A faint voice calls to my name. I slowly open my eyes, with my head spinning and ringing. I could feel the vibration on my chest, as I lay flat on something hard but dusty. Tilting me ever so slightly with the sway movements of the train. Then, I felt someone touch me on my arms, it was warm, but firm. Who touched me? Why are they touching me? Suddenly, they help me stand up. I almost threw up by the instant rush of blood to my brain. Then they slap me hard in the face.
"Wake the fuck up, Alan! It was just a brick thrown at you! Not something larger!" Kelly shouted directly at my face,
"What?! What the fuck are you talking about?" I grunted.
My head kept spinning. My surroundings have changed. I swear, I feel like my head was hit with something hard! When my vision started to clear up, I could see backpacks and papers littered everywhere. A bag is hanging on the corner of a seat. Crumpled papers were everywhere on the ground. There were even drawings on the ceiling, like it was drawn by a middle schooler.
I don't remember what happened, but I think it has something to do with me being… Nevermind, I don't think that could be possible. The only thing I remember was that brochure, what was it again? It was a brochure that mocked me because it called me a beginner, so I threw it on the ground, and… I don't remember anything else.
I was being held by Kelly to keep me steady, like I was some kind of baby being grabbed by a parent. I turned around, unaware of the situation I was in. There I saw that I was lying on the floor of the train, near the door that connects to another carriage. "Ugh! My head still hurts." I grunted over the headache I was experiencing. "How long was I out? What even happened?" I say.
"You don't remember?" Kelly asks me, genuinely curious.
"No…? What the fuck happened—"
Before I could ask him again, he slapped me in the face again, this time, it was on the other side of my cheek. "Do you remember now?" He asks,
"What the fuck was that for—"
He slapped me again, "How about now?"
"Stop fucking slapping—"
Then slapped me again, "This might help you remember—"
I slapped him back. He was sent flying on his back, as I stood up to look below him like a worthless mutt biting its owner, "Stop fucking slapping me in the face," I pinched my glabella because of the pain I was still experiencing in my head, then look back at Kelly. "Or I swear you're going to have a bad time." I said to him, (Undertale reference… hehe)
He stood up from the ground, looked at me like he was in disbelief, and then slapped me in the face again, "Let's go back to our seat?" He smiled as he walked back to our seat. My head rang, but it was just for a few moments. Then, my eyes started to twitch. I was about to pull him back towards me, prepare my assault, and launch a full nuclear slap attack on him until he's nothing but a bruised up corpse… maybe that's a little bit much, but why would he hit a person who was just hit by a brick in the head? If his story was even real in the first place. But I hesitated because this might just be his way of ragebaiting me until I snapped.
As I followed him back to our seats, I noticed that almost everything changed. The blue color of the seats we were using were now colored brown, not to mention that it was now made out of leather, filled with fluffy cotton, rather than the almost stereotypical train seat you know which was always made out of polymer, or just dusty mattress like covering. As I sat back down, I felt a memory surged back in me, it reminded me of something in the past. Something unforgettable. But now I completely forgot about it. Stupid Alan, always forgetting things! He sat back down on his seat. He leaned forward at the table, then asked me, "Do you seriously not remember anything?"
"How many times do I have to tell you?"
"I don't know? Maybe a hundred?"
"You fuck—"
"Hehe."
He leaned back on his chair satisfied, then he mumbled something completely random. "Good thing that Vita didn't remove this seat. That was such a fucking memorable memory wasn't it, Alan?"
I look at him confused. "What are you talking about?"
He looks at me, "Do you not remember? The memory!"
"What memory?"
"The one we just experienced a couple of hours ago! The Harry Potter memory!" He grunted, somehow annoyed.
"Were you hit in the head by a brick? What nonsense are you talking about? And who the fuck is this Vita?" I ask him,
He looks at me, bewildered by the statement I just made. What is he even talking about? Harry Potter? How much did I forget? Too many things are happening at once that I feel like my head is about to explode! As I blankly stared at him, I didn't notice him gone in front of me. As I turned to my left, I saw him standing beside me, then he slapped me again.
