Chapter Text
When I woke up, I found myself on a train. More accurately, it seemed to be a crude recreation of what a train was supposed to look like. Icy blue seats on top of a dark grey floor. The walls were said colour as well, with a square-shaped hole clearly to mimic a window. There were no curves to be found in this strange place, only edges that would cut if approached without caution. That was part of the reason why I decided not to check the other compartments, the other being that I simply didn't feel like doing so. Instead, I opted to look out the "window". Interestingly, there was no glass covering it, and I could easily stick my head out the opening. Outside the window was a black void, the colour similar to what I'd see when I closed my eyes. I could see a few specks in the distance. My mind didn't seem to register those as "stars", but as "something similar to stars".
"Be careful around the hole! If you lean too much, you might sink and never come back." Someone called out to me.
I really should've expected there to be other people. Maybe it was another person who was in the same situation as I was. Perhaps we could cooperate with each other? I turned around to see a silhouette of jet black wearing a suit, adorned with golden oval-framed glasses and dull orange ribbons, leaning against the compartment door.
It shoved some of the strings back into its chest cavity, but they spilled back out anyway. Similar to how guts do so, my mind whispered.
It flashed a grin. "It seems that I haven't introduced myself yet! This is "Dormancy", at your station!"
I screamed.
"Oh yes, yes. You must be terribly confused, scared even!" The silhoutte, now dubbed as Dormancy, began to comb through its shoulder length hair. "Have a drink!" The other hand pulled out a mug filled with a brown-coloured liquid as if performing a magic trick, then shoved it into my hands. It sat down opposite me, legs crossed.
At that point, I was too much in shock to even do anything, and just plopped down onto the slab of seat I had woken up on.
"Here's a word of advice for you: Please don't disturb the other passengers on this train!" There was a glint of something reflected on the surface of its glasses. "They'd rather get to their destination peacefully without interruptions."
I glanced down at the mug it had given me, and took a sip. It tasted like water that was thick. It tasted like nothing, and left a lingering taste of nothing when I swallowed it. Yet somehow, it made me feel less nervous in the presence of Dormancy and whoever the "passengers" it mentioned were.
"Destination?" I asked.
That glint appeared once again. "The End, I've heard people say. Or The Last Slumber, or simply Death."
I couldn't bring myself to feel scared, or sad. I was just there in the train compartment, holding onto a mug of nothing while listening to Dormancy.
"Will they not attempt to escape?"
"They wished for it to some extent, so unless someone else drags them out, they'll stay here content. Are you going to do so?"
"Probably not. I'd like bet at a chance of living myself." I answered, though the actual meaning of those words had already been discarded, forgotten.
"But you're still on this train.I'm sure even if you deny, we both know you've missed the train ride you took to leave your old place." An event that never happened, to my knowledge. There was a sliver of panic, a feeling that hadn't shown up since I took a sip of that nothing.
"It's a cup of Dormancy itself, unlike me, 'Dormancy'. It does wonders to calm everything!" It answered, as if it had read my mind. It probably did.
"…You drugged me?" The statement came more unsure than expected, and "Dormancy" (Not Dormancy.) paused its hand that was playing with the slab of jade around its neck. Somehow I hadn't noticed it was there until now.
"If you say so." It shrugged. I did not like how calm it was being. Nor did I like the fact that I seemed to feel the same. The longer I stayed here, it seemed that a coldness grew ever closer. I did not want to know what would happen when it reached me.
It took a sip out of an identical mug to mine. "You're waiting to get off this train, aren't you? To evade the ending of passiveness for eternity. You're quite the rascal, really! I applaud you. Truly." It said so, a hint of sadness permeating the air around me. "Dormancy", appreciating the fact that I had the desire to fully abandon dormancy. Might as well make the world turn upside down once again. It grabbed the mug I was holding, the contents of which had been emptied out without me realising. "I'm sure you won't need this anymore." It waved its hand, and the mug disappeared as if it was never there.
"A word of advice for you before you go, dear passenger!" It looked up to stare at me with gleaming yet exhausted eyes, the same colour as the void I had glimpsed through the opening. "I'd recommend you not to make the same decisions that landed me here as a non-passenger, as something forever waiting, forever rotting." The light specks shining in "Dormancy"'s pupils blinked at me as it waved away everything other than me, it, and the chair I was sitting on. It grinned, crossing its legs over the dark void. "Never wait to go peacefully into the night." The chair I was supposed to be sitting on vanished and I fell, a slight sense of gravity pulling me down before I quickly lost consciousness.