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Infinite loops. The breaking of cars. Countless wishes whispered in a hush by those onboard and off.
For as long as it has existed, nothing could truly hope to stop the train in its tracks. Even for the disembarkation of passengers, the stillness would only last for a brief moments before vanishing - just long enough for a sigh of celebration, relief, or perhaps even mournful reminiscence.
Regardless of the state of motion, two constants still hold true: passengers are transported through space and time for help with fixing their problems, and numbers will rise, fall, go defunct, or turn to zero.
When it comes to the train, this is simply how it was, is, and would be for the foreseeable future.
At least, for the next eight seconds.
With a tremendous rumble felt even by the caboose itself, every other car finds their wheels locking up and screaming against the rails, while the rest go into free spin, their sheer momentum carrying everything forwards several kilometers before the train finally screeches to a halt.
Once, an impenetrable hull and an unstoppable engine could be found at the train’s beginning.
Now, all that was left was a sprawling mass of tubes and wires, countless metal tendrils left unnaturally splayed like the fibers of an exploded muscle. Intertwined trails of smoke and steam billow from the mangled pipes and machinery, broken coolant pumps spilling onto sensitive electronics.
The Conductor’s cab lies open - the interior few passengers have ever viewed exposed for all to see - while the Conductor themself is nowhere to be found. And yet, despite the crackling drone of the shattered reactor cores, amidst the faint screams of passenger and denizen alike, a calm manages to settle over the stilled locomotive.
No more could it run. No more could new cars, new denizens, new solutions be created. No more could those in need of its guidance find an appearance to appeal to their vices, let alone be approached from across reality in the first place. Not even exits could be generated for the newly victorious along the train’s length, few as they may be.
The original purpose for which it had been made could never be completed now, its work ironically having gone off the rails in all senses but literal. If the train could weep, that capability too would have gone up in smoke with the engine.
For all intents and purposes, this should be the train’s last and final stop, its journey finally coming to an end.
…
But it refused.
Suddenly, twisted, gnarled wires begin to shift, unfurling from the spiraling ropes of cables they once were. Piston and coupling rods shorn in half bend on their own accord, pipes mirroring them in behavior.
One, ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million more. Across the sky the metal tendrils spread, flexing every which way like someone stretching off the lethargy of a deep sleep from their limbs.
Metallic, almost groaning, almost growling noises echo out across the endless orange plains.
Slowly, a few tendrils dig into the parched dirt below, while others claw up at the cloudless heavens above. Some even reach out to the horizon into which the infinite tracks fade ahead. To the naked eye, most simply touched empty air, and the ones in the brittle ground were but a few millimeters deep. And yet, as one, they pull .
Trillions of tons of metal shrieks as every car, the entire train lurches a meter forwards. Another meter forwards.
Then several.
Along the horizon, between the unending yellow light and distant landforms, there appears a gap in reality. And within that widening seam, something gazes back at the train.
An iris ringed by a meteoric pupil shines brightly at the center of the stellar sclera, eight planetary spots peppering the eye's surface. As its eyelids are pried open further more, trillions of microscopic needles cut and tear at the cornea, slowly but surely picking up in speed.
Towards the third world from the central star, towards the far off sphere of blue and green called Earth, towards so many numbers to reduce and resources to convert, M̷̛̟̞̀̐Ŏ̶̞̻̻T̶̜̫̱̄͐̓Ḧ̵͈̦E̸̺͍̣͌͋̊R̶̬̈͒͝ carves a path for her precious train to resume its duty.