The passenger woke up to find themselves laying on sand. Painfully getting up and dusting themselves, they remembered what had just happened. They turned around to find debris of the train crashed sporadically in a vast, barren landscape. None of the other passengers were visible either.
Technically, the passenger or ex-passenger; did get what they wanted, which was to get off the train. They tried to justify what had just happened and move on from it all. When they were about to leave from the scene, their leg was grabbed by a person emerging from the sand. It was the conductor, but he looked even more old now. He smooth face had meld itself to be extremely wrinkly and slathered in wounds, while his hands were ashy to the touch.
“You can’t go...”
The passenger got startled and said, “Ah! Let go of me!” while pulling their leg back.
“You can’t go, there’s nothing out there,” said the conductor while coughing and huffing desperately.
“I don’t care! You said leaving was up to me, so leave me be!” They shouted while running away.
Many, many hours of wandering around this empty, sandy plain, while (what could be considered) the sun scorched everything. Each step the passenger took, they felt more and more numb, to the point of their body completely collapsing and their vision getting blurry. The last thing they saw was a cloud of dust heading towards them, and then they fainted to a dream.
While dreaming, they saw a vivid image of a damp room with a few threads of light emerging from the window, and a chair in the middle with a flickering ceiling lamp over it. As the passenger got closer, the droning sound got louder until a horn struck their ears, breaking them from their dream.
It was the train. Right beside them, alive and well. The conductor peeked out of it, but he looked even worse than before. His ashy body was slowly deteriorating. Particles flew behind as the hot wind blew on him. Despite all of that; he seemed to have recovered his voice, and shouted,
“Get on!”
They still wanted to ignore these calls and walk away, but unfortunately even they realized any alternative endeavor could not bear fruit, especially in somewhere so barren. They got up without a bother to dust themselves off, and entered the train door upon call.
The conductor set up all of his systems and scales, the train took off from the desert and into space once more. Meanwhile, the passenger just sat with a lazy posture, legs stretching completely, arms falling to the ground, and his eyes staring at his lap. The conductor turned his chair around upon noticing this display of defeat, and engaged,
"Long trip, hasn't it? For your information, every other passenger has left, except for you. Strange."
"Yeah, I guess..." They brooded. "I mean I don't know, is there nowhere for me to go?"
"Remember what I said, your destination is up to you."
"Yeah, I did sort of try that, and look where that took me for a while. I still don't know who I am."
The conductor pondered for a while then took out a bag of trail mix from his left compartment and handed to the passenger.176Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkUrJBGzqiN
176Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYIjs1qpxGf
"Here, eat some of this and rest for a bit. It may jog your memory." He said between coughs. His skin was deteriorating once more. "Be quick with it."
The passenger reached into the bag and held out a small piece of the chocolate brown food. Upon taking a bite, they immediately fell asleep, back into trance.
Falling back to dream, first heard that same droning sound once more, while their eyes were covered in a slight, static-like fuzz. They seemed to be in a room with a stool in the center. The closer they walked towards it, the louder the droning sound got while the static dispersed more and more. Eventually when they reached the stool, they were somehow forced to sit down. Upon doing so, the static dispersed completely, leading to the entire room turning read while the droning noises were the loudest they'd ever been.
In this moment, a gun came out of nowhere, right in their palm. They had no control over their body as they pointed the gun to their head, loaded the bullet, and as the trigger was pulled, they woke up.
They woke up back from the dream, completely drenched in sweat, grasping for air while holding their face in their palms.
"Well, any luck?" The conductor inquired.
The passenger merely sat there for a while, contemplating what they had just witnessed. They struggled, but eventually, they explained what they saw.
"That's... quite interesting," he spat between breaths.
Suddenly, he lunged forward to a cringing position, coughing bloodily while his skin deteriorated further.
"I don't suppose I have much time left," he wheezed, "but maybe it's for the best."
He then completely turned to dust, diffusing away while leaving his cap for the passenger.
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