Diego took his pocket watch and observed it with a look of determination. With a heavy sigh, he murmured:
"There are 5 minutes left until the attack, time to move."
He rose from his seat and began to walk calmly toward the last carriage. His dark eyes scanned the faces of the passengers. He knew them well, too well. He had tried many times to use them in various ways, but in the end, none proved useful. They were just passengers, unable to alter events due to a lack of talent, connections, or flaws in their personalities. None were significant.
Diego continued moving as the motion of the train made him slightly unstable. Each step resonated in the carriage, an echo of his determination and desperation. The flickering light in the carriage accentuated the shadows on his face, giving him an almost spectral appearance.
He looked at the indifferent faces of the passengers, each caught in their own routine. A man reading the newspaper, a woman dozing with her head against the glass, a young man absorbed in his phone. They were part of the landscape, immovable figures in a scenario Diego had seen and lived through too many times.
Upon reaching the last carriage, he paused for a moment, mentally reviewing the details of what was about to happen.
Diego looked at his watch again. With precise movements, he took off his belt, made a loop with it around his left hand, and then tied it to one of the carriage's uprights at the very end. He looked at his watch again and began to count aloud:
"Five, four, three, two, one..."
Explosion. The whole carriage shook as a loud bang broke the peaceful atmosphere. Immediately, screams followed, along with a frantic sequence of collisions as the train tried to stop. Amid this action, the screams became more overwhelming. The carriage Diego was in began to tilt gently yet violently. The passengers, shocked and struck by the impact, began to fall and move toward the wall of the carriage that would soon hit the ground.
Diego, firmly secured to the upright by his belt, bit his lips as he tried to withstand the violence of the impact and the tipping. The carriage completely overturned. The pushing force began to lessen gradually as the carriage broke apart, and the passengers were torn apart in the process. Diego hung from the upright as his body swung. The screams and desperation were deafening.
The carriage halted its assault and finally stopped. Silence took over for an instant.
Diego, with a body sore but intact, untied his hand from the upright and observed the chaos around him. The remains of the carriage lay scattered, mixed with bodies and debris. He took a deep breath.
While still struggling to regain full control of his body, he approached one of the remains that used to be a passenger. His name was Fernando, a veteran ex-military who had served on the front during the Great Invasion of the Borderlands. Spotting what used to be one of his legs, severed from his torso, Diego reached into the inside of his sock and took out a knife that Fernando had hidden.
Next, Diego began to tear his clothes. With Fernando's blood, which continued to flow from what remained of his leg, he rubbed it on himself. With his clothes in tatters and covered in blood, Diego inflicted some wounds on his face and added more blood and dirt to blend into the surroundings, to camouflage among the remains of the passengers.
He approached one of the shattered metal structures, which used to be the base of one of the compartments, and lifted it subtly until he could place his body underneath. Then he loosened his grip, allowing the structure to descend and exert pressure on him. Diego, with a pained sigh, endured the pressure, closed his eyes, and laid his arms out on the ground.
The train, now a tangle of iron and bodies, had become a scene of absolute chaos. Diego, covered in blood with his face wounded, fit perfectly into the disastrous environment. The pressure of the metal structure on him helped complete his camouflage. The external noise was minimal, but he could hear the distant echoes of screams and the crackling of broken wires.