"What the fuck! That was the fourth time you did that!"
"God. You really did lose your memory." He covered his mouth out of disbelief.
"I already told you!"
"I slapped you 5 times! Not 4!" The shock sent him back to his seat.
I raise a brow, not sure of what he was onto about, "Sure, yeah—5 times! Fuck! Could you just tell me what the actual fuck happened?!" I shout at him,
He looks at me, then tries to assess and ponder how I can gain back my memories. "What if I slapped you again?"
I glared at him,
"Guess that's a no." Then he continued his thinking. Watching him feels like an eternity just passed by, like a statue holding the same pose until it's demolished. Suddenly, he just got a brilliant idea that not even Albert Einstein could've thought about!
"What if I just told you what had happened—"
"THAT WAS THE THING I WAS TELLING YOU TO DO!" I screamed,
"Oh… you did?"
"YES! OBVIOUSLY!"
"So… I'm just going to tell you?"
"HOW MANY TIMES—"
"It's going to cause you 2 chapters to explain—"
"Just fucking go on with it!" I shout at him again, he's been dragging this conversation for too long, I need to know what happened after the brochure incident!
"Fine… It all started when you got that brochure that just suddenly appeared on the table."
**********
A few hours ago…
**********
"Hey Kelly, read this shit." I look at him, "And fucking stop pinching yourself, this is real."
I think it was almost an hour after what had happened earlier. That dream was no ordinary dream. Both of us woke up like we were being drowned, with both of us having the same dream at the exact same time. That's no fucking coincidence, something weird is happening inside this train, and it all began with this mysterious fucking empty seat.
Kelly continues to ponder, then looks at me, distressed. I looked at him, then shrugged it off. I threw the brochure on the table to let him read it. Suddenly, he slaps himself like he wants to know if everything is real. I stopped him before he could slap himself in the other one too.
"Hey! Would you stop that?"
"I-I don't know how you're here. Y-you live in the next city!" He pointed at me with his index finger while I held his other wrist.
"Would you stop pointing at me?! And I also don't know how I'm here, heck I don't even know why you're here! And stop asking questions you've already asked before!" I explain,
"Asked before? What are you talking about? Wasn't that just a dream?"
"Just a dream? Wait… are you seriously thinking that what we just experienced earlier—the same conversation as to why I'm here, the whole bizarre empty seat, with a button lying right in front of you—was none but a fucking dream?!" I say,
"H-how do you know about that—" Before he could finish, I grab him by the collar, and shout to him,
"Because it was fucking real!" I say, shouting intensely at him. I let go of his collar, and sit back down on my seat. I fixed my tie, stretched my sleeves, and dusted off the dirt that remained from the mysterious wind a few hours ago, while he sat in front of me, looking confused, traumatised, and purely filled with anxiety.
"Hey, are you okay?" I say, ruffling back my hair.
"So the toy…"
"The one I wrecked? Yeah, it was kind of real… not sure of that dream though, it felt too realistic to be a dream."
"This toy…" He raises the broken toy from under the table, "Was the one from the dream?"
I immediately stood up after seeing the toy to inspect it. The memory of it was still as fresh as orange juice with carbonated water and 50 percent sugar in it. It has enough vitamins to make you energetic for 2 hours at least! But, this toy… It was a 1:1 replica of it. There was no way it was the same toy as before. The broken decapitated head, the voice box, the fragments, all of it were under the table as I duck in to check.
Then, the train turns a sharp corner, sending me off my seat. As I patted my butt, I noticed that the brochure had fallen at the ground. I try to grab it, but I hesitate for a moment. What are you doing, Alan? It's just a fucking brochure! I try to reach for it, but my hands won't let me. Suddenly, someone stepped on it. It was Kelly, trying to help me.
"You fucker… You just stepped on the brochure I'm letting you read!" I say,
"Oh, I was?" He slid off his foot from the brochure, and then bent down to grab it. "This?"
"Yeah this! Now read it, maybe it has the answers to the questions we're asking right now!"
He read it, but looked back at me almost instantly. "Yeah, this is ruined."
