Chapter 108 - Escaping from the Arcanum Train (I)
Editor: Kitty
Lightning and rain.
The sound rang out from a distance far away along with the low rumble of thunder, which reverberated in his ears.
He was in a daze and noticed that he was lying on a small, narrow sofa when his hand touched the soft cloth under his body. The cloth gave off a damp smell.
Not only that, but also he felt the ground vibrate as the wheels rolled and the trains roared.
Where am I?
He asked himself this, and following that, he felt that he should open his eyes and take a look at his surrounding environment. However, his body felt very heavy, and it felt so hard to open his eyelids. Breathing was also difficult for him, as if he was thrown into the deep sea.
His mind was blank, and he didn’t know what to do. He was at a loss and confused. At this moment, he heard footsteps.
The pitter patter of footsteps…
But the footsteps sounded slowly, as if someone was taking their time as they walked. It was quite fitting to describe the person’s movements as slow like a tortoise. He listened to the footsteps that sounded out from afar as they came nearer, and the person seemingly arrived by his side. After that, he felt fl.u.s.tered. The person to whom the footsteps belonged made him inexplicably fearful. He wanted to open his eyes to see who it was, but he did not have the strength to do so.
The footsteps stopped by his side.
Shortly after, he heard someone breathing. A stranger was breathing very close to him, such that the sound almost rang out above his head. He soon realized that the stranger was bending down to observe him. He could even feel the heat from the other person’s breathing on him.
Without his being aware of it, he felt his fear deepen. Thereupon, he tried to mobilize his body; he wanted to move, open his eyes, and move!
Because he felt danger!
Sure enough, the next second, the terrifying stranger stretched out his hand and strangled his neck!
He clearly felt the strength of these hands. It was a pair of very rough hands. The nails were very long and almost pierced into his flesh! Pain and a suffocating feeling a.s.saulted his body together. He wanted to struggle, to violently fight back, but his hands and feet remained immobile, and the pain started to spike!
I will die. I will die!
Fear permeated almost the entirety of his brain.
At this moment, he seemed to hear a voice. The terrifying murderer who strangled his neck lowered his head, squatted beside him, and whispered in his ear, using a low voice and a mocking tone, saying:
“Would you stoop to anything to survive?”
After that, he was scared to open his eyes. Like a spring, his body jumped up as the sweat from his back soaked the sofa.
It turned out to be a nightmare.
“It was a nightmarek2026;” he mumbled to himself as he remained stupefied for a long time before beginning to observe his surrounding environment. He found that he seemed to be in a traink2014;an empty traink2014;and was in a certain carriage of the train, sitting on a sofa seat that appeared extremely old.
The sofa seat was in the style of an old-fashioned, black leather sofa seat, but it was covered with a white sofa cover, which looked like it had not been washed for a long time. Splotches of dark brown peppered the seat cover, which people a.s.sociated with dried blood.
Inside the carriage, seats were densely packed and arranged on both the left and right sides, and the aisle in the middle was so narrow that only one person could pa.s.s through at a time. Such a dense arrangement caused people to feel suffocated.
Also, this train carriage looked extremely strange.
Scattered across the ground were melon seed sh.e.l.ls, chewed betel nuts, cigarette b.u.t.ts, and all kinds of melon and fruit skins. There was a small table fixed on the floor between every two sofa seats. There were all types of drink bottles, eaten food, and poker cards scattered around, and there were even some piping hot instant cup noodles all around him.
Bags and backpacks were casually tossed on the sofa seats, and the luggage rack above his head was filled with an a.s.sortment of luggage.
Wouldn’t one feel weird seeing this train car in such a situation?
Yes, it was very strange! The situation was like the train car was packed to the brim seconds ago with people crowded into the narrow seats to eat, play cards, or huddle up to sleep and have fun during their journey. Then in the next second, everyone disappeared, and the food they ate, what they used, and their luggage were all left in this train car.
Such a strange feeling couldn’t help but make his hair stand up.
He tilted his head and got up from the sofa seat. After he could feel his hands and feet, he found that he had forgotten many things.
Oh right, what have I forgotten?
He could not help but wonder what time was it now? What year, month, and day was it? What particular hour and minute? And why did he appear on the train or even fall asleep in this strange carriage? He unconsciously looked downward at his body and found that he was wearing a suit… Eh, it looked like a patient’s uniform, but this garb was greyish-blue in colour and felt more like a prison uniform instead.
There were a lot of pockets on his clothes, and there was an embroidered name card on the front of the garb with a string of English words written on it. He could barely understand what it said—Crow. It meant a corvus.
He was not able to understand its use, so he simply searched his pockets. After a long while, he only managed to find a piece of paper.
It was a small piece of paper printed with purple patterns and with rows and rows of words written on it. He squinted at the note and saw the note started off as follows:
[Brave Adventurer:]
[Your esteemed self is now on a train and has lost your memory, strength, and skills entirely, and you are currently in danger.]
[The train will run nonstop for six hours, and after those six hours, the final destination of this train is a cliff. If your esteemed self cannot escape from the train within six hours, you will head to h.e.l.l together with the train.]
[The train has thirteen cars. You are now in the last carriage, which is at the tail of the train.]
