“This is not a normal train.” I heard a raspy mans voice say from behind me as i was waiting for my train to work to arrive. I turned my head and my eyes met the ludicrous looking junkie behind me. I let out an audible sigh.
“Okay, buddy.” I replied and then turned back. I heard the man clear his throat.
“this is not a normal TRAIN!” the man yelled at me. I turned my head around hastily and squinted confusedly at him. what the fuck is wrong with this guy? i looked around and i could see everyone else was concerned as well. “Look man, whats your problem?” I asked him in a slightly intimidating tone.
“THIS TRAIN IS NOT NORMAL!!!” the man screamed at the top of his lungs. i looked around and saw that i wasn’t the only one talen aback by this.
“IT ISNT FUCKING NORMAL WHY ARE YOU NOT LISTENING TO ME?!?!?”
“PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU MAN IT IS NOT NORMAL!!”
I stood there in shock as he continued to scream the same confusing statement in various forms. I heard the sound of my train pulling up and i turned my head to look at it. it looked completely normal to me, but just seeing it brought me an unexplainable feeling of dread. i decided to brush the feeling off, i thought the mans insane remarks were probably just getting to my head . I stepped onto the train and took the first empty seat i could find.
My train to work usually took 45 minutes. I hadn’t checked the time yet, but it felt like i had been on the train for over an hour. I pulled my Smartphone out of my pocket and looked at the Time.
“November 30th, 2022, 9:12 AM”
I was 12 minutes late for work. What the hell is taking this train so long? I was about to put my phone in my pocket but i saw something change on my phones lock-screen in my peripheral vision. I held my phone to my face and saw a completely new date and time that read:
“December 22nd, 2027, 4:01 PM”
I looked around me and saw that the entire train had changed. The people were all wearing hazmat suits. the train looked very rundown. I was put into shock. i must have sat there for 30 minutes straight just staring at the ground. the same 3 thoughts ran through my head.
i should have listened to the man
how the fuck is this possible
am i dreaming
the loop of thoughts paused as i saw a set of shoes come into view. I looked up and saw the same junkie from earlier in a hazmat suit.
“What did i tell you?” he asked in a calm tone while a slight smirk appeared on his face.
“I- W-what?” was all i was able to mutter out.
“Here, you are safe here but you will need it when you get off the train.”
The man handed me a Bag that contained a yellow hazmat suit. i took it and placed it next to me.
“whats going on?” i finally asked.
“Sigh, you Trainees are all the same” he said with a chuckle.
“What do you mean by us trainees?” i asked genuinely confused.
“Oh, i mean the people who got here via the train.”
“Would you be kind enough to explain, you know, what the fuck “here” even is??” I asked , agitated by his vague answers.
He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by an announcement to the train.
“Uhh the train is coming to a stop guys, the stop is South-bridge.”
the voice sounded like a teenage boy who was only half sure of what he was saying and doing.
“You’ll see once we get off the train. but put on your hazmat suit now, and do it quickly.” the man ordered me.
I speedily put the hazmat suit on and looked at the man, waiting for some sort of approval from him. “Great.” The man said while gesturing toward the door. “Step out of the door and see your new reality.” Considering everything, i assumed the “new reality” couldn’t be good. I stepped out and saw a Grey dystopian city covered with a thick haze of fog.
Through out the city i saw at least 20 factories with absurd amounts of pollutant smoke coming out of them. I turned around and looked at the man. he seemed satisfied seeing the fear and concern on my face.
“Wanna take a walk around the city?” he asked.
what other choice do i have? i thought.
the man began to walk the streets and i followed behind him. i noticed we were the only ones who got out on that stop, and i also noticed we were the only people wearing hazmat suits in the city. the streets were filled with a plethora of trash, drugs, drug equipment, people, and cars. every car was releasing very large amounts of gas coming out of the exhausts.
I kept walking and i finally got a good look at the people. there was black ink streaming from their eyes down their face, fossil fuel fumes were coming out of their throat, and in their hand they carried a machine that was pumping out large amounts of fossil fuel fumes.
I stopped in my tracks. i was confused and shocked by what i just saw . “Come on, lets keep moving bud.” i heard the man say. I snapped back into reality and continued walking. we finally reached a door that was painted bright red. We stopped when we began to hear extremely loud sirens blare throughout the city. I covered my ears ar an attempt to muffle the painful sound.
I looked behind me and saw that every single person had turned to stare at me. I looked into their black, unblinking eyes and became paralyzed in fear. It was only when they began to walk towards me in a steadily increasing speed that i was brought of my frozen-like state. I turned back to the door and saw the man opening the door and gesturing me towards it. i ran towards him and entered the door. The door led to concrete stairs that were illuminated for a second before the door closed behind us.
