This is the Last Train Car

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 9: Deeper

They began walking. In Berry’s mind, they were moving toward the “back” of the train, but according to Sparkler both directions- -forward and backward- -were one and the same. Berry did not understand how that was possible, but she did not really understand the rest of what was going on anyway.

When they reached car number nine- -according to Sparkler, who had been assigned the count- -Berry stopped and opened her bag. “I brought some supplies,” she said. “Food, water, that sort of thing.”

“For the love of Luna, please tell me you brought cider,” said Cheerilee.

Berry removed a bottle and gave it to her sister, who looked quite visibly relielved. Cheerilee pulled the cap off and swallowed half the bottle. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I really, really needed that.”

“Ms. Cheerilee!” cried Sparkler. “You- -you’re a teacher!”

“Not right now. Now I’m a mare in the night car of a train that only has five. I’m on the verge of freaking out. I think I deserve a little cider.”

Sparkler looked at her a bit more disillusioned than before, and then held out her hoof. “I’m next.”

“Cider isn’t for fillies.”

“I’m legally emancipated. I have a job. I pay rent. My mother had me when I was my age.” She paused, trying to figure out if that made grammatical sense. “Cider. Punch. I don’t care, I need some sugar. Right now.”

“Here,” said Berry, giving her a bottle of punch.

“Berry! You can’t give her that!”

Sparkler removed the cork and took a swig. “Eew,” she said. “That is a LOT sweeter than I thought it would be. What is in this?”

“Seventeen different types of berry,” said Berry, taking the bottle back and taking a much larger swig. “It’s the good stuff.” She put the bottle back.

Cheerilee turned and looked toward the rear edge of the car. “How far do you think it goes?”

“The last two times? It was about thirty cars.”

“Thirty?”

“About?” said Sparkler nervously.

“I…” Berry paused. “I don’t know. But I think…”

“What?” demanded Cheerilee.

“I don’t know if it was the same number each time.”

They looked at her. “What?”

“I didn’t count, but…I felt like it was more the second time.”

“It CHANGED?!”

“Is that really beyond the realm of possibility here?!”

Cheerilee was about to shout in response, but her anger faded. “No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

Sparkler let out a stifled sob.

“Hey, hey,” said Berry, putting her leg around Sparkler’s neck. “It’s going to be okay.” She hugged her. “I’ve gone through this twice already, remember? All alone. And this time, we’re together!”

“But what if that makes the train longer?”

That made no sense, but Berry and Cheerilee both looked at each other as though that were a reasonable and logical conclusion. Each wondered to themselves: “what if it does?”

“I still got through it twice,” said Berry. “And it’s just cars. They’re empty. I mean, come on! If This were just a train in the lot, this would be the most boring thing in the world.”

Sparkler looked at her, and then sniffled as she smiled. “Yes, it would be, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” said Cheerilee. “All we need to do is keep going.”

“Deeper.”

They all froze. “Yes,” said Berry, the happiness and reassurance fading from her voice. “Deeper.”

They continued, but at the same time, so did the train. Crossing a car only took a fraction of a minute, and each time Berry was watching for the one train car that would have a glass apple sitting on one of the seats. That train car did not appear quickly, though.

“Forty six,” said Sparkler as she stopped in the middle of yet another identical train car. “This…this is car forty six.”

“I have the same number,” admitted Cheerilee after a long moment. She turned to her sister. “You said there were only thirty.”

“I said that it was longer the second time. And this is the third time.”

“Or longer,” noted Sparkler. “This train has been running for five days. This is the sixth day.”

“I don’t know if we have any guarantee of that,” said Berry.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Cheerilee.

“Nothing.”

Sparkler stared at Berry, and then turned to Cheerilee. “The last time she was on it, she was there for three days.”

Cheerilee’s eyes widened. “Three DAYS?!”

“Sparkler!” snapped Berry. “You’re making the situation WORSE!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to- -”

“You rode the train for THREE DAYS?!”

Berry turned to her sister and addressed her calmly. “Apparently.”

“Apparently? APPARENTLY? Berry, I have students! I- -I didn’t call in a substitute! We were supposed to be covering algebra on Monday!”

“You have a student who can’t count to five,” said Sparkler.

“And I have your sister who spends half the time not listening and learning trigonometry under her desk. Being the ONLY teacher in this town is VERY hard!” She turned sharply to Berry. “How did you ride the train for three days?!”

