The Last Train
I love the last train.
To be more precise, I love the humans who ride it.
Heh heh heh.
Humans who've spent every last ounce of themselves on a single day are a sorry sight to behold. They stagger around drunk, or sit hollow-eyed as if they'd left their souls behind at the office, or doze off with their noses buried in their phone screens, heads bobbing.
Prime condition for scaring out of their wits.
Daytime is no fun. The moment even one human vanishes, all hell breaks loose. Station attendants come sprinting, the police show up, they comb through the CCTV footage.
The last train is different.
Everyone's too busy just looking out for themselves. Nobody so much as glances up when the human in the next seat disappears.
That's why I like it.
Today, I picked one out again.
A man in a black padded coat.
The moment he boarded, he sprawled himself across an empty seat.
Heh heh. Tired, are we?
The man fiddled with his phone a few times, then tipped his head back against the window. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was somewhat mussed.
I especially love this kind of human. When they get scared, they fall apart so much more easily.
I slowly let the other humans off.
One station.
Two stations.
Three stations.
The last passenger stepped off.
Only one man remained.
He'd been dozing the entire time.
Heh heh heh. Good. Shall we begin?
I switched off one of the ceiling lights.
Click.
No reaction.
Another one.
Click.
Still asleep.
So I killed every light in the carriage, then flickered the fluorescent tube directly above the man's head.
Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick.
"......"
His eyes finally opened!
The man stared blankly up at the ceiling, still groggy with sleep. Then he looked around.
A completely empty carriage, and pitch blackness beyond the windows.
I lit up the LED display.
The man narrowed his eyes.
Heh heh heh.
Now the thoughts would start crawling in, one after another.
Why is there no one here? Where am I? Where is this train taking me?
That one short sentence is enough to pull the most delicious faces out of humans. Some scream and start hammering on the doors. Some simply burst into tears.
I love those moments.
The man opened his mouth.
Finally.
"Ugh, fuck."
......Huh?
The man checked his phone first. He tapped the screen a few times.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, my data's dead too. Unbelievable."
Naturally. This is my domain.
Soon enough, everything would be dead. By then, he would be crying.
Heh heh.
The man rose from his seat and walked toward the doors. He turned the emergency release lever and pulled.
Clunk.
They wouldn't open.
Again.
Clunk.
And again.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Heh heh heh heh.
Yes, go right ahead. A hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times — they will not open.
"Hey."
......Hey?
The man knocked on the doors.
"Open up."
Who was he talking to?
Instead of answering, I changed the display.
The man looked up at it.
"Why?"
"Why can't I get off?"
Heh heh.
Now he was starting to feel it, that creeping claustrophobia—
"Jesus fucking Christ."
The man clicked his tongue.
Something was strange here.
But it didn't matter. A human is only human, in the end.
I pressed my face against the window — outside the speeding train, in a spot where no face could possibly be — and there it was.
The man turned his head.
Our eyes met.
I slowly split my mouth open at the corners.
Wider.
Wider.
All the way to the ears.
Heh heh heh heh heh.
"GAH, FUCK!"
The man leapt clean off the floor.
Yes!
That's it exactly!
I laughed. This was why I did it.
The man's breathing turned ragged. His face went rigid.
Now he would run. He would cower in a corner. Maybe he'd pound on the doors, begging for his life—
"The hell are you, you son of a bitch?!"
.......
The man walked toward me.
Why?
I pulled my face away from the glass, and the man came right up to the window and rapped on it.
"What was that just now?"
.......
"Hey."
What was with this human?
"Come out here."
Was he insane?
I shook the train.
CRASH!
The man's shoulder slammed into a pole.
"Ow!"
Heh heh heh.
That hurt, didn't it?
This time I let laughter pour out of the speakers.
Hahahaha.
Hahahahaha.
The man rubbed his shoulder.
Hahahahahaha.
"Hey."
Hahaha—
"Cut it out."
Heh heh heh heh.
Make me?
HAHAHAHAHA!
CRASH!
The man kicked a seat clean over. The entire carriage rang with the impact.
The laughter died.
.......
The man said,
"I told you to cut it the fuck out."
Wait.
Why did I stop?
The man went back to the doors.
Clunk.
He kicked the door.
BANG!
BANG!
"Open it!"
Another kick.
BANG!
"I need to get home, dammit!"
I was, frankly, a little incredulous.
Home? In this situation?
I changed the display.
The man stopped.