“Where the fuck are we? What just happened?!” i asked the man angrily.
“Calm your tone. i will explain everything shortly.”
I walked down the steps carefully. I reached the last step and the man flipped a light-switch. the 5 watt lightbulb illuminated a basement that looked like it belonged to a middle aged man who still lives at his moms house. there was a computer on a rundown wooden desk in the corner, There was trash everywhere. chips, fastfood, and empty soda cans. There was a white twin bed that had turned a cream color in the center of the room, a couch next to it and a chair in front of the couch. i took a seat and watched the man open a white mini fridge. he grabbed 2 soda cans and sat down on the chair in front of me. he handed me the soda can and i took it.
“You can take the suit off, by the way.”
“I think i’ll keep it on.” i replied. I wanted to be cautious.
“Okay, well i assume you have alot of questions, correct? Well, heres whats gonna happen. im going to explain everything i know, and if you have any questions, wait until im done explain. alright?”
“sounds good.” i replied, eager to hear the answers to my burning questions.”
“It all started On October 2023. a small group of people known as the “Pollutus Terra”. suddenly gained hundreds of thousands of members within weeks. no one knew why, but everyone knew there was something wrong, something inhuman about the members, they noticed, and im sure you did as-well, that they had all those abnormalities such as ink streaming down from their eyes, smoke out of their ears, and the machines. the groups main motive was to completely destroy nature. they knew that they couldn’t do that alone, and they knew that not enough people would naturally want to help them with that, so in 2017, they began developing an artificial virus which allowed a human host to remotely control every victim of it. During the development years, they illegally tested on many innocent civilians whom most of passed away. like i said, it started in October 2023 when they put it in this city’s water supply. everyone called it the cursed city, for everyone in it turned into a member. the infected peoples only purpose was to follow a strict routine: 1. Wake up at 8:50 AM and began walking the streets. at 5:00 Pm, an Alarm goes off and they then know they have to go after any non-infected in their site. this means they are only hostile during the hours of 5:00 PM - 8:50 AM. and, well… what you see now is all the damage that they’ve caused since the beginning. “
I sat in shock for a few minutes as i processed this insane information.
“I need to contact my family, my friends..” I told the man.
“Well, there’d be no way to find where they are in this time. but, you can still contact them.” the man replied.
“how?”
“Well, In July of 2023, shortly before the incident i just explained, there was a massive technological breakthrough for the world…” He paused and took a sip of his soda. “…We discovered a way to connect with people from the past, but only through the internet, and only through text. Don’t ask me to explain the science of it, for theres no way in hell i could remember it off of the top of my head right now. But i actually do have access to it. after the 2023 incident everything on the internet became easily hackable.”
“O-okay thats great… But how the hell did i end up here?” I asked.
His eyes grew wide with fear. He put his finger on his mouth and whispered “shhhh”.
I turned around and i felt the same fear as him as i saw what was behind me. I saw the same Black, unblinking eyes from earlier, staring at me and slowly coming closer. I felt intense fear run through every part of my body. I turned to face the man.
“What do i do?!?” i whispered urgently.
The man quickly got up.
“FOLLOW ME!” he screamed just before running up the stairs. I looked behind me once more and felt my stomach drop like a rollercoaster as i noticed how close the eyes had gotten. the eyes had not scared me much earlier, but it was almost as if they became more frightening during the hostile hours. I got up and ran for my life. Adrenaline surged through my veins each step i ran up the stairs. I did not know what that thing was capable of, i did not even want to imagine that.
As i reached the final step, i had a quick realization: whats the point of going into the city full of those things to escape one of them? Despite the thought, i opened the door and saw all of the eyes staring at me. they instantly rushed forward, I looked to the right of me and was greeted with the sight of the man being repeatedly injected with what i could only assume to be the virus. I screamed. he was the only one i had in this new world. I knew that grief had no place in my current situation, i needed to do something, and i needed to do it now.
I saw a set of keys next to my foot, it was the mans keys. he must have just dropped them. i bent down and picked that up, when i turned up i saw that they had gotten even closer. I picked up the keys and ran in the opposite direction of them. eventually, i came across another red door. I tried one of the keys, it didnt unlock the door. my fear heightened as i imagined them growing closer behind me. i tried the second key, and click the door unlocked. I opened the door and ran down the stairs. this room looked very similar to the other one, i assumed he had multiple backup rooms around the city. I rushed to his computer and logged in because he had his password written down on a sticky note taped to the monitor. I saw “advanced internet communication “ labeled as one of the applications on the computer.
It was pretty straightforward to use, you select a date and it takes you to that day in the internet as if it were the present. I logged onto my Reddit Account and messaged my family members that use Reddit. I am now writing this story waiting for a reply.. I will update as soon as i can.