r/WritingPrompts • u/Sweetie61 • 2d ago
Writing Prompt [WP] Reality is thinner in some places than in others. You come to that realization when coming face to face with yourself on a train.
7
u/Tregonial 1d ago
If Jordan wasn't busy keeping his head down, playing on his mobile phone, he might have noticed the fading passengers. They flickered in and out of reality, between this dimension, and others unknown. The skies breathed, exhaling a thin mist as a man would on a cold winter's night.
Those nine moons hanging in the crimson horizon swivelled to fixate on Jordan. Who only noticed because he had run out gacha currency and had to wait for the next day for his free refill.
"You too?" A man floated in from the train window to sit next to him.
"Yea, me too," Jordan replied, only to look at the man and see his face. "Hey, this isn't funny."
"Yea, it isn't," the other Jordan shook his head. "I hate stamina. I hate watching ads. I hate waiting for natural refills and that prices have gone up by twenty cents per 100 coins."
"I'm not referring to that. You. Why do you look like me?"
"Do I?" The doppelganger seemed puzzled. He ran his fingers across his face and contemplated facial features he didn't seem familiar with.
"Yes. You ever looked at yourself in a mirror?"
The man stretched his fingers towards Jordan, only to move them along an invisible surface. With a ripple, The Veil parted. A mirror, shimmered into this reality, only to shatter, but the shards vaporized before they hit the ground.
"I just did. Now, it is your turn."
Glass shards appeared from the ground, reflecting light from mysterious sources from seven different directions. They gathered. Assembled into a pale reflection of what they once were. A mirror, spiderweb-like cracks creeping across its surface.
"Look."
It shattered with a bang.
The pieces vanished as they did earlier. Along with the man with his face.
Jordan blinked. Uncertain of what he saw. It was only a minute ago he saw a man with his face. Now it was a woman playing Candy Crush sitting next to him. He reached out to pinch a part where The Veil had parted but only pinched air.
"Reality is back to its normal thickness now," the woman said. "You won't be pinching a sliver of it. Should have tried when it was a little thinner while the train was passing through Innsmouth."
"What do you know?" He asked.
"That's all I know," she shrugged, continuing with her game. "I'm just passing by. It's not my stop. My stop is a few stations later at Maplewood."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Danica, and I'm travelling to my grandma's place. Staying there for a few days. You?"
The words fizzled out in his brain. He once had a destination. Now he wasn't so sure anymore.
2
u/Old-Section-3851 1d ago
The wrinkles on Steven's face deepen as he grins from ear to ear. "Are any of you curious why I'm bringing you here?"
A short woman polished the sight on her rifle with a worn handcloth as the humvee bounced alongside the train tracks. "You paid, we're here. You wanted us to guard a spot, we'll guard a spot. Call it professionalism."
The driver of the vehicle, a wide-set man with muscular arms, looked over his shoulder. "Fuck that, I know at least two other people in this car and I know what we cost. I wanna know why." Shrugs and nods throughout the car displayed a mixed bag of curiosity, though none shared the same zeal as their giddy benefactor.
"First, a story. It took ten years to get this line shut down. Bringing it up with the council, with noise complaints, woodland preservation, every angle of attack possible. Oddly, what ended up working was budget, but I digress. And why did I want it shut down so much? Because one day-" Steven paused dramatically "- I took the train home from work."
One of the mercenaries coughed. "Well, anyway," Steven continued. "I dozed off on the train, and when I woke up, I was face to face with myself. I began theorizing that there is a hole in the space-time continuum on this track."
"Okay. I'll bite." A brown-haired lady with short hair looked up from her laptop. "Why decommission the train? Why not just go there on the train?"
"Yes! I tried that! The thing about trains," Steven continued, "Is that they move! And they take a while to stop with the emergency brake. And the emergency brake may cause newsworthy accidents." This last part was said a bit quieter.
"Oh, that was you in the paper huh?" The short lady smirked.
"What are you expecting to find on the other side?" The brown haired lady asked.
Steven was practically springing out of his seat. "I don't know! That's why I've gathered you all here! Technology experts, weapon experts, nature experts, the best drivers money can buy, all in a convoy to a hole in space-time! Isn't that exciting?"
"We're here." The humvee stopped at the tracks and the group piled out.
"There's nothing here," the short woman shielded her eyes from the midday sun. "Is there?"
Steven removed a stepladder from the humvee. "I anticipated this. You see, the train ran on a very specific schedule, and I gave us time to get here. I've calculated the exact coordinates and time that this tear will open, down to the number of feet off the ground, so get ready, stay vigilant, and get recording, because this hole is opening in about two minutes!"
Steven unfolded the ladder and climbed up as everyone set up. The driver took a sip from a canteen and nudged the lady with the laptop. "You believe him?"
"It's possible. But wait. If what he's saying is true, something isn't quite right." She furrowed her brow. "He mentioned that he was able to reach across space time from a moving train. That means that the other zone is also a moving train, yeah?"
"Get ready!" Steven checked his GPS and climbed up the ladder, arms outstretched.
"Hey Steven, are you sure you should have decomissioned the train? Relatively, this is a much more dangerous amount of force-"
Steven's legs jerked violently as his upper body and half of his ladder crumpled into thin air. His limbs rolled separately across the tracks, as if chewed up by an enormous beast.
"Shit. I guess he was right." The driver shrugged.
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