Oh.
Finally getting it?
Heh heh heh.
Hang your head. Despair. Slowly let the terror seep—
"Okay."
......Okay, what?
The man looked around the carriage. Then he pulled the fire extinguisher out of its corner.
Hm?
Why?
"Fuck's sake, you just keep pissing me off."
Why were you picking that up?
The extinguisher went up.
Hold on.
What are you going to—
CRUNCH!
The center of the LED display caved in.
"AAAGH!"
I screamed before I could stop myself.
The man's eyes went wide.
"Huh."
BANG!
"Hold on—!"
BANG!
The screen shattered.
"Hey! Hey!"
You lunatic!
I'd been using that thing for seventeen years!
BANG!
"Stop!"
The man stopped.
"You can talk, can't you?"
I kept my mouth shut.
The man raised the extinguisher again.
"Hold on."
"Open the doors."
"This is my train."
"So what?"
"No one gets off without my permission."
The man was quiet for a moment.
Good.
Now you understand. Whose domain this is. Who sits above whom.
Heh heh—
"Don't give a shit."
CRUNCH!
"AAAGH!"
The second display blew apart.
"You insane bastard!"
"Open the doors!"
"Not happening!"
BANG!
This time it was the speakers. A bzzt of static, and they dropped from the ceiling. The man gave the fallen unit a lazy kick.
"Don't touch that!"
Thud.
"Hey!"
Thud.
"Quit it!"
"You started this shit!"
Thud.
No.
Hold on.
Something had gone very wrong.
I had been trying to eat this human. I was sure of it.
So why was I the one begging him to stop?
"Not the route map! Don't rip that—!"
Riiip.
The route map tore away.
"You son of a bitch!"
"Why is there so much stuff I'm not supposed to touch?!"
The man pressed the emergency call button.
Beeeep.
"Don't press that!"
Beeeep.
"I said stop!"
Beeeep. Beeeep.
"Ugh, why does nobody answer?"
"Because it's my domain, obviously!"
"Then open the fucking doors!"
"No!"
The man hammered the button over and over.
Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep.
"Oh, for FUCK'S sake!"
I was the one who cursed first, this time. I cut the power, and silence fell.
The man pressed the button once more.
Nothing.
"......"
The man looked up.
"Did you turn it off?"
I didn't answer.
"Hey."
I stayed silent.
The man picked the extinguisher back up.
"Fine."
Don't.
CRUNCH!
The emergency call unit was driven deep into the wall.
"AAAAARGH!"
The entire train lurched. No — this was bad. My center of—
CRUNCH!
"Okay! Okay!"
The man's hands froze.
I was nearly screaming by then.
"The doors! I'll open the doors!"
I clung to my train. It was already too late.
SCREEEEEECH!
The wheels shrieked. The carriage heaved violently, and the man flew forward.
"AAAGH, FUCK!"
The train ground to a halt, and the doors slid open.
A perfectly ordinary platform stood outside. An exit that, by any law of the world, should never have existed.
The man lay sprawled on the floor, twitching for a good while.
Was he dead?
That would at least be someth—
"Ugh...... fuck."
He was alive.
The man pulled himself upright. He brushed off his arms. He brushed off his pants. He picked up his fallen phone first, checked the screen, and let out a sigh of relief.
Hold on.
That mattered more than my domain?
The man looked around the carriage. The shattered displays. The fallen speakers. The torn route map. The crushed emergency call unit.
Heh heh.
Right. Now you're taking it all in. Now you're feeling a little sorr—
"Well, this place is a total fucking shithole."
And the man walked right out.
.......
That's it?
Where was my apology?
What about my displays?
Hey.
The man didn't even glance back. He disappeared beyond the doors, and I stood frozen in front of the open doorway for a long time.
Seventeen years.
Seventeen years.
I'd carried hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of passengers. I'd watched them weep. Watched them grovel on the floor, begging. Watched them claw at the doors until their nails tore out.
And through all of it, I'd laughed.
Heh heh heh.
Hahahaha.
Humans really are hilarious.
But today, for the first time.
The laughter wouldn't come.
Sparks flew from the shattered display.
Bzzt.
The fallen speaker rolled across the floor.
I stared down at the wreckage for a long, long while.
"......Fuck."
I opened the Gallery. Hit "new post."
I submitted it.
Less than a second later, the first comment landed.
"......"
The second comment.
I stared at the screen for a long, long time.
"Fuck."
