Chapter 118 - Escaping from Arcanum Train (XI)
Editor: Kitty
Carriage No.9 was as dirty as carriage No.11, but this place also had a special feature. Although the carriage was full of garbage, there were no food sc.r.a.ps. After Owl and Black cat searched, they found that there was no food in the carriage.
Although the luggage rack was stuffed with baggage and the table also had a lot of bottles, cans, and bags of snacks littered all around it, all of them were empty.
There was not even water. The tap in the toilet did not even have water gushing out.
There was no food or water here. Owl felt worried so he tried to open the door again to return to carriage No.10. However, he found that the door to carriage No.10 had locked automatically. When Owl entered, he deliberately kept an eye on it and even put something to create a gap and keep it open. However, the door still closed quietly, and no one realized it.
“It seems that we can’t head back. We have no choice but to go forward,” Owl stood in front of carriage No.10 carriage and muttered to himself.
On the other side, Crow began his tough attempt in trying to converse with Two-headed snake.
This communication was made extremely difficult by Two-headed snake’s uncooperativeness because no matter what Crow said, Two-headed snake just sat there with a cold face while still tied up, keeping his eyes glued on the pitch darkness outside the window.
Crow felt a little powerless and tried to get the other person’s attention. He said, “I can untie you as long as you tell me what happened before we came here.”
But Two-headed snake still did not heed him. It appeared as if he did not care about anything at all, and he still kept his eyes glued to the windows.
Crow felt even more frustrated now. He tried to come up with some conversation topics, but in the end, it was he who ended up speechless. While Crow was struggling, Two-headed snake took the lead in speaking instead. Two-headed snake was still staring at the unchanging darkness outside the train windows as he felt the slight shaking of the train and listened to the sound of rumbling and wheels rolling.
Following that, Two-headed snake said, “It’s always black outside.”
Two-headed snake’s voice also carried hints of coldness, and it was not known whether it was a misconception, but Crow suddenly felt that he had become easy to communicate with.
Crow hesitated momentarily before replying, “Yes, from the moment I woke up and noticed this, everything outside was darkness.”
“It doesn’t look like the real world, does it?” Two-headed snake said.
“Yes…” Crow thought of Owl’s words: “It feels… as if this train has been running in pitch-dark primal chaos.”
“If it’s really driving in a land of pitch-dark primal chaos, where do you think its terminal will be?” Two-headed snake suddenly turned to look at Crow. Two-headed snake had black irises, and when he looked at Crow this way, Crow suddenly felt gooseb.u.mps surfacing all over his body.
Crow tried to get rid of this restless and inexplicable feeling. He continued to reply in a serious and honest manner: “I don’t know where the terminal isk2026; but I don’t want to stay in this carriage or on this train. As long as I can escape, wherever we are heading to doesn’t matter.”
“Even to h.e.l.l?” Two-headed snake’s voice sounded bleaker.
Following that, Crow smiled: “Regardless of where we’re headed, I want to live.”
Two-headed snake thought for a moment, shook his bound hands, and said, “Now, you can help me untie this.”
“Will you tell me what happened previously?”
“Of course. I’ll tell you all about it.”
Crow then helped Two-headed snake loosen the rope. Two-headed snake rubbed his freed hands, glanced at Crow, and said, “You don’t look afraid of me at all.”
“Why should I be afraid of you?” Crow optimistically asked.
“Because I just killed a man in front of you,” Two-headed snake stated.
But Crow shook his head: “If that was really a human… I would never untie you.”
“It seems that you have realized too.”
Two-headed snake thought for a while and decided to start from the beginning. Following that, he started his long speech: “When I woke up, there were only two people in this train car: me and the one you saw… that thin fellow that I don’t know what to make of.”
Two-headed snake said, and as if thinking of something, he frowned slightly and continued: “The monster was rummaging for something to eat. He had eaten all the food in this carriage, but he was still very hungry, so he squatted in the toilet to drink water from the tap until water stopped gushing out.”
“The monster that will never be full…?” Hearing Two-headed snake’s remarks, Crow suddenly remembered the hint given to them on the connecting door to carriage No.9.
“I have also read the hint given on the door.” Two-headed snake frowned: “But when I asked the monster what he wanted to eat, he didn’t answer… No, maybe it’s the kind that can’t communicate at all.”
“Can’t he speak?”
Two-headed snake shook his head: “It doesn’t look like he can. Except for noises when he was eating, he would not verbally respond, and for the rest of the time, he remained quiet. He seemed to be very hungry all the time, so he searched through the bags of snacks.”
“Did you find something for him to eat too?” Crow questioned.
“Yes, but there was no food left for him in this carriage.”
