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“That dammed light came over once again...”
“Every time it comes, I wonder if above is as bad as it is here…”
“But it’s frightening. The light is not gentle as dark”
“It demands you… I don’t want to…”
.
.
.
“Mother…”
For the second time, he wakes up dizzy. This time however, there is a face to welcome him.
“Hey, you’re alright there?”
The face is blurry and he can’t understand the voice. His body feels pressurized, but not quite in pain. He can hear someone talking in the background, but can’t catch what they are saying.
“Talia, can you grab some water for him please?”
“Where…”
His dry voice is silenced by the cold feeling of water, calming him down and easing the feeling of tiredness.
“Better now? You got quite a burn from the train, so you must be new here”
“Train… I remember something about it… And some… light!”
His face tenses as he remembers the feeling: warm and embrace, followed by pressure, burning, demanding. He tries to sit up, but the pressure on his body suddenly becomes a sharp and searing pain.
“Woah, don’t try to move too much. Didn’t you hear me? Your burns are quite ugly”
Now looking at his own body, he sees that, besides the new set of clothes that he is wearing, he is in a pretty bad state: Arms with burns covering the whole biceps and hands, and some light but still bad burns in the legs,
“Your face somehow isn’t as bad as your arms. Don’t get me wrong, still burned, but at least nothing life threatening.”
“Where… are we?”
The guy sighs, face somewhere between sadness and pity.
“Yeah, I was afraid you’d ask that. The easy answer would be, a village. Somewhere where we all gather because it’s easier to survive together. But it is more about the place we are, isn’t it?”
He nods, half lamenting that this is really happening and half happy to found other people.
The guy and a girl, Talia, he remembers, help to put a pillow behind his back, just to elevate a little bit. She looks a little upset looking to him, something he can’t understand why. Maybe for the trouble of helping?
“Forgive Talia a bit, she got herself some nasty burns when she was younger. Every time someone gets in the train she still shivers”
“Is... this common?”
“Kind off. More with new people. They are still confused by what the fuck is going on, some don’t even leave the floor they appeared, and then the train comes. Some times we can shout to wake them, other times we just see them going to the light.”
“This… train. That… light… comes from it?”
“Yeah. We don’t actually know what it is. That light isn’t the only thing dangerous here, but it is one that we know the least of. I mean, we only know that it can kill you because of the burns the few survivors suffer, because there are no bodies left”
He tries to recollect what he was feeling. He felt comforted and happy, just to it be turned upside down. He tries to move his head to see around and it looks like a hole in the wall was adapted to be some sort of medical center. A little bit cramped, since it was just a rectangular space with about 3 meters width and some 6 meters of depth. There are some cupboards with bandages and even some headache pills.
“How long have you guys been here?”
“Far too long… Some of us accepted that here is where we will live and die…”
“There are no exits?”
“We climbed 345 floors and descended 412. Things get a little more different there, with some food, clothing and even medicine in lucky days. The thing is, we started to hear strange things and eventual screams. There are some creatures there are dangerous, so the though of finding something scarier than what we have stopped us. We have food, water, clothing. No one wants to risk their lives, even if it is to find an eventual exit.”
“Why? Don’t you wanna get out of this shit? This is fucking crazy. It is insane! “
“I won’t say you get used to it, because you don’t. But I can say why we don’t risk our lives. Because we have two types of people: Those who have something to return, like family and friends, and those who have nothing back there.”
The guy sits with his back against the cupboard, he pulls some type of jerky and starts to chew.
“Those with family want to come back alive, so they won’t just march towards their deaths, and the ones without anything have a life here that is as bad as the other one, but here at least they have other people who are fucked”, he says with a smirk.
“I would though that with someone back there they would risk it”
“When your life is in the line you rethink what you are willing to risk. Some still go, but those are rare. We never hear about them after these floors though. So, in what type you fall in?”
He looks up, digesting what he just heard. 412 floors with no exit to be found, just something scary. At least it makes sense, to have creatures next to the food.
“Neither. I have nothing but a chance back there”, he says looking up to the light on the ceiling. Looks like a modern home, lights inside the ceiling, its pretty. He worked towards this type of house at one point of his life, he remembers.
“Well, it is something. Some here wishes for just a chance. Not that a chance will matter while they are here.” The guy stands up, still chewing the jerky meat. “Name is Lucas by the way. Don’t be afraid to call people if you need something.”
“It would be easier if I could see anything besides the wall”, he says smirking.
With a light chuckle, Lucas reply “Well, the train comes regularly. Better to have you face the wall instead of running here when it comes, don’t you think?”
“Yeah…”, he shifts in the bed a little, groaning a bit with the discomfort of the burns. To be in trance and with these bad burns, they must have acted quickly, he thinks.
“Hey Lucas”, he says, stopping Lucas just as he was leaving, “how did you guys saved me?”
“It was a close call. You were already at the raillings, I already assumed we couldn’t get you”, he says, turning towards the bed. “But you know, sometimes all you need is a big guy to tackle you out of trouble. If you are prepared for it, you can resist the light for some seconds”, Lucas says, going out of the room.
“His name is Ageu”, finishes Lucas, footsteps echoing of another floor of this place.
He wonders how the guy that saved him is, not that he is going to bother Lucas with it. He must have something to do - He thinks. Afterall, this isn’t a dream, or even somewhere safe. The burns in his arms reminding himself of this very reality.