The train cabin flickered with cold yellow light.
Ultima sat in silence, still gripping the shovel. His breaths came slow and quiet, like he was forcing each one into existence. The silence pressed on his ears until even the hum of the train felt like a scream.
The devil no, the Narrator sat cross-legged on a nearby bench, sipping again from his porcelain cup.
"No snarky remark this time?" Ultima asked.
The Narrator raised a brow.
"Why waste breath? You'll be looping again. We both know it."
Ultima stood, hat casting shadow over his sharpened eyes.
"Then change me.. Back.."
"Oh?"
"You heard me. Permanently. I'm not wearing two skins anymore."
The Narrator tilted his head, amused. "Ah, now there it is the resolve. A touch of rebellion. I like it."
He snapped his fingers.
And Ultima screamed.
His bones cracked inward, tendons stretching, snapping, re-forming. The body of the man the broken elder was burned away from the inside out. Youth poured back into his form like a cursed blessing. Muscles tightened. Skin smoothed. The years collapsed like a dying star.
When it ended, Ultima stood in his prime. Seventeen again. His red-and-black conductor's coat hung snug, matching the sharpness in his jaw, the hunger in his eyes.
A permanent reset.
The Narrator gave a mock bow. "You'll no longer wake up old and burdened. Just young and cursed. Now go ahead. Let's see if you've learned anything."
Ultima gave no reply.
He marched to the front of the train.
Pulled the lever.
And the train roared back into motion burning straight through the fog of time.
The first stop returned just as abandoned as before. The same cracked walls. Same silence.
Ultima stepped out.
And again he was in.
Seventeen. Hallway. Fist mid-swing.
But this time, he didn't hesitate.
He didn't need to catch his breath or puke or wonder what to do.
He grabbed his own wrist and twisted—hard—turning the swing into a stumble. The nerd beneath him gasped in confusion.
Ultima stood tall and turned.
He glared not with malice, but with a searing, practiced calm at the so-called "friends" around him.
"Do it again," he said coolly, "and I'll ruin you."
They blinked. No laughter. One even dropped his phone.
Ultima helped the boy up. Not gently. But not cruelly, either.
The crowd dispersed like smoke.
Later that day, Ultima waited behind the school.
He didn't hide.
The past never had a reason to come back here except to stash the knife and humiliate the boy.
So Ultima made sure that past wouldn't exist this time.
The boy never came.
Because the violence never happened.
Ultima returned to the park, waiting in the shadows.
The woman didn't walk through this time.
Different ripple.
Instead, two drunk men began fighting at the edge of the lot. Someone else a janitor from school, a side character in his life he barely remembered tried to break them up.
Ultima watched closely.
One of the drunks pulled a broken bottle.
Ultima moved fast, no hesitation.
This time he didn't aim to protect one life.
He aimed to redirect fate.
He threw the bottle away before it could become a weapon.
Used the handle of the shovel not the blade to knock the drunk out cold.
He helped the janitor up before the man could get gashed across the cheek like he had in the original timeline.
The ripple came.
But it bent.
Not broke.
No one else was harmed.
Ultima stood still in the middle of that street, breathing heavy.
He'd done it.
The memory didn't collapse into death.
There was no scream.
No new victim.
Only silence.
And soft wind...
The fog returned but not violently.
This time, it welcomed him.
Back on the train, the doors slid shut behind him with a hiss.
The Narrator was waiting.
He was clapping slowly.
"Well done," the entity said with a smirk. "You successfully intervened in a fixed point. Took the thread and rewove it with less blood."
Ultima leaned the shovel against the wall and sat, his eyes not proud just tired.
"Not perfect," he said. "But no one else got hurt."
"No one you saw, at least," the Narrator replied slyly.
Ultima tensed.
"What do you mean?"
The Narrator sipped.
"Oh, I didn't tell you the rules have levels, did I?" He leaned forward, eyes glowing dimly red. "You saved the janitor. The woman never walked that street. The boy wasn't humiliated. Good."
He paused.
"But the bully whose ego you shattered in front of everyone? He went home and beat his little brother out of rage."
Ultima froze.
"W-What?"
"Another ripple," the Narrator said, voice like syrup. "You cut one thread, and another frays. Now, don't worry it wasn't fatal. Just bruises. But pain is pain."
Ultima clenched his fists.
"Then what the hell is the point?!"
"Ah. There it is," the Narrator whispered, eyes twinkling. "The great question. What is the weight of redemption, when it never truly wipes clean? What is the cost of mercy, when it echoes into someone else's misery?"
He stood up, arms wide, like a preacher in a cathedral.
"You see, Conductor, this isn't a journey to make everything right. That's impossible. You are here to understand that every act you once made had layers, consequences even you couldn't calculate. This isn't a train to salvation."
He smiled.
"It's a train to TRUTH."
Ultima didn't speak for a long time.
Then finally, he whispered, "So I passed... but I still failed."
"No," said the Narrator. "You succeeded in the first redemption. But you failed to erase the cost."
He leaned close.
"And the cost, dear Conductor... always adds up.. Is it truly redemption if someone else pays the price?"
Ultima stood again. His body young. His mind heavy.
He looked down at the shovel in his hand.
