing at all.'
Suddenly—
The train lurched with a grinding wail, metal on metal shrieking like some wounded beast, before it sank into stillness. Silence followed, so deep it pressed against Silas' ears, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
His eyes darted to Lethe, already stationed at the front of the carriage, waiting.
Then came the stillness. A dead silence that made the very air feel suffocating.
And when Silas dared to look out the window again, he exhaled sharply, his breath fogging the glass as the hellscape of their first stop unfolded before him.
At first, he thought there was nothing. Just an endless grey, both heavy and suffocating. But as the mist thinned, the landscape began to emerge.
A vast, rolling meadow stretched out beneath a sky of permanent twilight. The grass was pale, washed of colour, swaying soundlessly in a wind he could not feel. No birds flew above, no insects stirred below, just the faint suggestion of life, with none of its warmth.
And then he saw them.
Figures wandered the fields in loose, scattered herds. Their shapes were blurred, as though drawn in fading charcoal. Some walked in silence with bowed heads, others sat upon the grass staring upward with hollow eyes, lips moving in noiseless prayers. They never touched one another. Each soul drifted in its own prison of solitude, surrounded by others yet utterly alone.
In the far distance, a looming fortress rose from the haze, its towers cracked and weathered. Light glowed faintly within; pale, unnatural, like a lantern guttering at the edge of existence. Its gates were barred, but the faint sound of whispers carried from its walls. It was a chorus of longing that made the hairs on Silas' arms stand on end.
Silas' chest tightened. There was no fire here, no chains or screaming torment, yet he found himself recoiling. This place was worse. A world stripped of passion, where eternity stretched out like an endless sigh.
"Welcome to Limbo, our first stop." Lethe chuckled, arms wide open in mockery. "All passengers free to move, please exit the carriage. If you don't…" Lethe gave a cold snort. "You may regret your decision for millennia to come…"
Following his words, everyone on the train began to writhe in their seats, desperate to get up.
Silas, included, tried to get up. But reality was cruel. He could only watch on in silence as several others successfully managed to get up. Their pale figures blurred as they rushed out of the train.
Clap! Clap!
Lethe clapped.
"Well, that seems to be everyone…" Said Lethe. "Our next stop will be… Lust."
Lust.
Gluttony.
Greed.
Wrath.
Heresy.
Violence.
Fraud.
Stops came and went, still Charon ploughed through the dense black mist, each stop devouring another piece of its passengers.
In one of the carriages, slumped against the glass, sat a husk of what had once been a boy. His brown skin had lost its lustre, dulled to a lifeless shade. His dark eyes, once burning with curiosity, stared blankly ahead. The muscles of his arms hung slack, worn down by hunger and grief.
"Our next and final stop will be Treachery."
Lethe, bright as ever, stood at the head of the carriage. His voice rang clear, almost musical, as if mocking the agony it heralded.
"Tr…each…ery," Silas rasped. His throat was dry, his voice a harrowing croak that scraped against his own ears.
He no longer knew how long he had been aboard. Hours? Days? Perhaps time itself had been swallowed by the black fog beyond the windows. All he knew was thirst, the ache of hunger, and the hollowing out of his soul as memories bled away stop after stop.
And yet—something remained.
Was it love for his parents?
Was it hatred? Anger?
The simple will to live?
He could not answer. He doubted he could feel those things anymore. The better question was whether such emotions even belonged to him still—or whether they had already been carved away.
But one truth held fast:
"One stop left…"
His fists clenched on his knees, the bones of his knuckles jutting pale against the slack skin. For a fleeting moment, his dull eyes glimmered, alive again.
"I hope the rules I've learned still apply," he muttered under his breath.
The train had taught him much in its cruel passage. He knew now that each circle took from him only what was tied to that sin. Innocence. Desire. Control. Certainty.
The losses had been brutal, but he had realised there was space for manoeuvre. He could not change the category of what was stolen, but he could decide which memories, what fragments, would be sacrificed first.
'I hope this works…' He had kept this single gambit hidden, nursing it, waiting.
Lethe's footsteps rang like chimes of judgment as the machine strode down the aisle, pausing at each ghost, pressing its cold hand to each forehead. Wails rose, then silence, then madness. It was always the same.
Finally, the figure loomed over Silas.
"Well, well, well. The lucky last." Lethe bent low, its grin sharp and cruel, the glint of polished metal catching the amber carriage light. "How unfortunate you've had to wait until the end. But alas—"
It raised its hand, fingers curling as they drifted toward his brow.
"—it will all be over soon."
Silas' eyes locked onto the hand.
No fear. No pleading. Only the faint, dangerous gleam of defiance.
'This is it.'
The instant Lethe's hand moved to touch him, Silas forced his mind inward. He tore through what remained of himself, digging past hollow absences, past splintered fragments, to one… memory?
In the instant Lethe tapped Silas, the air froze.
A heavy silence reigned, pressing down like an invisible weight.
The snarky smile etched into Lethe's metallic face melted away, replaced by something almost human, sombre, sharp, and filled with smouldering rage. His glowing eyes burned as they locked onto Silas' vacant, lifeless stare.
"How did you—?"
"You don't need to know." A grim smile curved Silas' lips.
Summoning what little strength clung to his fading body, he offered Lethe not a memory of deceit, not one of betrayal—but an absence. A blank space. His lack of memory.
It was a gamble. One cruel enough to work.
For if the ticket collector's power relied on harvesting emotions and memories, what happened when he was handed a void? How could one collect what never existed?
Charon's dominion, built upon the memories of souls, met a contradiction. A paradox: an account with no entries, a debt with no creditor, a wound that could not scar.
Silas had turned himself into a missing page in the book of the damned.
Would this trick allow him to escape?
To live?
He did not know.
Crack.
The world fractured. Hairline fissures spread across the carriage like lightning frozen in glass. The train, Lethe, the endless void, all of it splintered, breaking apart piece by piece. Jagged shards of what was once reality hung suspended, reflecting fractured images of Lethe and Silas over and over.
Silas' gaze lingered on Lethe. The once-composed collector now split and broke, his metal face shattering along fault lines that bled light. One glowing eye ruptured, scattering like fragments of a broken lens. The robot twisted in silence, fragments of his form breaking away into glittering dust.
Darkness swelled as Silas let his eyes close, surrendering to it.
But instead of the void he expected, something bloomed.
Information.
Cold, alien, flooding into his empty mind where memories should have been.
[Number 0129387, Charon has collapsed]
[Reinitialising Charon]
[Host found]
[ERROR!]
[ERROR!]
[Host's soul is incapable of bearing the full load of Charon]
[Charon initiating self-sealing]
[Charon adapting]
[Using media of current dimension for adaptation]
[Detected relevant media to current host—Video Games]
[Adaptation successful]
[Charon welcomes its new host!]