"What?!" I immediately stood up to see for myself. What do you mean ruined? You only stepped on it once! I see it, and in my utterless shock he was right. Everything was crumpled, ruined, and lost all of its colors. But how? How could a mere step by someone who's as weak as Kelly be ruined in an instant? I turn around, and see the broken toy still lying on the table, innocently. I grabbed it, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it. But once I pulled my foot away, I was shocked that it didn't break… So stepping on it with real force wasn't enough to break it? But just by a three-foot drop could? What the actual fuck is going on with the physics inside this train? I thought to myself. I turned to Kelly, he was shocked seeing his toy being destroyed again.
"Step on it." I say firmly,
"What?" He asks,
"You're acting like a fucking child! Just step on the fucking toy!" I shout,
"Fuck you! I'm not stepping on my fucking toy!" His tone shifts, something different.
"And why is that? It's already broken—"
"Not everything that's broken needs to be broken even further, Alan! It's already broken, and you've already tried to step on it once, but it didn't work." He pauses. Something had finally snapped within him,
A moment of silence envelopes the carriage. "K-Kelly—"
"You can't just get anything you want just because it serves you right. Everything that was happening inside this train was already weird enough. Yet your pride to know the answer is devouring you like a leech!" He says, "Why are you acting like this? Why are you letting me read this brochure that is now broken, when you already had it in your grasp earlier?!"
"K-Kell… I didn't mean—"
"You can't get anything you want, Alan. I hope you realize that."
A moment of silence struck between us. How did it turn out like this? It was so fast that I didn't even see it coming. His words struck something within me that felt like thousands of needles continuously burrowing deep inside me. The words he spoke were enough to send a shiver of pain throughout my chest. I… I didn't know I… I thought…
He turns back towards his seat. Dropping the brochure on the ground like a feather. Suddenly, it vanished into thin air, and turned into specs of golden dust. I tried to grab it, but it flew away. I turn back to him, and see him holding the broken pieces of the toy. Dirt was still on one of the broken pieces of the toy because I stepped on it earlier. I sat back down on my seat, unsure of what I needed to say. Then, familiar words started to re-emerge from the depths of my thought.
A voice echoed through my head… "All that I'm saying is that, you're still a child. Both of you can gain more connections if you both learned how to communicate and know each other's likes and dislikes. Child feuds are always resolved in a matter of time, and it's best to solve it early than solve it a little later." She added, then she looked at me, with eyes filled with care, "Fights can be solved by the very first step…" She paused, then grabbed my hand and Kelly's hand, "Alan, you should apologize for what you've done."
It feels so ironic that this was the first thing that popped inside my head… It was basically the only thing that kept both of us together for a long time, even as adults. These words were so fresh in my mind that I can practically remember everything she'd said. I looked at Kelly… but the toy was gone.
"Where did…" I hesitated, then changed the words I was about to say. "I'm sorry, Kelly. For being… like this." I sighed.
Silence… a silence that I could hear both the train's engine, its vibration, and my own heartbeat.
"So you remember." He says,
Just by hearing his words, I immediately know what he's pertaining to, "It's ironic isn't it? That what your mom said was the only one keeping us tightly locked together."
"I know." He lets out a slight chuckle, then silence envelopes us both again.
My chest churned, I want to explain to him what happened, and why this is happening… "Kelly, I'm sorry… I acted that way because… because…" but I don't know why.
He looks at me, his brown eyes glistening with gold after being struck by the rising sun, emitting its golden vibrance. Then he looks down, letting his hair flow with him. I looked at him, then looked down also, reflecting on what I've done. At first, I thought I was doing the right thing. Continuously wanting to find the truth behind this weird fucking train, hoping that maybe what I'm doing was right. But in the end, I was hurting others because of it, specifically Kelly. That's when I realized that I wasn't doing this stuff because it could help us both, I was doing this because it could help me. Only me.
I turn to him, looking at the window, with the unending view of the city outside. With the forever rising sun that never got to a point where it was above us or lowering its gaze from us at sunset. It was just idle in a position that looks like time has completely stopped.
