novelleonline Chapter 72 The Train
Chapter 72 The Train
The carriage was more spacious than expected.
Dark brown leather seats are located on both sides, with an aisle in the middle.
The overhead lights emitted a dim, yellowish glow, barely illuminating twenty or thirty seats.
There were already seven or eight people sitting there.
Everyone was dressed in dark colors, their faces were expressionless, and they maintained a clear distance from one another.
Lin Yu chose an empty seat by the window and placed his luggage at his feet.
Across from me was a young man wearing glasses, intently flipping through a handwritten notebook, his pen rapidly scribbling something on the pages.
A woman was sitting diagonally in front of me, near the aisle.
She was about 1 meters tall, with long, dark chestnut hair tied into a neat high ponytail at the back of her head, with a few stray hairs falling on her neck.
Her facial features were defined yet soft, with a high nose bridge and thin lips that were slightly pursed at the moment.
He wore a suit of dark brown leather armor, with matte metal plates embedded in the joints and vital areas, which neither hindered his movement nor hindered his vital protection.
Two sheathed short knives hung at his waist, their handles wrapped in worn black leather.
Her posture appeared relaxed, but her spine was straight and her shoulders were slightly lowered, a posture ready to erupt at any moment.
The woman seemed to notice Lin Yu's gaze, turned her head, and glanced at him with her amber eyes.
His gaze was calm and sharp, carrying an undisguised assessment.
After making eye contact for about a second, she turned back expressionlessly and continued looking ahead, as if that glance had been an illusion.
At that moment, a gruff complaint came from the middle of the carriage.
"Damn it, what kind of place is this? There isn't even a decent seat! Is this the kind of treatment a nature reserve receives?"
The speaker was a bald, burly man with a face full of scars. He wore a tight canvas jacket, and his exposed, thick arms were covered with ferocious animal head tattoos.
He was pounding on the armrest of the seat, making dull thuds that drew frowns and sidelong glances from several people around him.
"What are you looking at?" the bald man glared at a skinny young man who was looking at him, his voice booming.
"Did I say something wrong? This piece of junk, these broken seats, are they for feeding pigs?"
The thin young man looked away, not daring to reply.
The bald man seemed quite satisfied with the intimidating effect. He snorted, slumped into his seat, crossed his legs, and his boots almost brushed against the trouser leg of a middle-aged woman on the other side of the aisle.
The middle-aged woman frowned, shrank closer to the window, and said nothing.
The bald man's presence added to the already tense and oppressive atmosphere in the carriage.
Lin Yu stopped paying attention to that side and turned his gaze back to the flowing gray mist outside the window.
The train traveled in absolute silence for about an hour and a half, with only the regular clanging sound of the wheels rolling over the "growth track".
During this time, a train conductor, dressed in an old-fashioned dark blue uniform and with a face as pale as a wax figure, appeared once, pushing a small tin cart, and silently distributed a "simple meal" to everyone.
A hard, dark gray synthetic cake wrapped in oil paper, as hard as a brick, and a small tube of cloudy, pale yellow nutrient solution.
Lin Yu slowly chewed the synthetic biscuit. It tasted bland with a strange mineral astringency, but it provided basic calories.
The bald man continued to grumble and complain about how bad the food was, while taking big bites of the pancake.
The woman in leather armor ate quickly and efficiently, her chewing and swallowing almost silently. After finishing, she closed her eyes, seemingly entering a state of light rest.
The carriage fell silent again, broken only by the bald man's occasional impatient mutterings and the slight creaking of the seats.
About half an hour later.
Without warning, all the lights inside the carriage started flashing violently at the same time!
The rapid alternation of light and shadow was unsettling, with the light and shadow dancing wildly on the passengers' faces.
Everyone tensed instantly, their hands reaching for their weapons or the locations where they had hidden the strange objects.
The train conductor's cold, monotone voice blared from the loudspeaker, sounding particularly eerie amidst the flashing lights and the suddenly heightened tension.
[Passengers, the train is about to enter the "quiet zone".]
The rules for the quiet zone are as follows:
[1. Maintain absolute silence. No sound of any kind is permitted, including but not limited to speaking, coughing, groaning, panting, hiccups, rubbing of clothing, teeth chattering, rapid heartbeat, or loud blood flow.]
2. Do not move. Please maintain your current sitting posture; do not change the position of your limbs or head.
3. Do not open your eyes after the lights are turned off. Visual signals may trigger its gaze.
[IV. Violation of any of the above clauses will attract the attention of "passengers".]
[5. Those who are noticed by "passengers" are solely responsible for any consequences.]
[Quiet zone travel time: 10 minutes.]
Have a pleasant journey!
The moment the word "pleasant" was uttered, all the lights suddenly went out!
Absolute, all-consuming darkness descends.
Even the faint gray-white reflection of the fog that had been outside the window had completely disappeared.
It was as if the train had suddenly entered a pure void, or the digestive tract of some kind of behemoth.
The surroundings were deathly silent.
Lin Yu immediately adjusted his breathing, forcibly reduced his heart rate to an extremely low level, relaxed all his muscles to a near-dormant state, and fixed himself in his current sitting posture.
In the absolute darkness, other senses are amplified.
He could hear the faint sound of his blood flowing slowly through his veins, and he could feel the bespectacled man opposite him, whose heart was racing and who was trembling slightly due to extreme tension.
I could smell a very faint scent emanating from the woman in leather armor diagonally in front of me, and I could also smell the increasingly strong smell of sweat and anxiety coming from the bald man's direction.
Of course, there are other voices as well.
It came from the top of the carriage.
"Sizzle...rustling..."
It resembled some kind of soft, multi-legged creature covered in mucus, slowly dragging and crawling across the cold metal roof.
The sound was sticky and clear, with a rhythm that sent chills down your spine.
The sound grew louder as it approached, eventually stopping directly above their carriage.
Immediately following was the sound of liquid dripping.
"Tick-tock".
"Tick-tock".
Viscous, slow-moving, with regular intervals.
The pungent, nauseating smell of blood began to quickly permeate the enclosed carriage, drowning out all other odors.
Lin Yu could feel a cool, viscous liquid dripping onto the back of his hand, which was resting on his knee. It was slippery and had a fishy, sweet taste.
But he didn't move an inch.
The entire carriage was deathly silent, save for the chilling sounds of crawling and dripping blood.
"Sizzle... hiss..."
The things on the roof of the car started moving again.
This time, the direction of movement was towards the middle of the carriage, directly above the bald man's seat.
The sound of dripping blood moved over and became more frequent.
Although Lin Yu's eyes were closed, a kind of perception beyond sight made him realize that there was an indescribable presence hanging upside down above the bald man's head, watching him in some way.
Time passed slowly in absolute darkness and deathly silence.
Every second was stretched out by fear.
The bald man's breathing began to become heavy and disordered.
Although he seemed to be trying his best to suppress it, the fear could not be dispelled.
Lin Yu could even faintly hear the "clucking" sound of his teeth chattering slightly.
This bald man is probably going to die. Perhaps it was because he made too much noise and angered the train?
After all, in Lin Yu's view, this steam train was also a strange object.
Strange things have their own temperaments and rules.