I kept staring at the slowly ticking clock. Based solely on my biological assessment of time, it felt like days had passed, but according to the clock itself, it had been no more than a measly half hour.
It was the same with each clock on the train, they simply didn't work together with reality, measuring each minute as a small eternity.
With John dead, we felt more vulnerable than ever, and since his death we hadn't spoken a word.
“I know we're all on edge, but I think it's time we discuss what we'll do once the train stops again,” Frank said in his usual annoyed tone.
Both Mia and I knew our true destination, but hadn't yet told Frank. Alas, time had come, and if we stood even the faintest chance of surviving, we had to be able to rely on each other.
“Frank, we need to tell you something,” I said.
His eyes narrowed in suspicion at my obviously guilty tone.
“Tell me what?”
“Our destination, Gehenna, well...” I trailed off.
“Yes, what about it?”
“It's- eh-”
“Gehenna is Hell, Frank, we're all going to Hell,” Mia burst out, annoyed by my hesitation.
We fell silent for a few seconds while Frank processed what we'd just told him. Then, he suddenly burst out laughing.
“Really, Hell, that's the best you could do?” he said.
I just nodded in response.
“So, you mean to tell me, that we're already dead, and that our next stop will be the realm of Satan himself?”
“Yeah, I guess, why is that funny?”
“Well, if you hadn't noticed already, two of us died. How is that possible if we're already dead? Where's John and Phillip, huh?”
He had a point, our conventional idea of Hell required us to be dead already, though it never stated whether you could die twice, or what happens upon second death.
“We're clearly not dead, but that doesn't mean we're not going to a horrific place. Regardless of what you might think, Gehenna means Hell,” Mia said.
The argument went on fruitlessly for a while, Frank never giving in and admitting that we weren't going to reach salvation once the train stopped.
In the meanwhile, I kept staring out the window. The once green fields of killer crystals has long since vanished, and the forest of red pillars had grown so dense that it finally blocked out each ray of light brave enough to attempt to illuminate our path. If I hadn't known better, I could've thought we were back in the void, but it felt different, far hotter than it had before, even more devoid of hope.
Before I got a chance to question the environment, the darkness gave way to a large, open space, devoid of any life. Just a rocky, flat surface surrounded by infinitely tall cliffs on each side. It was a valley, gray and dull, with little to no light penetrating a layer of thick clouds above.
Then the train started to slow down...
“We're coming to a stop,” Mia said as she peeked out through the window. “The tracks end here.”
Before long the train stood still, and all the doors opened automatically, signaling for us to get off. There was a sign on the empty platform next to us, written in a language I couldn't comprehend. I pulled out my crumbled up ticket and compared the text, noticing that some of it matched.
“Gehenna,” I mumbled.
“So what now, we get off the train and wonder the wasteland, or sit here with the last of our supplies, waiting for hunger to kill us?” Frank asked.
We never got the chance to make a decision, before the train simply started disintegrating under our feet. First the windows turned to sand, then the seats rotted away as if hit with a thousand years of time, and finally the floor started to crack, causing us to plummet into the ground.
I groaned in pain as I landed, severely twisting my ankle, while the others landed slightly more elegantly. Mia and Frank helped me to my feet as we witnessed the last chunks of train just vanish before our eyes.
We climbed off the tracks, and onto the platform. It was situated on a bridge, giving us a clear view of our surroundings. It was a city, or at least it used to be one, now nothing more than the ruins of a previously inhabited place. Tall cliffs stood around the city, too steep to be climbed, too massive to allow for much light. We were in the shadows, clueless and lost.
I looked around at the worn down buildings, desperately searching for any kind of life, but there was none to be found. Without any other options, we headed down to the streets and started searching for a way out.
The houses were mostly empty, too broken to set foot in without risking total collapse, filled only with crumbled papers written in a language none of us could understand. Where they had furniture, it was crudely constructed from debris of metal and what could only be bone fragments, but whoever built any of it, were nowhere to be seen.
“How much food and water do we have left?” Frank asked.
“Enugh for maybe a day,” Mia responded.
He sighed in response, and we kept walking. I limped behind the other two on my twisted ankle, until we eventually reached a large, open square, surrounded with what looked like temples. Unlike the surrounding city, they were beautifully built in stark contrast to their surroundings.
In the middle of the square sat an emaciated figure. A man with white, thin hair and protruding, prominent ribs from his starved body. He didn't seem to notice us as we quickly approached him to see if he needed help, but even as we spoke to him he just sat there, rocking back and forth as he mumbled over and over again in a hoarse, sickly voice:
“I just want to die, why won't you let me die, I just want to die, why not, why, why, why?”
