Owen entered the train moments before it left the train station. The doors were already closing, but he put his stuffed bag in the middle of it to stop it to close.
He pushed forward inside the train, and once he was already inside there, he released a soft sigh, putting his hands on his bended knees and taking his breath again.
'After all those years living in a rush and always carrying a ton of weight of problems on my shoulders, I should be used to it already.' He rubbed his face with both hands but needing to stop it abruptly and grip one of the support bars of the train to not fall on the ground when it started to move.
'Damn… Let's be honest here, who in this crap of world really get used to suffering in everyday life, huh?'
He started to ramble about that beautiful lady under his command on the Sales Commercial Department of the enterprise he worked on.
'Maybe I should invite her out and have a night of drinks and love, then quit my job and family, running away to one of the archipelagos of Saphyr…'
Anyway, he ended up laughing out loud at his idiot thoughts. It wasn't like he didn't want to do it, on the contrary, he wanted very much. But, Owen already admitted to himself a long time ago that he was just a coward. He wouldn't be able to do it.
Probably, his wife would kick his butt before he did it with her and, just to mess with his life completely, she would get his daughter away from him in the tribunal as well.
Owen waited for some minutes until the next station. He knew that an old miss that always took the train on that same wagon would leave at that station, so he could take her seat and rest a bit.
It really happened in the end, so he got ahead of another old woman and took the seat, ignoring the stupefied stares of other people around.
'If you guys want so badly to make this woman take a seat, then give yours!" He looked to the window.
Suddenly, his phone rang and he answered the call hastily, his nervousness nearly making him drop the smartphone.
He forgot to look at the screen to see who was calling him, but he didn't need to; there was just one person that called him after all, except bank and account charges, and it was his wife.
"H-Hello?" He said, preventing himself to sigh hard.
"Daddy!"
"W-what? Ally? Allyson, is it you?" His heart warmed when he heard the voice of his daughter.
"I stole mommy's phone to call you!"
Owen nearly laughed at that feat but didn't do so and briefly scolded her instead.
"Daddy, I called to say to you to get home already! I love you!" That was basically a way for her to say that she was missing him.
"Okay, princess. I am going! Soon, I will be going…"
"Okay! It's a promise!" Then, she turned off the call.
Owen leaned back in the seat, tears flowing from his eyes. He knew very well that he was going to break that promise again.
…
In another wagon of the same train that Owen was taking, Will was still standing on a corner, holding firmly onto an iron bar to support himself and typing into the smartphone with his free hand.
He was on a dating app, trying to find someone to go out with.
The professor found it to be really pitiful that he was going to make such a humiliating thing (in his opinion), just to find another person to share his days with.
He was very hypocritical regarding that matter. He criticized date apps, but he used a bunch of them in his free time.
'Let's be blunt here, I am just criticizing it out of anger because none of my dates went well… Apparently, no one likes to talk about subjects regarding sociology.'
Will was just a nerd addicted to the science of sociology. He was able to say each one of the quotes and teachings of Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim, but couldn't tell what was passing on a woman's mind or what they would like to hear him saying.
It was just the consequence of years stuck in a messy apartment, studying all day and not even seeing sunlight.
'And now, here I am, a nearly forty-year-old man with nearly zero romantic experience.'
He saw someone standing from their seat and walking off to the station where the train stopped by. The professor was the closest one from that seat, but he ignored it and stayed in his corner.
Soon, a mother with her little child sat there. She noticed the kindness of Will and smiled at him.
'If only fulfill my role in society gets me a girlfriend…' He lamented, nearly regretting to have made this because his knee was painful as hell.
He gave up on that dating app, deciding to wait and see if someone would be gentle with him and call him, at least, to vent about their bad day.
He opened the browser and began to read some of the news of the day. Among them was one that stood out.
'Red meteorite rain on earth happening now!' He read the title.
Will clicked on that news, reading through it.
"It was just confirmed that the meteorites that entered the atmosphere and are going to fall on the Earth's surface have a crimson color and leave behind a beautiful red tail as they fall. The rain will last for some minutes before they can touch the surface, so people still have some time to hurry and go watch it!"
After he finished, he curiously looked outside the near window, trying to see something different in the sky. In the end, he really could spot something, but he was not sure.
'Hmmm… Maybe I should leave at the next station and go walking to my home, so I can see it. I wonder if these meteorites will cause some harm to the surface. Well, they probably are too tiny to do something like this, otherwise, they would warn people.'
He shrugged and stayed pondering for some time whether he would or not leave at the next station.
…
Sarah was the most far away from the others. While Will was just one wagon away from Owen, she was three wagons away from Will.
The lawyer was also looking on her phone, sat on one of the seats of the train. Since she was so good-looking, it was usual for her to take a seat from a random guy trying to woo her.
That day she was smelling drink, and it was a strong smell, even though she tried to hide it with perfume. However, there were those strange ones that found it attractive somehow, so she got the seat, anyway.
Sarah was reading through the new message that her mother sent to her. It was nothing but a lot of bullshit. A bunch of offenses and blabbering, talking about how sad she was and how Sarah got arrogant after she achieved success in her life.
Truth be told, she was just making a scene because Sarah didn't want to pay for her drinks and drugs, nor cover the expenses of the new bum boyfriend she got.
'I am getting sick of it. When it's not my father complaining about me, she is the one testing my patience… I should block these two hindrances and never look at them again. They are just delaying my life!'
Before she could snap with her mother, someone sent a message for her and it made her day.
It was her fiance.
"I am sorry, honey. I would love to watch the meteorites with you, but I am at work now. I wasn't supposed to be working, but they called us to take care of the spot where a near meteorite will fall, so it won't cause any major troubles. I hope we can meet later."
Sarah was a very understandable person and she was in a good mood for talking with him, so she brushed off the matter.
"Don't worry, Scott. We will be making up for it later."
After answering, she looked out of the window while sighing.
'At least, maybe I can see them from here if I search well… Oh! It's that little red thing in the distance? Wait… It will fall right in the center of the capital! That's so amazing, it's so near! What will happen?"
She turned all her body to the window and saw a lot of people inside the wagon gathering in the other windows as well. All of them spotted the crimson meteorite falling.
They had excited expressions and were waiting anxiously for it to land on the surface.
It landed.
.
.
.
And then, a strong red light was projected towards the skies, just like a powerful beacon. The skies turned as crimson as blood and soon a huge impact was felt and all the train shook, falling to the side afterward.
Everyone inside there collapsed and the last feeling they had before fainting was their hearts burning for some reason.