I stand up from my seat, walk over to the door near beside us, and look at the view outside there. I thought it would give both me and Kelly some time of space for us to be able to be connected again. But after I walk over to the door, Kelly stands up too and follows me. I stood there, silently looking at the view outside, while Kelly leaned on the frame of a chair behind him, quietly observing the view too. It feels like an hour before one of us starts a new conversation.
"Alan." He says, still looking outside,
"Yes?" I respond, looking at him,
"I gotta be honest with you. I don't know why I acted like that too." He says, "Why I feel so vulnerable, and why I acted like a child who can't let go."
"Y-you don't need to feel sorry for me… you have a point. Something that's already destroyed can't be destroyed even further." I say, hesitantly implying to him not to pity me.
"I'm not pitying you. It's just that," he looks at me, "I simply don't know why I acted that way. It was as if I was still that Kelly when I was a child. You know that I don't act that way, right?"
I look at him, then gently nod, "You're right."
A moment of silence, then he says, "I'm sorry that I told you things like that. I didn't mean it, okay? I can't explain why I acted that way, but just so you know, I wasn't the one who said that."
I look at him, then shrugs it off, "Don't worry about it. I kind of relate to that a bit."
"Why do you say so? You always acted like that." He says,
"I'm not—" I pause, "Always like that though… I may be a person who's filled with ego and pride, but never to this extent before. I don't know why I acted like that too earlier, calling you a worthless mutt biting its owner, telling you to step on your own toy like you're my—" before I could finish, he interrupts me,
"Woah woah woah, when did you call me a worthless mutt biting its owner?"
I look at him discretely, "My servant, and for being such a fucking asshole to you this entire train ride."
"You still haven't answered my question."
"You don't need to know." I look at him while he glared at me,
I look back at our seat, then back at him. It's still awkward to communicate after what has happened, but at the very least we're at a great start.
**********
It's been a couple of hours… I think? My perspective of time is really warped right now, that's because the sun never sets, or even moves at this point. Kelly and I started to have a conversation again after what had happened earlier, and it's safe to say that we now both reconciled and became best friends again.
My mind has already cleared up, and now I was genuinely curious about what the brochure may have contained. If it wasn't for my selfish act of letting Kelly read it because it called me a beginner, we would've gotten a little more information about this train. Earlier when we were just chilling beside the train door, we spotted the train taking a turn, but we couldn't actually see its head or the main control room, just another carriage passing through the city. Both of us actually looked at how long the distance of this train was, but in the end, we only saw a part of it, because when we actually tried to see the other carriage, it started to fill with a golden-dusty fog.
Now that both of us are sitting idly in our seats like the other passengers who're acting the same, a thought came running to me. What if we go into the next carriage? No one would notice since they're all acting weirdly idle for the amount of time, and I'm sure that we might get some answers as to how the train might work. I stand up, then tell Kelly about my idea.
"Whatever… I guess?" He responds,
"Great! Follow me."
I led him towards the next door carriage. Somehow the door was closed. Most of the time, public transport would just leave this open, but why isn't it now? I looked around to find things that could help us open this door, but nothing came to a view. Suddenly, the door opened.
"You're just going to stand there?" Kelly asks,
"How the fuck…" I was frozen in shock,
"I just tilted the handle bar." He shrugs, "What? You think it's not gonna open? It's fucking public transport, of course you can open this door.
I was still frozen in shock, but I still decided to follow him. How could I be so fucking dumb! Of course you just need to turn the handle bar, that's how you fucking open a door! Both of us passed through the door, shaking with each of the train's movements. We opened the door, and saw new people with new faces. The ones that were different from the last carriage we were in.
"So… what now?" Kelly looks at me,
"Umm… search around I guess?" I say,
He gave me a thumbs up, then proceeded to inspect the new carriage. I wandered through the table near the door when we entered it. It was like a personnel's serving area where they serve the passengers snacks, the one you'd see only in airplanes. I wonder why something like this is here.
"Alan, you might want to look at this."
"What is it?"
"Something you should definitely see."
I grumbled, "I told you, what is it?"
