Chapter Text
The Astral Express crew slowly sauntered back onto the train, as their venture back to the Xianzhou Loufu earlier had been a tiring one. Caelus was especially exhausted due to his close encounter with a heliobus previously in the day while March 7th and Dan Heng still had a decent portion of energy.
"Come on, Caelus. You're dragging your feet." Dan Heng said cautiously, taking the grey haired boy's arm to set him on better balance.
"Hehe, yeah, Cae! Pick up the pace, slowpoke!" March teased, playfully skipping in front of the two and turning back just to snicker at them. Dan Heng sighed, looking back to him sympathetically.
"Are you doing alright?"
Caelus found comfort in gazing into those emerald eyes of the warm and peaceful look on the darker haired ones face, staring at him for longer than he meant to. "C-Caelus? Hello?" He snaps back to reality, almost jolting in his return to consciousness.
"Yeah I'm great! Just a bit tired, hehe." Caelus leaned further into Dan Hengs shoulder, even though he didn't really need the balance. March stops for a second, looking back at the side door to the car. Dan Heng notices her hesitation and looks back in the direction she's looking. He slowly turns again and walks away as she continues standing there as if fixated on something nonexistent... weird.
At the dinner meeting, Himeko and Welt are discussing their plans of where to go next. Strangely, other than the electric hum of the lights and the two conversing, the room was utterly quiet. Too quiet. While there was sound in the room, to Dan Heng the underlying silence was almost abysmal.
While Caelus was still close to him, that didn't keep him from noticing something was off. A pink haired ball of incessant yapping was mysteriously absent from the premises! Just as he's thinking this, Caelus smacks his hand on the table and everyone looks his way. "HEY! Has anyone seen March come in?"
"Come to think of it, I don't think she joined us tonight. You should go check on her." Himeko comments, before turning back to face Welt. Caelus stands up and leaves; Dan Heng watches anxiously, his green eyes filled with worry for not only Caelus, but for his energetic friend as well.
The lights of the parlor car flicker gently; Caelus basks in their golden haze as the door slides and closes with a metallic click. The lights were flickering more than usual... the eerie silence was almost more than he could bear. The grey-haired boy quietly moves through the hallway, occasionally throwing glances over his shoulder.
Not like he would be followed, anyhow. He was the only one on his own in these corridors. At least, for so he thought. The lights stop flickering. The luminescent glow of the ceiling grows brighter, reaching its peak as the sounds of the train cut off to
Complete. Utter. Silence. Not even the faint talking of the fellow crew mates in the party car.
This silence is short lived, however, as a sharp ringing builds in his ears.
And then it happened. First went the corners, shadows quickly enveloping them out of sight, as if they were nothing but a dream in the process of being forgotten.
It's much louder now, the piercing sound is a fire alarm in his skull.
The pairs of lights at either end of the hallway go out, adding to the soon perpetual darkness.
The windows, once filled with the light of stars and systems with the potential of brilliant civilizations are replaced with a black void, as if the entire train was being washed with an ichor darker than tar. The now much more limited area of light glows warmer.
The blood is roaring in his ears now, the nonexistent source of the shrieking enough to make him cover his ears, but to no avail.
The light is almost burning his skin with a set spotlight of intensity, causing him to sweat bullets even though it was only 67° in the parlor car.
His hands, forehead and armpits moisten as his ears feel like they're bleeding, his feet sinking but rising at the same time as reality distorts around him, the floor and walls curving around invisible coils and whirls. Was the carpet always this red or was he seeing the capillaries in his eyes pop? Surely someone would come looking for him- wait- who would? He didn't know anyone- wait a second, who even was he? The very fibers of his clothes itched like fire ants. He craved to claw them off along with his very skin. The ringing progressed into a constant scream, enough to make his skull throb with discomfort. What was his name? I don't know, don't ask me! The floor was spinning and warping and flashing white and black and white and black and blue and green and yellow and red; he sank his fingers into his hair, as if trying to find an anchor in gripping the threads of his own scalp as the water dripped into the carpet of the spinning and distorted floor. He clawed off his jacket and gloves, throwing them to the floor as if it would free him from this. Wait that's not water- he was crying, no, sobbing with the weight of his head and the pain of his hair and the blood from his nose and the darkness in the room and the sweat on his faceand GOD THESE CLOTHES ITCH thefacthedoesntevenknowhyheshereandwhoevenisheandwhywasthishappeningand
HE TOOK IN A DEEP BREATH, READYING HIS VOCAL CHORDS AS IF TO LET THE THOUGHTS RUN DRY IN ONE BIG SCREAM WHEN-
"Caelus."
Almost by magic, the run on sentence of thoughts come to a stop. He was alive, he was breathing, and the floor was still. His eyes dilate massively upon seeing an almost familiar face at the edge of the circle of light. Only she was... green and... hazy for some reason. A bead of sweat runs down Caelus' face. He would swear the silence of this moment was so loud he could hear the drop hit the floor.
"You...? But... you're d-"
"Shh... you've only just switched existential planes... don't exert yourself." The dead girl approaches him, holding up a gloved hand toward his face. Her hair had a grayish tint to it, similar to his own. Caelus would never forget those hollowed amber eyes that day so long ago, even if the rest of that memory was lost to the sands of time.
"Existenti- what...? How are you here-"
She raises a hand, gently laying a single finger on his nose.
"Boop~!"
A surge of blue-green light floods Caelus' senses, as if a force was snaking into his mouth and forcing itself into every aperture of his face. The force ebbed itself into his veins, crawling under his skin and into every crevice of his body. He couldn't move or do anything else but watch and feel the agonizing pain shooting through him as his own body was seized from him. The girl grinned as she slowly walked away into the darkness. The energy was too much. Caelus collapses on the floor, unconscious.
Finally, the lights went out, as if a conclusion to a violently chaotic act of a play.