[The door to every carriage is locked, and the doors and windows cannot be damaged. Only by finding the key can the door be opened. In pa.s.sing, remember that the train can only be stopped by heading toward the locomotive cab in the very front.]
[Each train car is a separate secret chamber with its own unique key. There are clues hinting at the locations of the keys to the doors connecting the cars on each door.]
[Your esteemed self has four companions who are all facing the same situation as you, deprived of their memory and abilities. However, only three of them are your true comrades. Before you lost your memory, you were close friends who had been through life and death together, and the remaining person—is an extremely ferocious murderer.]
[You have the chance to recover your memory, but most of it can only be recalled before you die. Kindly be reminded that only the murderer is special. He may recover his memory at any point in time.]
[Don’t trust anyone, including yourself.]
After flipping over the note, there was only one sentence written on the back, and it was inexplicably familiar to him:
“Would you stoop to anything to survive?”
This sentence made him shiver again, and he felt an inexpressible panic in his heart. Were the contents written in this note true? He was now locked in a train, had lost his memory, and will die in six hours? And there were four other people in the train car who were in the same situation as him. And one of them was still a murderer?
All this made him inexplicably think of the dream, that terrifying dream. In the dream, he was a poor man who remained paralyzed. He was strangled with a lot of strength, but as he watched death approach him, he was unable to resist it.
“Looks like you’re in the same situation as me.” Just as he descended into a spiral of confusion and disorientation, a voice suddenly rang out beside him. He immediately turned back and was surprised to find that there was a man sitting on the sofa next to him!
“Who are you?” He was frightened because until the man spoke out, he did not find any other people in the train car except himself! It felt as if this man had appeared out of thin air!
“You don’t have to worry. Actually, I’ve been lying on the sofa behind you. When you woke up, I also woke up, too. You were just so focused on the note that you didn’t notice me.”
With a glance, the man seemed to be able to read his mind, so with a smile, he explained.
He found that the man had dimples when he laughed… and because of this, he appeared somewhat cute. Since he had a small stature, he looked like a teenager at first glance. He had a gentle temperament, but… there was something strange about him.
“My name is Owl.” The man said and pointed to the name card on his chest with a string of English engraved on it—Owl. It meant an adult owlet.
“We have all lost our memories, and this type of amnesia is probably caused by humans, so in order to prevent us from being confused and find it difficult to address each other, they have temporarily given us names.”
Name? He could not help but look down at his chest. The word engraved on it was a single English word, Crow, and being a little vigilant, he questioned: “How do you know what this meant in English? What I meant was, how do you know that’s the way to address each other?”
“Because I’m smarter than you are.” Owl waved his hand, and in his hand, he had a similar note with a purple pattern on it. “We wear the same clothes and were left with the same note on our bodies, and written on the notes are almost the same thing, saying that we will die if we don’t escape from the train within six hours.”
“But it’s also written on this note that one of us is a murderer, and we might be killed by the murderer even before the six hour mark,” Crow said—he should be known as Crow now, and he could only use such a ridiculous name until he remembered his real name.
“But how do you know that the so-called murderer will kill us all?” Owl responded with a smile. His eyes appeared profound, and the expression he used to look at Crow looked very strange. Crow found that the man was actually wearing a black ear stud.
“You see, I can’t remember anything now. I can’t remember what time it is, what date it is today, what I did yesterday, or what I’ll need to do afterwards. I can’t remember my name, my relatives, or friends or what I’ve done since I was little; I can’t remember anything.”
Owl murmured, but strangely, Crow could not hear panic in the man’s voice. Generally speaking, would he not be afraid or nervous after he found out he had lost his memories? He should be like Crow: from the moment he woke up, he felt nothing but bewilderment and fear.
“Why aren’t you afraid?” Because he was suspicious, Crow tried to sound out Owl again. He could not believe a stranger! It was possible, though, that before they lost their memory, they were really close friends that braved life and death together.
But in the absence of their memories and with the lack of emotional support, this man was just an unfamiliar stranger to Crow.
“Afraid?” Owl tilted his head, and he laughed again. He was very cute, and a large part of it was due to his face. But Crow felt that the strange atmosphere around the man was getting stronger and stronger.
“We don’t need to be afraid. It’s just a game, even if this game requires us to risk our lives,” Owl said, “You know what? When a human loses all his memories, what is exposed is their truest nature.
“The reason why a human being can form consciousness is because of the acc.u.mulation of their memories, and with the help of their memories and wisdom, they enable us to have consciousness. The formation of a human character is based on the influence of the environment, the people around us, and everything we encounter. This influence forms our memories in our minds so as to shape and change our character.”
Owl suddenly stood up from the sofa seat, so Crow could not help but look up to him. The dim light in the carriage shone on the man, making his smiling face appear a little ghastly.
“And when we lose these memories, we become creatures who lack mercy, akin to wild animals that possess cruel natures, and purely for the sake of our desire to live on, we will stoop to any means.”
T/N: New arc! This is one of my favourite arcs. I feel that I should warn you guys to prepare your tissues!!!
Also, chapters per week would be reduced to 4/week, because school has started for me and it’s really inconvenient for me to post on Weds. Hope y’all understand.
Also, a comment would be much appreciated! Thank you guys so much for reading!