As I walk over to where he's at, I pause at one of the tables that accommodates a person wearing summer shorts and a sweater. I know, I know, it's weird, but something even weirder is going on. Beside the table was a window, the same as ours. But, it displays something completely different. Rather than the unending city, with the sun never moving, reflecting its golden shine, it displays a grassy scenery, the one you'd see in a grassy plains, or a plateau. With the sun shining over everything else, like it was noon and the sun was right above us.
"Alan?"
"Yes yes, I'm coming."
I pause to examine it again, then walk to Kelly, still keeping a gaze at the weird window. "What is it?"
"Look."
"Where?"
"Where are you even looking at?" He says,
"At that window?" I say,
"No—look!" He turns my head over to where I'm supposed to look.
"What the…" I froze,
"Our seat." He says,
"So all this time…"
"We never even left our carriage."
"But what about—" I look around to see the changed faces of people, and their different outfits, but Kelly cuts me off,
"I don't know about that either, it's either we're at a different carriage, or we're just back at our own carriage."
I look at the person beside our table. The same guy, with the same suit was sitting next to us idly. I look at our window, and it still displays the unending city with the sun that never moves. I look over to the window far from ours, and see it completely different from ours. That's when I finally realized why there were new faces of different people after we entered the next carriage… That was because we didn't fucking see their faces in the first place.
I sat back down on my seat, unsure of what to do next. So going to the next carriage is a no no because it just sends you back to your own carriage? How is that even possible? In real life too. Kelly remains standing, looking out our window. Then he turns around, walks over at the person sitting idly on the other side of the train, and looks at him, almost like he was inspecting him.
"Huh… the brochure is here."
"What?!"
I stood up immediately to see for myself. There, placed at the very corner of his seat was the colorful brochure titled: The Train of Destiny: Manual for Beginners. I look at Kelly, and he looks at me. The man wears a black suit, almost the same as ours, wearing a bow tie that looks like he's about to attend a wedding as the groom himself, and a watch that looks branded. We look at each other again, telepathically telling each other if we either ask the man for permission to get the brochure, or get the brochure without even asking. When he finally gave me that look, it was decided.
"Hello, excuse me sir. Sorry for our unconventional and immoral stare at you, but may we ask if you need that brochure over there?" I point at the brochure beside him, "We lost ours so…" I nudge Kelly to continue my sentence,
"So we're asking if we can borrow your brochure. We promise we'll return it! We're just seated there," he points at our seat, "And no need to worry about it being returned all dirty and ruined, we promise to return it to its fullest conditions! Pinky swear!" He whips out his pinky finger at his side like he was reciting the pledge of allegiance.
We stood there, waiting for his silent judgement. But, he remained silent for too long, and he was sitting too idle for even a human to do. He was not blinking, not trembling, heck not even breathing at this point. He's just sitting there, idly looking at what was in front of him like a statue. I look at Kelly, and he looks at me. Guess it's time for option 2.
"So umm… There's this thing that I always wanted to talk about, like how I always like your bow tie, and your watch! I like it so much I'm in awe!" I was trying to distract him, but he didn't even bat an eye. That's when I nudged Kelly to get the brochure now!
He immediately tries to grab it. But something blocked him before he even reached the brochure. Heck, before even entering the table's perimeter. His wrist bent downward, like when you try to pass your hand through a wall of concrete but it just bends your arms. But something was definitely weird about this, it wasn't a concrete wall, heck it wasn't even a fucking wall. It was like a barrier, emitting this rainbow-golden hue with it. Like the colors that you see in bubbles, the patterns it created are the same as this barrier that's stopping Kelly from entering the person's perimeter.
I step back to look at Kelly, still trying to pierce his hand through, but no matter how hard he tries, it just never goes through. I let out a slight chuckle, then went into serious mode again. "Let's go check over that table over there, I think it's the personnel's cabin." I say to him,
Both me and Kelly walked over to the cabin. There was a cabinet that we could open, maybe we can find some things that can be helpful to both of us. I opened it, and there was nothing inside, the next cabinet was also empty, and the same goes for another one. We searched for a long time, but we didn't find anything. I gaze at the window that I saw earlier, displaying a grassy plain and the sun above. It was still there. I wonder why Kelly hadn't even noticed yet?
