'Ugh..."
The muffled sound of rusty rattlers, the drizzly rain racing down the snow-frosted windows, and old music from the 40s playing on the dusty, faulty speakers on the roof of the moving train, the melody going off-tune and breaking into static ever so often. I struggled to open my eyes, the bright warm light overhead greeting me like the morning sun.
With an awfully weak groan, I pushed myself up from my reclining position on the worn-out leather chair, eyes roaming around the carriage; I felt like I was in a museum. Everything on the train was uninterrupted and well-kept, a renaissance marble statue of a nude man dwelled in the corridor remained unmoving. It was a little peculiar to discover a sculpture on board a train, much less a moving vehicle.
The music faded to an end and immediately, an emotional tune began to flood the cart, the male singer's voice reverberated on the steadily going train on the railway track.
An unsettled feeling built up inside me when I realized no one - besides myself - was aboard, that was until I locked eyes with a woman dressed in a sophisticated sleeveless crimson gown that went all the way down to her ankles, modest deep red heels adorned her feet. She had been following my every move from the beginning. She deliberately tore the churchwarden pipe that rested in between her slender fingers, away from her mouth. The woman blew out a puff of grey smoke before her red lips contorted into a smirk.
"You're awake," she spoke, her voice mellow and smooth like silk. She uncrossed her long legs and glanced around casually, carrying the smokestack up to her lips again.
"...where am I?" I was genuinely startled to hear my voice so croaky and hoarse, the opposite of what I intended to sound like.
"Hm, obviously we're on a train," the strange woman giggled and hummed along to the eerie old melody.
"A train….to where?" I questioned further, peering out the windows only to see them clouded with snow.
"A train to nowhere," a grin plastered on her face.
I furrowed my eyebrows in puzzlement. "What do you mean? So, it just operates…forever?" at this, the woman laughed.
"I don't think you know where you are, young man. This….
is the train of the afterlife."
The silence of realization filled the room as the classical tune proceeded to play, swaying with the softness of rain pitter-pattering on the cover of the vehicle.
"So, I'm dead," I finally grasped the situation, my posture drooped defeatedly.
"You're a clever one, aren't you?" the woman mused. In another circumstance, I would've already made snarky remarks towards the lady. I hardly had any spirit left in me to do so. Literally.
"Do you remember how you died?"
"I don't even recall my name." I laughed dryly and leaned into the leather backseat of my chair as a sense of relief washed over me.
"Your name was Ethan," the woman in a crimson dress responded, watching my form with a glint of apprehension in her eyes. I just hummed and averted my gaze to the misty windows to my right, snow breeze powerfully whistling and howling, accompanied by the dancing tunes of rain droplets.
"So, what am I to do now? Am I supposed to be on this train and expect some Grim Reaper to obtain my soul and guide me to the above or down below?" at least that was what I roughly remembered reading in a comic book when I was a child. In my opinion, concepts about the Grim Reaper shouldn't have been in a kids' book.
"No, silly!" the woman wholeheartedly laughed and I turned at her with a tilted head.
"Reincarnation - ever heard of it?" she asked. I scratched my chin and gradually nodded.
"Yeah, I have. Am I going to be reborn anew?" the lady beamed softly, but an unreadable look on her face.
"That is correct, yes. But it's not that simple," I huffed in frustration.
"I'm already dead. What else do I have to go through?"
"Transmigration."
"I've not heard of that one." I sighed and rubbed my forehead in difficulty.
"Transmigration is when a soul from another world - in this case, it's you from the afterlife - moves into another body that's already existing in the other world," the woman lowered her pipe.
"Why the hassle? Just let me be reborn newly-I'm sure there are enough babies out there for me to be reincarnated into!" I was disturbed by this situation. The woman shook her head again with a hum and rubbed her chin.
"Positively, the population rises by about a hundred thousand daily because humans presumably love each other very much- but it's not that easy." I arched a brow in amusement at the woman's rather bitter rant.
"What do you mean?" I questioned, subconsciously leaning forward.
"Let's just say…. you did not die a peaceful death." the woman breathed out and I sighed in disbelief.
"Well - you killed yourself, to put it shortly," my eyes widened at her statement, an 'oh' was all I could muster.
"-at least that was what the media reported." the woman then added. "W-what?"
"You see, your body was discovered in a closed theme park, dangling on the cranking rods of a carousel, your feet a dozen meters above the snow dirt ground." she lifted her smokestack again, staring up and down my figure.
"And there was no stool around. The floor was clean of any appliances that might've aided you to get your head up and hanging on that rope." With a hanging jaw, I remained speechless as I continued to listen.
"Despite that, your death was dictated as a suicide because there were no footprints on the snow whatsoever-"
"Wait, wait- why are you telling me this? I'm dead. Does it even matter anymore?" I interrupted with a nervous shimmer in my eyes.
"It does. As I had said, you'll go through transmigration…and then reincarnation."
"What?" I was agitated. The woman uncrossed her legs and rose. She approached one of the windowpanes with a dignified posture, her left hand behind her back while the other holds up the pipe to her mouth.
"Join me." The enigmatic lady insisted, her eyes still locked on the view before her.
I hesitantly left my seat and firmly marched over; I was astounded to feel how it was like to be on my feet again. Upon reaching the windows that were once frosty with snow but now as clear as day, I gasped out loud; we were above the clouds, and it looked as if the sun was just a few meters across us.
"It's the train of the afterlife, anything is possible." The woman now alongside me chuckled upon observing my comical facial expression and eyes filled with wonder. Then she cleared her throat.
"Back to what I was saying – due to your very complex death, you're obliged to do yourself justice before you move on."
"Can't I just start over?" The woman frowned upon me.
"This is not a game," she said. "Unfortunately, it does not work that way, Ethan,
because you might have the chance to avoid your death."
The both of us stayed staring at the fluffy pinkish-yellow clouds waving us goodbye as we swiftly passed by. "I wish I was a cloud," I blurted out under my breath.
"Come again?"
"Anyways, what do I have to do? Do I just have to fit into someone's body and uncover the identity of my murderer? That's manageable." I crossed my arms in confidence to get this done and over with.
"Again, it's not that straightforward. If it was, the police would've already exposed the truth and you'd be a tiny baby in a hospital somewhere in the world right now, but no! So, you'd have to do it yourself since nobody will." I huffed in exasperation and nodded.
"Okay, fine. What's the first step?" I stared at the woman before me with a burning fire in my eyes.
The woman smiled and subtly lighted her smoking pipe. "Transmigration. Your soul will substitute one of the existing humans from the world below – preferably one of your friends or yourself – and locate your killer and their intention. Simple!" the woman brought the pipe to her lips.
"You are kind of going against your own words-"
"Adieu!" the woman cheered and blew cigarette smoke onto my face.
I and wheezed and coughed, fanning my hands across my face in an attempt to get the fog away and unblock my vision.
Once I was able to see clearly, I thought I was hallucinating when I realized I was standing in the middle of a theme park, bustling with people of all ages, a dazzling carousel across me with children straddling the porcelain ponies, gleeful grins adorned their faces and their eyes twinkled like the brightest star in the night sky. I rubbed my eyes in dismay as I was no longer on a tranquil train ride…
…but in my place of death.