Berry looked into her eyes. “It does something to time. I don’t know what or how to describe it. I walked through thirty cars, at most thirty five. That took, what, forty minutes tops?”

“It takes us twenty three seconds on average to pass a car,” noted Sparkler.

“Both ways,” added Cheerilee.

“No. Just one.”

Cheerilee raised an eyebrow. “One?”

Berry nodded solemnly. “That’s how it works. After you get through, you end up where you started. With the glass apple.”

“That…that doesn’t make sense!” Yet, despite this assertion, Cheerilee turned to the side of the train and looked out. “The train isn’t ring-shaped. It- -it can’t be!”

“No. It’s straight. But that’s how it works. Those are the rules. Forty minutes. Then maybe another half hour in the engine, watching it…go. Just over an hour. We should only have been halfway to Canterlot.”

“But three days had passed,” said Sparkler. She looked out the window too. “Cadence’s shiny flank…”

They group started walking again. They passed several more cars. All the same, all empty. It was maddening

“Do you think it’s weird how they’re all the same?” said Cheerilee. “I mean, they’re all…what are these called?”

“Commuter cars. They’re all commuter cars,” said Berry.

“But if this was a real train…they would be different. There would be different cars.”

“If it were a real train, yes.”

“What bothers me is how quiet it is,” said Sparkler, looking around. “Do you hear it?”

They stopped and listened. Berry already knew what to expect, but to her horror she found that Sparkler was right.

“There should be sound. I’ve ridden this railway before. There are turns. Bumps. Inconsistencies.”

“Joints where the track segments meet,” suggested Cheerilee.

“But this train…there’s no sound. It’s like we’re not even moving.”

“We have to be. We would have felt if we stopped.”

“I didn’t feel the stops in Canterlot,” said Berry Punch. “I don’t know if…”

“If this part even stops,” said Sparkler, finishing the sentence.

They all shivered. Berry shook her head and tried to resist her craving for punch or even at this point cider. “What car are we on?”

“Fifty four,” said Sparkler. “It has been one hour and six minutes since we left.”

“You don’t have a watch,” said Cheerilee.

“I don’t need one. I count the seconds.”

“We should be halfway to Canterlot,” said Berry. She looked to the floor. “The grade should be starting to change as we hit the mountains.” She reached into her bag and took out a cork. She dropped it on the floor, and it bounced once before lying perfectly still. “Level,” she said. “We’re level.”

“Where even are we?” asked Cheerilee. She looked toward the windows. There was no moonlight now, and no partial silhouetted impression of the land passing by in the distance. Even the lights inside the train did not penetrate very far. From where she was standing, Berry could not see the ground. In fact, the light seemed to just stop. All that stood beyond was pure, still darkness.

“There’s nothing out there,” she said. “It’s just…black.”

“There has to be something,” said Sparkler. “I know for a fact that the moon was out. And if there were no lights in the forest, then there have to be stars!” She crawled into one of the seats and sat down, looking out the window.

“Sparkler,” said Berry. “We need to keep moving. You shouldn’t sit down. Not here. It’s not…”

“It can’t be just darkness,” said Sparkler, almost spitting the sentence out. “It can’t be. There’s land out there. The tracks- -the train only goes where the tracks are! That’s how a train works! Isn’t it?”

Berry paused. “Yes. That is how a train works.”

“And we know where the tracks go! So…so…” She looked out into the void, cupping her hooves on the glass. “Why does it feel so cold?” she muttered to herself as her breath struck the glass and froze instantly into etched patterns of frost.

Then there was screaming. Berry at first just closed her eyes, not knowing what was happening or how the pure silence had suddenly been rent with a cry of terror when it had been so horribly quiet before. She stepped back, trying to cover her ears, but as she did she opened her eyes and saw Sparkler lying in the isle, writhing as she screamed. Cheerilee had already rushed forward and was trying to help.

Berry saw Sparkler’s eyes, and when she saw them, it broke the spell that seemed to have been cast over her. She rushed forward too to her friend’s side.

“Sparks!” she cried. “Sparkler! What’s wrong?!”

Sparkler opened her mouth one more time but all that came out was a thin spray of saliva. There was no sound, and that made the frozen scream all the more horrible. Then she tensed and fell on the floor before going limp.