“Why did you kill him just now?”
Two-headed snake paused and darkly quipped, “Because now that there was no food for him in this carriage, he wanted to eat me.”
Crow trembled for a moment and turned back to look at the bony corpse that had collapsed on the ground. The corpse had been lying motionless and did not reanimate, contrary to what Crow imagined.
Two-headed snake didn’t notice Crow’s pale face and continued: “This guy came up to bite me, so I found a baseball bat in the corner and knocked him down. But this monster was very durable. No matter how hard I beat him, he would still get up and bite me, so I finally realized that… monsters are monsters and are totally different from human beings. After that, I thought of killing him.”
“But how can you find the key if you kill him?” As Crow thought about it, he felt distressed.
“I don’t want to die.” After Two-headed snake said that, he suddenly lifted up the hem of his clothes, and Crow saw a b.l.o.o.d.y wound on Two-headed snake’s strong arm. He saw that he had been bitten by something.
“This guy’s biting force is too terrifying. If I had been slower, the thing would have bitten off my arm.” Two-headed snake carefully touched his arm with his other hand, but miraculously, Crow did not see any lingering fear on Two-headed snake’s face.
“Your wound is still bleeding. I’ll bandage it for you.” Crow saw that the other party had a lot of bloodstains on his arm, so he took the cloth, which they had used as a rope to tie him, to use as a bandage. He thought for a moment: “It seems that there is no water in this carriage. I’m not sure if there is alcohol. If there is, at least your wound can be disinfected.”
“Everything that could be drunk was all gobbled up by the monster.” Two-headed snake grinned grimly.
Thereafter, Crow sighed. “Alright, I’ll have to make do with this,” Crow said and began to use a piece of cloth as gauze to bandage Two-headed snake’s arm. Two-headed snake looked at the way he moved for quite awhile before asking:
“Were you a doctor?”
“I don’t remember.” Crow shook his head and said, “My memory has been completely wiped clean, but several actions and skills seem to be familiar to me. Even if my memories were wiped clean, there are familiar memories to me that still can be easily utilized.”
“That’s great. Maybe we can infer from our actions and skills what we did before we lost our memory.”
“I’m definitely not a doctor then,” Crow declared.
“Why is that so? You know how to nurse the ill and handle wounds very well. Even if you’re not a doctor… you could also be a nurse?”
“I don’t know. Intuition.” Crow scratched his head and made a mess of his hair: “I just don’t think I am a doctor, and I couldn’t be a doctor.”
“And what would you be?” Two-headed snake asked curiously.
Crow paused.
Who would he be? But he could not remember at all. It was as if all his memories had hidden in the depths of his mind, in his unfathomable heart, in the deepest place, in the core of his mind, buried along with his flowing blood and beating heart. Following the flow of his arteries, it circulated around his body and dissipated at the same time.
Seeing that Crow was silent, Two-headed snake did not continue to question him. He looked at his cleanly bandaged arm and said, “I think I used to be a murderer.”
“Ah—?” Crow was stunned by what he had said.
“Because when I killed that monster just now, I feel like I’ve done that before.” Two-headed snake had an icy look in his eyes: “Yes, a long time ago, somewhere, I did the same thing.”
Crow was a little frightened. He comforted Two-headed snake, “Maybe you felt that you did something similar back then, for the sake of self-defense…”
“No, no, no! You are too naive—” Two-headed snake suddenly approached Crow and touched the other’s chin with his hand. It was a frivolous action. He said,” I’ll bet that everyone in this train car, except for you, has killed people.”
Crow was stunned and stared at Two-headed snake for a long time. He could not speak and felt that somewhere deep down in his heart was trembling. He reluctantly mustered up his courage and said, “You are probably joking.”
“You don’t believe me…?” Two-headed snake smiled and even used a gentle tone as he talked. He stared at Crow for a while, as if he suddenly found something. His voice was a little surprised, and he said, “Oh, I think I’ve got it wrong.”
Just when Crow had put his heart to ease, a sentence from Two-headed snake threw his inner peace into upheaval like storms brewing on rivers and seas—
“I think you’ve killed someone before, too.”
Crow suddenly pushed Two-headed snake away, and his face was a little gloomy. He took a deep breath to adjust his mentality and warned the snake, “Sir, I haven’t killed anyone. Don’t make such boring speculations. You should care more about yourself first!”
The conversation between Crow and Two-headed snake ended unhappily with this sentence, but then Owl found Crow and told him that there was no food or water in the carriage, proving that Two-headed snake’s words were not false—at least half of what he had said was true.
So Crow thought for a moment and said, “It seems that we have to search the corpse over there next.”