Onslaught

A loud ear-piercing tone echoed throughout the artificially lit train station. Raluf looked up from the autobiography he was reading and was met by a holographic text that appeared in front of him, as if it expected his movements. The text read "Next train: Vorben Galaxy. ETA: A few seconds." It blinked out quickly as a seemingly never-ending train appeared directly in front of him, streaks of white, red, blue, and yellow painted the left side of the train flashing before his eyes. A whoosh of air blew his blonde fringe cut up straight for a good length of time.

Raluf was a freshman at university and majored in history. It was only his first few months fitting in with the community surrounding him, however he had yet to form deeper connections with his room and floor-mates. He was accompanied by his close high school friends inside the university, but friendships could only last so long before he was stranded with very few people by his side. Long had he tried to improve his finances, however his efforts were in vain. Even if he could, there were no other majors that looked like he could understand. Weirdly enough, he shared many of the same characteristics as the author of the autobiography he was reading for a source in his thesis. It's nice to skim across random parts of literature and enjoy that small sliver of contrast against everyday life once in a while, no matter how minute.

As the train slowed to a halt, Raluf grumbled, "About damn time," barring his teeth loosely. What was once random blotches of colour had now turned into something comprehensible. The side of the train displayed an advertisement for a new instant-healing ointment, where it promised to sew back wounds as large as a knife slash.

He had waited for half an hour in the sparsely-populated interstellar Almagest station. Though there were hardly any people, convenience stores still shone their "OPEN" signs high and bright for anyone who needed a boost in their energy with a cup of coffee. Raluf had tried some items from one such store, and he could only advise to others not to as the shelves are lined with lackluster goods.

The train opened its doors upwards to its roof, and a flood of a mix of humans and other beings entered the world. Everyone went in every other direction: some to the convenience store at Raluf's left, some straight to the flight of stairs behind him, and some to the restroom as only they know how long they have waited for the train's arrival. While tucking the autobiography into his brown leather bag, Raluf stood from his slumped position on the reinforced oak bench that he was sitting on, satisfyingly cracking his spine a few times in the process. He did the same to his head, and once he was done, he strided over to the ointment-advertising train.

Stepping inside the intensely-lit train, Raluf found himself a seat nearby and sat on the comfortable green cushion. The seat automatically activated a shield around him to prevent any attackers from harming him. On the inner walls of the shield, customisation options blinked before Raluf's eyes, but he chose to ignore those for a while and observed the people around him just for a quick while. Save but a few people remained on the train. To his northeast sat a muscular four-armed man who if standing was a bit taller than two metres. His head was tilted downwards, eyelids shut and both pairs of arms crossed.

To Raluf's left was an old lady, whose wrinkles have left her face cracked and rough. A closed pink umbrella laid on her wide thighs. She too seemed to be asleep, her pose similar to the muscular multi-armed man save for her tilting head which laid on her right shoulder.

"It's very late anyways," Raluf thought to himself. He eyed the customisation options at last and chose his preset sleeping choice. Immediately the walls of his shield darkened around him, covering himself in darkness. He adjusted the darkness levels to his liking, then, finding a comfortable position in his pod, closed his eyes and let his imagination take him somewhere. To his disappointment, though, his mind was preventing him from wandering off into dreams. "Shouldn't have drank that," Raluf murmured to himself.

He heard the sounds of more footsteps entering the train. Some were wet, squelchy, and heavy, while others were light, airy, and almost puffy. He heard the sounds of children of faraway planets, roughly translated by his built-in translator. He heard the groan of something, its voice loud, coarse and rough. He heard many bird-like chirps, their voices high and screechy, until a woman was heard silencing whatever it was making those noises. The number of people entering the train slowly diminished, and not long after, the train audibly closed its doors with a click, and it was off into deep space, Raluf feeling a bit of inertia in his pod.

The train departed from Almagest station to Vorben galaxy, the place where Raluf had come from. It truly was a shock to him to see the people's way of life in Phalas. Raluf had tried to adjust his habits according to the local customs, and to an extent, it was livable. There would be some occasional blunders from him, like that one time where he mistakenly crossed his eyes while trying to read what a chameleon wore on his tee from afar, which caused a small yet intense talk about chameleon customs. Regardless, Raluf was content in living here, though his worry would turn to his aging single mother. She had done so much for him, that it didn't sit right within Raluf to leave her as so. He had planned to rent another room in an apartment area in his neighbourhood, however that would only shatter his already fragile wallet.

A while after the departure, Raluf felt that something bluntly collided against the train. The impact jerked him awake, along with all the passengers on the train. The lights above flickered before eventually dimming completely and enveloping the interior in darkness. He was confused, bewildered, and so were the people around him. Then, the train began shaking violently, as some who got out of their seats lost their balance and fell, while some screamed in fear of what was to come of their fate. Frantically trying to escape from his protective pod, Raluf accidentally ejected himself from the pod and face planted against the cold hard ground.

A soft red glow emanated atop the door that was connecting one coach with another. Any red signal should indicate that the situation was about to get dire quickly. After a short delay, horns of deafening sirens blare up, making the already chaotic scene into an unbearable endless nightmare. Raluf, now supine on the floor, covered his ears and held his chin down tightly on his chest. He wanted to curl up and wait until the barrage of emotions dissipated, but he knew he would only be flattened under the herd of footsteps he heard coming from the adjacent carts. Raluf stood, the blood rushing towards his head made him stumble before he leaned against the window opposite his seat.

He heard the sound of the conductor of the train, his voice desperate, panicked, and full of urgency. A hard thud was heard through the speakers, followed by shouting. "The central navigation panel is dead! We're on our own until we can contact help!"

Another object collided against Raluf's side of the train, causing the already-damaged train to roll over and dismount out of its "rails." Raluf tumbled and hit his right shin against the seating, his wail muffled out by the numerous people also falling over and colliding against various structures within the train. Through the small gap within the people, Raluf managed to spot that the conductor seemingly had opened up a portal out of desperation, hoping that it would take him, his crew and the passengers somewhere safe until help arrived. It was a hint more blueish-purple when it is compared to the space around it. Before long, the train had completely gone through the portal, after which the surroundings changed from what was an empty starry void to a blue sky littered lightly with white puffy clouds.

Still rolling, Raluf felt that the train was now descending at a worrying pace. He felt weightless and started floating around in the train, as with all the others inside. Immediately after, the train went into its shell mode, and the windows were changed from highly tempered shock-absorbent glass to thick reinforced metal that would take ages to dent. The hue inside also shifted to a bluer tone, perhaps to calm down the passengers when a situation of this caliber ever happened. They continued to fall for what Raluf could describe as an eternity. Despite the hue shift, the nausea, sensory overload, the heat that started to radiate from the then-windows, and the total darkness still enveloping everyone started to take a mental toll on him. Every rational thought or idea he had to get out of this torment was silenced by his throbbing heart beating in his throat, and the sounds of many others' screams as they too felt how he had. Raluf felt hopeless. Raluf felt like his organs might fail on him at any moment. Raluf felt like he wanted to rip open his skull, and hack away at his brain, just anything to save him from this cursed train's crash course.