“Sparkler? SPARKLER?!”

“She’s still breathing,” said Cheerilee. She put her hoof to Sparkler’s neck, “and she still has a pulse. I think she’s just unconcio- -”

“I saw something,” said Sparkler. Both Berry Punch and Cheerilee jumped at the sound of her voice. Although Sparkler was lying still, she was still quite clearly awake. Her eyes were distant but alert. Slowly, she pulled her lower legs forward and grasped them with her front legs. “I saw it….I saw it…”

“Saw what?”

Sparkler opened her mouth to respond, but all that came out was low sobbing. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know!”

“How can you not know?” demanded Berry.

“Berry! Leave her alone! Can’t you see- -”

“It was so BIG,” said Sparkler. “Bigger than anything. Bigger than I could see…bigger than I could think. Realize. Reckon. Establish…”

“Sparks,” said Berry, kneeling down next to her. “You’re not making any sense.”

“I saw it,” said Sparkler, her eyes shifting toward Berry. Berry almost recoiled. Sparkler’s pupils had narrowed into tiny dots, and she did not blink. “But not with my eyes. Like…like the train. The way you FEEL it. Inside you. That we…that I…that nothing is out there. Nothing at all. And yet I SAW SOMETHING.”

The train suddenly jolted. Berry punch was knocked back, as was Cheerilee. The force of the impact caused the lights to flicker, and then vanish. Berry suddenly found herself in utter darkness- -and impenetrable silence.

“It- -it’s getting in!” she screamed, even though her voice never returned to her own ears. She stood up, struggling to find the edge of a seat to grasp- -but her hoof found no purchase. There were no seats. The aisle was the same distance as every other aisle, barely wide enough for two ponies to fit side by side- -and yet Berry found herself taking step after step to the side, reaching out for something. Anything.

Then her hoof struck something- -but not a seat. It did not have the standardized angles of the wood and plastic furniture that the train had. Instead, it was organic and wet- -and as Berry Punch grabbed onto it, she felt it recoil from her touch. It had moved.

Before she could scream, the lights flashed back on. Berry found herself still standing in the central aisle and holding onto the edge of one of the very seats that she had been searching for. At her feet lay Cheerilee, rubbing her head.

“Lee!” cried Berry, dropping to her sister’s side.

“Ohh,” groaned Cheerilee. “I haven’t felt this bad since those CMCs poisoned me and Big Mac and I…” She trialed off as she realized that Berry Punch was holding her. She cleared her throat and sat up. “I’m fine,” she said. “I tripped on…something.”

“Something?”

“Something!” cried Cheerilee defensively. “And I fell! I think- -no, I DID hit my head. Ow.” She rubbed the back of her head. “What about Sparkler?”

“She’s…” Berry looked up, but then froze. Her heart felt as if it had stopped, and as if in doing so it had left every one of her organs to fall to the floor. There, before her, the aisle was clean, empty, and perfect. Sparkler was nowhere to be found.

“Berry?” Cheerilee sat up, and then her eyes widened. “But- -she was just there!” She grabbed Berry tightly and shook her. “We have to find her! She- -she has to be here!”

Cheerilee, though injured, stood up and began to look around the car, checking in and under each seat, calling Sparkler’s name. “Sparkler! Sparkler, where are you?”

Berry was not able to make herself stand. Her legs felt like overcooked noodles, and she was sure they would never be able to support her weight. “She’s not here.”

“But she was! Just a minute ago, before the lights- -” Cheerilee gasped. “She didn’t!”

“In the panic, she must…” Berry closed her eyes and swallowed. Her throat felt so dry. “She must have run. To the next car.”

“Alone? No, there’s no way- -”

Berry willed herself to at least attempt to stand. After a moment, she was able to, but found that she was shaking badly. “Where else could she have gone? We’re on a train, aren’t we?”

“But…” Cheerilee trailed off. She knew that Berry Punch was right. She instead looked from one end of the car to the other. “Then we have to find her.”

“Yes,” said Berry. “I know that.”

“But which way did she go?”

Berry shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. There isn’t a difference.”

Comments

[CoffeeMinion]

Aaaaa.... do I want to read the next chapter, or run away...

[Silver Hoof]

I want a game like this.

[pottedllama]

"It's longer than you think, dad! Longer than you think!"