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It's so weird.
So utterly bizarre and unusual that it seemed unreal. It started a while ago. Maybe a month? Or two?
The moment Joachim banged his head against the shelf above his desk again while waking up from another - very strange - dream. In every one of those, he saw - him. As if alive, who asked him the same thing each time:
«Joachim, give this to her please» It wasn't anything like «come with me» or anything else - it just wasn't there. The silhouette of a man never waited for a response from the frozen nameless man. No, on the contrary, he himself always asked for silence and said something.
The core felt strange too, as if alien. As if he hadn't been the 'Welt Yang' of the World - the one everyone wanted to believe in - for many decades before, as if he hadn't been the Herrscher of Reason all along. The core raged. It felt like a hot trace inside, something heavy that made it hard to look at it calmly. His whole body began to ache at the same moment. I wish I hadn't noticed the strangeness of it all. He wished he didn't feel the core rebellion, but instead lived as before. He didn't realize what was happening.
None of the Astral Express crew noticed anything strange, as if everything was as it should be. Could there be something wrong with him?
He couldn't say for sure, as he looked at his happy friends, he probably should have been happy too, but somehow he wasn't.
It all seemed so-- Unreal
Everything's so good here, it's so suspicious.
It's too sweet and beautiful to be true. There must be a catch.
Even he was alive here. Not so long ago - he remembered exactly - as in his dreams, Welt had asked him only one thing: «When you come back, tell her that I miss her too.» But now they were all in front of him, in the main carriage of the express. Tesla's talking to Himeko about new mechanisms for the train, and Ein and Welt-- They're together, just as they'd like to be. Even Bronya and Seele, they too are now sitting in each other's arms while the CEO comes up with new concept art for a character in her game. The rest of the crew are busy doing their own things.
Pom-Pom is watering flowers somewhere nearby, a few drops getting on her arm and on the sleeve of her cloak.
The night. It was a heavy night, and it was impossible to sleep. Joachim tried to get up carefully, so as not to wake the woman beside him; if he woke her, it would end badly, he knew for sure.
This bed was clearly not made for two people at once, but there wasn't much of a way out of this situation.
He cautiously opened the door, looked around and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
And there he was again, standing by the window in the main carriage, looking out at the stars. Trying to find an answer in the impersonal silence of space: «what's wrong?» «why am I not experiencing reality?» «Why do I seem to be something I'm not?» «what is happening to the world?»
....
«what is happening to me?»
There was no answer. It was all he could get out of the deep void into which he had been staring for at least an hour.
He had no memory of being in the room, no memory of falling asleep.
But in the morning he saw a brightly smiling Tesla, who woke him up with the words that today was going to be some important day, an event that for some reason he didn't want to go to.
So he went. He got out of bed, trying to remember where he was and how he'd got here-it was happening to him a lot lately-and then he started to pack.
This was a terrible time. He had never hated holidays so much. People seemed like black shadows with bright, scarlet eyes. And only one silhouette always remained the same to him - Welt Joyce.
Only he was still standing opposite the window, glass in hand. A real one wouldn't do that - the real Welt Joyce is dead.
But he's in front of him now, very close.
.....
Why is he looking like that? Like he's regretting something, like he's making a silent plea. ....
Was all that just .....?
Was it?
Hours, days, weeks went by like that... nothing changed, every day it felt as if you were living the same day. But Joachim didn't remember - he didn't remember how the previous day ended and he didn't know what tomorrow would be like.
Only Welt Joyce still stood by the window with a glass in his hand and looked at his follower with a sad smile - it definitely meant something...
«I need to figure out what's going on....»
It was scary to wake up, it was scary to go to bed. He'd find all these crazy notes from his past in his sketchbook. As he tucked it away under the duvet, Frederica came into the room.
Just as she had done yesterday and the day before and a few days ago... she sat down gently beside him, leaving a light kiss on the corner of his lips, and with the same sweet smile told him that everyone was waiting for him. Nothing new-he'd been through this a hundred times before.
Maybe he didn't remember anything about it, but that's what it said between his sketches on the sheets of paper....
When everyone was sitting in the common carriage again, the silhouettes of people seemed to him again like black, angry dogs, ready to gnaw him alive. His eyes began to flicker, the walls of the express were covered with the words «WAKE UP».
I think he remembered. The puzzle was finally coming together.
- Why are you so cheerful? Everyone's drinking, enjoying themselves, and you're standing there all alone, you know, your wife's worried about you - Joyce moved closer, standing next to the seats, holding out one of the champagne glasses - it was obviously expensive - and turned his gaze back to his acquaintances talking to each other.
He seemed trustworthy, the only one whose shadow didn't haunt, whose presence didn't make the flow of hatred that emanated from the core towards the rest of the team palpable.
- I don't know. I feel like I've been through this a hundred times, I'm completely lost. I don't feel real, Joyce. - He looked back up to where his mate was standing, he was still standing beside him, looking somewhere through him this time.
The music stopped abruptly. The room grew cold. The feeling of some kind of danger increased, but he still couldn't understand why.
He could feel the stares of everyone in the room. He could feel the hatred that they were soaked in.
- Open your eyes, Joachim. We are long gone. Why do you still remember? - What? W-Wait?! A blue-haired woman approaches them, standing beside her lover.
- Why won't you accept reality? Why are you still here? Wake up. - The words felt like water, the image in his eyes blurred.
He woke up in the same bed again, after Tesla's words.
Except this time, there were no tapes of himself screaming for help, nothing to help him remember reality.
He's stuck here again.
How long will this bittersweet dream last? He doesn't know and would prefer not to know, just to be alone with his beloved for once....