Mia bent down in front of him and tried to his attention. His eyes had turned white from cataract, rendering him completely blind, and chunks of flesh were missing from his chest and abdomen, visibly infected and smelling like rot.
She reached out and checked his pulse, quickly retracting her hand.
“He's dead.”
“What do you mean, dead? He's clearly living. Talking and everything,” Frank said.
“Look at him, no one could have survived these wounds, and doesn't have a fucking pulse,” she said.
Of course, she was right. The man should've been dead, yet there he said, crying in agony, begging for a death that never came. Suffering, blind and deaf without anything to connect him to the world he lived in.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“I think- I think maybe we just finish him off...” Frank said meekly.
“We can't, he's-” Mia stopped mid sentence, realizing that for once, Frank was right.
“I'm sorry, I think I've gotta agree with Frank on this, he wants to die. The least we can do is to free him,” I said, as kindly as I could.
Frank pulled John's knife out from the backpack, and looked at us for the go-ahead. I nodded in return.
“You guys better look away,” Frank said.
He bent down behind the suffering man, and whispered that he was sorry, before quickly slitting his throat. To all of our surprises, not a drop of blood poured out from the newly formed wound. Instead, the man just fell to the ground and gargled incomprehensibly.
A whole minute passed, and then another, yet the man refused to die. The city wouldn't let him, and rather than freeing him, we'd just put him into a whole other level of misery. Taking away his voice and ability to beg for death.
“I-I, I didn't-” Frank stuttered as he realized what he'd done.
With that, as if a veil had been lifted from our blind eyes, we finally saw the empty city for what it truly was. Rather than the desolate ruins we'd met as we entered, we saw a fully populated city, filled to the brim with suffering inhabitants. Each mutilated in various degrees.
Most of them were blind, with their eyes either ripped out or turned to coal. Those unfortunate enough to see had their limbs removed, or their organs torn our onto the street, unable to do anything to end their miserable existence.
As the horrific realization hit us, the ground below us started to move. The city had finally noticed our unwelcome presence, and it reacted violently by pulling itself apart, creating a gaping chasm in the middle of the square that swallowed anyone unlucky enough to be in the way.
“What's happening?” Frank asked in panic.
“I don't know, but let's get out of here!” I yelled in response.
The chasm quickly widened, revealing a massive hole extending down into a dark abyss, with spikes and black tendrils extending from the burning walls beneath us.
With my sprained ankle, I couldn't keep up with the others, and slipped to the ground as it shook violently.
“Thomas!” Mia yelled as she rushed to my aid, Frank continuing to flee towards the alleys.
She pulled me up just in time to avoid being swallowed by the ground. We headed after Frank, who'd started running down one of the alleys, seemingly devoid of any people. As he entered the alley, the concrete walls started moving vigorously.
“Frank, wait!” I yelled, but he didn't hear me.
By the time he noticed the walls, it was already too late, and hundreds of spikes shot out from the walls, morphing out from the concrete buildings. Frank dodged the first one as he tried to retreat back towards us, and for a moment it seemed he was in the clear, before one final spike emerged and penetrated straight through Frank's abdomen.
With the mortal wound, the wall fell silent. Frank collapsed to the ground holding onto his guts, unable to scream from the intense pain.
“Frank!” We yelled simultaneously as we rushed to his mangled body.
He lay there in shock, his eyes darting frantically back and forth between us. Too wounded to move, he didn't even realize the severity of his injury.
Mia tried her best to stop the bleeding by applying pressure, but it hardly slowed down the incessant flow of crimson blood.
“I'm okay, I'm okay, I'll be alright-” Frank kept repeating in panic, getting quieter with each iteration.
He quickly bled out, too fast to accept his ultimate demise, and all we could do was to sit over him as he let out a final breath, and finally fell silent.
The ground started moving again, not to attach us, but to swallow Frank, to fuse his limp body with the concrete beneath him. Within seconds, he'd vanished, and become one with the city of Gehenna.
Before we could get the chance to catch our breaths, the walls started moving once again. With my injured leg, I knew I stood no chance of escape, but Mia didn't have to die with me.
“Mia, get out of here!” I yelled as spikes formed around us, reaching out to destroy our vulnerable bodies.
Then, out of nowhere, a dark rumble sounded alongside a bright light, and the ground came to a standstill. An old man emerged from up the alley, wearing a worn out, but perfectly tailored suit, and a cane in his left hand.
The sound shook us, and I grabbed my ear futilely trying to block it out, but it barely helped.
“What the hell are you kids doing here?” the man said as both Mia and I passed out.
---
Credits
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