He was burning.
The smoke around him was suffocating, he could feel the blazing heat scorching his entire body.
The fire's hot air hit him directly in the face, and his skin and muscle was rapidly burnt to coke. Starting from the hair of his head, it burned layer by layer until the white bones appeared underneath. His blood also began to boil, leaving bloody blisters on his skin and soon, his blood vessels burst rapidly and passed excruciatingly through his scorched flesh. All his meridians were cut off. He coughed a mouthful of ash, but couldn't distinguish whether it was coming from the heart or the lung.
Through the heartwrenching pain, he could hear what sounded like mournful screams, the despair dripping from their hoarse voice. His heart twisted painfully,
Who was screaming?.
Chu Yi..
Chu Yi...
CHU YI!!!
With a gasp, his eyes snapped open, chest heaving as if he had just been pulled from underwater. He inhaled the cool air greedily, the taste of smoke still lingering on his throat as if he had really just burning alive in the hell like flames.
There was no fire, no smell of burnt flesh, no heartwrenching screams of despair.
He was alive.
The conductor stared concernedly at him, watching with rapt attention as Chu Yi slowly calmed down.
"Ok now?."
Chu Yi nodded wordlessly, still feeling the remnant shocks of the bizarre dream.
In his mind he seemed to smell the faint scent of cedarwood, but it passed too quick for him to catch.
Who was it.?
Shaking his head in resignation, he lifted his arms and stretched, his lithe figure resembling a lazy panther, a swift hunter of the night; the thin shirt he wore raising to reveal a slender yet powerful waist.
Another K.O for the perverted beast in sheep's clothing hiding in plain sight.
He couldn't stay here forever and despite the brief respite he felt, he was more interested in exploring the truths of the train than bickering heatedly with the conductor.
Walking out of the room after an hour, he glanced back at the conductor, who was sitting pitifully on the bed, like a young wife sending her husband off to work reluctantly.
He felt at twinge of pride at this thought, chin raising ever so slightly as he strutted like a arrogant peacock out the room.
The smile was quickly wiped off his face though, as he once again resumed the role of deadly serial killer Chu Yi.
Along the way, he happened upon Chun Li and the others and although inwardly they were wary of each other, on the surface they still proposed to search the train together.
With a hypocritical amused grin, Chu Yi agreed.
"Alright, Bai Dan and Ren Yuanqing had searched the storage yesterday, Zhong Feng the kitchen and we searched the Bed Cabins. Have any of you, found anything that could help us figure out the truth of what happened to the inhabitants of the train. Although the system only said to survive for 7 days, you have to remember, the system judges you on your performance and if your too passive. You might leave this instance alive but end up dead from losing your coins. So I'd suggest you not to hide anything that could be of use to us. The sooner we break the instance, the sooner we can get out of here."
Ren Yuanqing hand rosed hesitantly,
"Wu- Wu xin, before she died had f-found a picture in her room that she had shown us. It seems to be a picture of some the passengers that had been on this trip."
[June. 31.2057]
The date written on the picture frame was taken at the beginning of summer. Two groups of male and female college students smiled happily back at them, their faces radiant with the joy of youth, shining brightly under the hot summer sun.
They were poised on a the backdrop of a mountain, standing at its peak, they laughed happily at the camera, reveling in the joy of summer.
This was evidently a group of students but thinking back on the eerie almost paranoid writing on the paper in his backpack. He couldnt help but imagine, How painful must their deaths have been. Their joyful laughter morphing into howls of despair.
After they each examined the picture and seeing no signs ofa any further clue, Chun Li pulled out the next evidence which was much more tragic. This time, it was a paper. A suicide note to be exact of a desperate female passenger.
[Its been 8 long weeks since we boarded this train, there were 65 of us at beginning, now theres only 12.
I can feel that my time was coming and yesterday the conductor told us again that they were running out of fuel. I don't want to disappear like the rest, I dont know what's happening beyond the void, I dont want to die, I don't want to die- I DONT WANT TO DIE, but it's the only...only thing I can do. I just wish they don't throw my dead body into the fuel chambers, to burn into coal like the rest. It's already midnight, Only god can save us now.]
The entire paper was crumbled with the force of the pen, you could feel the writers desperation and despair. If death was better than disappearing, you could imagine the consequences that disappearing entailed.
Sometimes being alive was worse than death itself.
At the end of the paper was a single drop of blood. There was no need to explain what that entailed but the writer had not made it out alive.
Silence. Only the rickety sound of the train passing along the tracks.
When Chu Yi beame bored of the depressing atmosphere, he pulled out the journal entry that had been torn off and shoved it in to the hands of Chun Li.
There was not to much to say after reading it and Chun Li only inhaled a sharp, painful breathe. Even though he had barely survived 4 copies through the skin of his teeth, each passing minute on this train left him terrified and he had a gut feeling that if he stayed still till the 5th day, he would die a rather terrible and painful death.
They stopped dawdling immediately and the first place they decided to investigate was the dining car. It wasnt too far from where they were standing and it only took a minute for them to arrive.
What caught Chu Yi off gaurd however was the fact that the corpse that had been lying decomposed in the kitchen, with maggots and flies buzzing noisily and laying their eggs on the mostly eaten corpse. Had somehow miraculously regrown its flesh and skin.
Even though there were still bloody gashes on the dead body. It didnt seem as if it had been decaying for years and looked like a body that had just been murdered with the blood still radiating heat as it flowed from his blood vessel.
If he hadn't seen it previously, he would have been fooled too.
In fact, the entire dining car had changed. The previously overturned chair and tables were now spread neatly in unison, the black stains on the walls and been wiped away to reveal the pristine tiles. Even the rusty doors and rotten wood floors seemed brand news
It was almost as if...
Time was flowing backwards