"Kelly, have you already noticed that?" I say, pointing at the window,
"What? What do you mean?" He says, looking at where I was pointing at,
"There? Don't you see it too?" I feel like I'm embarrassing myself all of the sudden, maybe this was just all inside my head? And what I'm seeing right now is just the cause of me hitting my head under the table a few times already? Or wait, even worse… what if those golden particles from the brochure suddenly vanishing, or the dust from that dust storm was actually causing me to be high?!
"Oh! You mean that window? It's weird isn't it? I didn't focus on it though, it really creates this uncanny feeling of moving on the same thing, but journeying across different places… which somehow makes my skin crawl." He says,
I pause, thank god he can see it too. "Bro… that's the fucking purpose of this train." I say as I realize,
"Oh? How do you know that?" He says, tilting his hand,
"I think the title of the brochure speaks for itself… you know? Train of Destiny? And also, before we entered the train, we both got a button, specifically telling us if we 'Want to start your journey towards destiny?' which in my stand is just telling us that we're inside a weird train, full of weird nonsense you could even think about."
"Guess you have a point." He says,
I smile with success, "Of course I do!"
"Fucker."
I laugh. After a while, we decided to head back to our seats. We couldn't find anything that could help us figure out how this place works, that somehow we may learn what will happen next. When we were near our table, something was placed neatly on top of it. A golden paper, engraved with a few lines that were visible to see due to its silver glimmer in the golden sunlight. I let Kelly read it because I might throw it again if I don't like its content.
"Be prepared… yada yada yada… Harry Potter… blah blah blah—" Before he could read everything, I interrupt him,
"Wait? Come again?" I say,
"Yada yada yada?"
"No! Fuck, not that! Something about…" I pause to think, "About…"
"Harry Potter?"
"Yes!" I raise my index finger, responding excitedly. "So, what about it?"
He responds, "It says that our memories will last, and so will our past. Your next journey will be Harry Potter, as it helps you re-discover and explore the meaning of childhood. from Vita."
I think about this, then pause, "Who the hell is this Vita? Why do they keep leaving us notes?" I say,
Suddenly, a wind blew through the carriage. The door to the next carriage is still open, maybe it came from there. But no amount of wind could suffice the amount that it was blowing on us. Then, it pauses.
"What was that about?" I say,
"The note is gone." He says,
I look at him, "Did it get dragged by that strong wind?*
"I don't know. Maybe? I'm not sure."
"I'm sure it's in a better place."
"Yeah, I guess. You know, Alan, that's a weird thing to say for a note we can't even figure out." He says
"What? I didn't say that?" I say,
"You sure?"
"Yeah I'm sure!" I say,
"Alan, I didn't say that either."
"Hehehe" The mysterious voice chuckles,
"Who said that?!" I shouted, the voice sounded like it came from both of us, but it didn't! I swear it wasn't me who said that.
Kelly and I looked around to see if anyone was messing with us. It can't be either of us because we're standing so close to each other. When we were both walking backwards, both of us bump into the back of each other's head. Though a slight touch, it carried a pulse so painful that I can't bear to even stand.
"Ugh! It—fuck!" I grunt over the pain, getting a hold of the back of my head.
"How was that—fucking hell! So… painful? It was just a fucking light touch! Shit—" Kelly grunts over the pain,
Both of us are now kneeling on the floor, holding both the back of our heads. We don't know what was happening, why it's happening, and how it even happened. All we know is that we were just looking at our surroundings to investigate who the mysterious voice that mimicked us was!
Suddenly, we hear a voice from the open door, "Kelly, Alan! Come here, we need to tell you something!"
Both of us looked at each other, thinking what was even happening. Both of us were still kneeling on the plastered floor, holding the back of our heads, but now we were looking at the door, the one we opened before we even ventured far. It glows a light white, with a slight hint of gold into it.
"Stop playing in the mud! Get over here and wash yourselves up!" A familiar voice says,
What is even happening?
"Coming mom!" I say.