"This weapon," he said, "isn't to hurt anyone."
"Correct," the Narrator said with a grin. "It's to bury your past."
Ultima turned his eyes back toward the window.
Outside, the next station was coming into view.
The lights flickered.
The air grew colder.
The sins ahead were worse.
He stepped forward anyway.
One redemption down.
Many more to go.
But behind him... in one of the train seats…
A child sat.
Bruised. Silent.
Eyes watching.
Eyes that weren't there last time.
And this time..
he saw Ultima.
After awhile..
The train screeched to a halt.
Station 06-WR.
Yellow-grey skies swallowed the landscape in a dusty hush. Cinders floated in the air like mourning snowflakes—never falling, just hanging in purgatory. Everything was muted, even the air. The silence was sick.
Ultima stepped out. His boots hit the platform with a hollow thud.
A giant iron bell loomed above the center of the station, rusted and chained like a prisoner. It pulsed faintly, as if breathing.
Posters lined the cracked walls:
"Remain Calm... THE FLAME IS ALWAYS LISTENING."
Ultima exhaled.
He checked the clocks—every single one read 7:07, each face fractured, unmoving.
Something was off.
The silent passengers on the train hadn't moved. They stared forward—except for one.
The boy.
The same child from earlier. The bruises on his cheek were darker now. His eyes… fixed on Ultima like he knew.
Ultima froze.
And the Narrator appeared beside him. Not stepping, not fading in—just suddenly there.
It wore a grin sharp as glass.
"You thought this was still about that janitor, didn't you?"
Ultima didn't answer.
It continued, pacing slowly, boots never touching ash.
"Station 07-WR. You've been here before… deep inside the rot of your memories. And you left something behind."
Ultima clenched his jaw.
"I didn't kill that boy."
"No," it said. "You didn't need to. That's what makes this stop so special."
Ultima's head throbbed.
And then—
FLASH.
His vision snapped—his mind tearing backward again.
He was in the past.
Back in the same body.
Only this time…
It wasn't the school hallway.
It was home.
His room.
Walls still covered with posters. A gaming console blinking red. Thunder outside the window.
He remembered now.
The rage.
Not at the nerd.
Not at his "friends."
At his father. The screams. The belt. The bruises hidden beneath long sleeves.
And he—
Ultima—past Ultima—didn't cry.
He didn't run.
He took it all.
Then gave it to someone else.
The door next room over had opened.
A small voice: "Big bro?"
And Ultima had snapped.
Not fists. Not knives.
Words..
He screamed at the child. Not just screamed—shattered him.
Told him he was worthless.
That their mom left because of him.
That he should've been the one bleeding on the floor.
The boy had run.
Into the cold.
Into the night.
Flash..
Back at the station.
Ultima's breaths were ragged now.
The Narrator tilted its head.
"Oh yes… it comes back now, doesn't it? The wrath you carried… the fury you inherited... and how you passed it on."
Ultima turned, face pale.
"I didn't know what I was saying…"
"That's the thing," it whispered. "You meant every word at the time."
The bell groaned.
Its chains shuddered.
The boy—now standing beside the platform—took a step forward.
And this time, he spoke.
"I see you now."
Ultima flinched.
The Narrator's grin widened.
"He remembers."
The air shifted.
The cinders stopped hanging. They began to fall—slowly, like burning petals.
A countdown.
Ultima looked around.
"No one else ever spoke."
"No one else was alive in the moment you broke," the Narrator said.
The child reached into his coat and pulled out a small toy train—charred and melted.
"Y-You gave me this," he said, voice trembling. "Then screamed at me the same night."
The bell rang once.
A low, hollow sound that cracked the air.
Ultima took a step back.
"I... I didn't mean to ruin you."
"No."
"You didn't ruin me," the boy whispered. "You built me."
That's when Ultima noticed.
The child wasn't bruised anymore.
His eyes had changed.
Gold. Burning.
The Narrator leaned in, whispering in Ultima's ear.
"Every station isn't just a stop on your redemption…"
It raised a finger toward the boy.
"Some are stops for the ones you created."
The sky darkened.
The train behind them groaned.
Ultima spun—ready to return, to fix it again.
But the train doors were sealed.
The Narrator gave a mock shrug.
"Did you think the loops were infinite?"
"You said—"
"I never said you were the only one riding this train."
Ultima's breath stopped.
"You see… every sin leaves behind a passenger. You just met the first one who got off at the same stop as you."
Ultima turned to the child again.
He was no longer just a boy.
His frame pulsed with black veins. His mouth twitched, unreadable. Around him, the ash formed symbols in the air—words Ultima couldn't translate.
And in the distance, the bell rang a second time.
A crack snaked across the platform.
The Narrator stepped back, smiling like it was watching a play.
Ultima dropped the shovel.
It clattered loud in the silence.
"I want to save him," he said quietly.
The Narrator grinned.
"But does he want to be saved?"
The child's eyes burned brighter.
He raised the melted train toy.
"I forgive you," he said.
Then crushed it in his hand.
Ultima reached for him—too late.
The bell rang a third time.
The sky shattered.
The cinders caught fire.
And Ultima fell backward—
—not into the train.
—but into the fire of his own sin.
---
End of Chapter Three.