Lucid and Alice are in the train carriage. The train carriage is small but yet big enough to hold both of them. It would seem that they are alone in the train carriage—hence, there is no driver.
"Wait, there is no driver?!" yelled Alice, running around with both of her hands on top of her head, shouting dramatically while running back and forth in a frenzy.
Lucid lightly tapped her head. "Calm down, Alice."
Lucid looked at the end of the carriage. It would seem like there are windows that resemble windshields and a large crystal in the middle glowing a faint blue low light, occasionally pulsating.
Lucid points at the crystal. "That's our driver."
"Huh..." Alice stares at the crystal suspiciously.
"I'm gonna call him Mister Crystal," she said proudly, seeming pretty confident in herself.
"Mister Crystal?" asked Lucid in a humorous tone.
"Yes, yes! If it is driving us, then it—I mean, he—needs a name," she looks at Lucid with a grin.
"Well, fine. I have no objections here. Just do not touch it—the last thing I want is for you to be electrocuted by some kind of electric magic."
He glances back at her after itching his eye, only to find her not just touching the crystal but literally hugging it and standing on top of it since the crystal was half the size of a human.
"ALICE!"
"Whaaaat? I'm not hurt, you see? Look! Mister Crystal is kind. Don't worry. Why don't you say hi?" she exclaimed, pretty happily and sure of herself.
"I think I'll pass," said Lucid, since he couldn't really offer up his time to dilly-dally around doing nothing. No, Lucid had to think about his next movements and next destination. Where would he go from here the moment they set foot into this so-called world called Andorrea?
'Is it even a world? It seems more like a floating island. What's up with everyone calling other islands realms or worlds of their own?'
Thought Lucid. After all, the forest and the village world he came from didn't seem all that big. If anything, he could already see the edge of it even though he couldn't get to inspect it further. But he did however see the clouds in the distance and the lavender mist almost expanding infinitely into the horizon or the skies. So was this world surrounded by a pink-purplish fog?
'All of that seems so complicated,' he thought to himself. 'I mean, it's not like I'm planning on staying here, so it's best not to pay too much thought to it.'
Lucid went over to one of the small seats in the carriage, occasionally looking at Alice peering through the window and observing the clouds and the purple mist. Had they not left the other world yet? thought Lucid to himself.
As he sat there, he brought out his equipment on his lap—the knife, his wallet, and the weird broken device. As Lucid looked at these individual things, one thing grasped his attention.
The knife. The knife he had used prior to awakening to his powers—or, well, at least remembering how to use them. He picked up the knife with a careful gesture, almost inspecting its delicate sharp surface. The knife reminded him of the creature he had run into in the forest with Alice.
"The Mawler," he muttered in a soft voice.
Looking back now, that experience was pretty frightening. Although Lucid was aware that he was bound to run into danger in an unrecognizable environment, he didn't foresee that he would run into a twisted, hideous-looking creature. Looking back now, more questions entered his mind. Like—even though he was frozen in fear and scared—how did he find the courage to even run? How did he know what the best thing to do was or what the right course of action was? How did he brace himself in the last moment, ultimately deciding to fight it? How did he know where to observe and what key traits to look out for, how to clash with the creature, swinging the knife even?
Once again, Lucid was assaulted with the barrage of questions he had the other night.
'It seems like when one question pops up, twenty others pop up,' he laughed silently in his mind.
Even then, one question remained persistent: Why didn't he just run? Why didn't he just dash and—despite the blow he suffered—keep on running? After all, the creature was taking awkward steps and was pretty slow. So out of all reason, one of which was to protect Alice...
Why didn't he run? Running was also a form of protecting Alice, right? However, he stayed. Thinking, "If not now, then when?" What compelled him to take such actions if it risked his life? That was the one prominent question that followed ever since going out of that forest.
"Pride..." he uttered, a faint sound coming out of his lips despite being covered by the glass-like mask.
'Looking back at those fragmented memories, I was always in the distance, searching for an escape route, or thinking what's best for us.'
'But I never really confronted the obstacles head-on. I always told them to try again tomorrow or retreat, thinking that survival is what matters. Even if our homes are destroyed, or dreams—if we're still alive, we can rise back up and try again.'
'But I was tired of that philosophy. How many times have I been beaten, met with failure, only to try again and be utterly destroyed again, only to retreat and repeat the same cycle?'
'Why didn't I just face everything head-on and have nothing to feel guilty about? If I failed, then at least I failed with my own efforts, right?'
It was clear—he thought that choosing the safe option like running away or staying at a distance when confronted with an unmovable object was right. But it didn't fully resolve the conflict within. At the end of the day, Lucid thought to himself that by choosing to stand back, you are essentially sacrificing something dear to you. It wasn't pride. It wasn't his own self-image. But his crew, his opportunities, and worst—Alice. By running away, he could have potentially sacrificed Alice, even though running was safer. What if he had run into another creature? And he ran again... and again... and again—until eventually he couldn't run or, worst of all, protect her anymore?
'So I had to face that creature to PROVE to myself that, yes, I can survive. Yes, I can protect. So if not now, then—'
"When?" he muttered.
'Was that what Aika saw in me? A relentless cowardice that didn't think for a single second to sacrifice something just so he could live one more day?' he thought silently in his mind.
Even so, the actions of Aika didn't justify what she did to Lucid. That betrayal still felt fresh in his heart, although he could start to see a hint of a reason as to the motives behind her actions.
Lucid looked around and it was suddenly nighttime. The once-bright purple fog was now a dark purple mist. The carriage was illuminated by a single light bulb that seemed to use some kind of weird magical technology, and the faint blue light from the crystal. As Lucid stood up, he saw Alice nestled right next to the window, sleeping lying down. Lucid took his coat and laid it over Alice as she slept. He carefully caressed her bright green hair and thought,
'Huh... I really have gotten close to her, haven't I?'
He stood up again, this time walking back to his small seat, looking at the wallet and strange device. Lucid opened the wallet and saw a bunch of cards and a paper-like note.
"Could that be money?" he asked in a curious voice.
One thing snagged his attention though: a card with a photo. As he read carefully, he read it.
"Student... ID..."
In the card, one thing snagged his attention almost instantly—a photo. He looked at the photo and thought to himself, 'Why is it blurry?' But as he looked closer, the photo burned.
No.
The whole card itself burned, and he quickly let it go due to the fear of being burnt. What's weird was that it didn't even take a second for it to turn into a dust-like substance.
"What the—"
And a similar voice rang once again in his head:
"No... no... you... have... yet to—"
Lucid, this time, wasn't in as much agony as before and stared at the dust particles. As he looked at it, he wasn't angry or frustrated as to one of his single proofs of existence seemingly getting wiped away. Rather than being angry, he confirmed a little theory of his. This glass mask and confusing identity weren't made by himself.
"It is influenced by a third party. It is someone else's doing—and worst case, that someone brought me here in this world."
As Lucid came to a silent conclusion, he looked outside the window in front of him—or the windshield of this magical carriage. He had inspected the rectangular device, but it showed no signs of activity. It seemed broken, but he kept it either way. Lucid thought to himself that maybe he could find some use for it.
As he looked out of the window, Lucid closed his eyes, ready for tomorrow. Ready to find more answers. For it had seemed that he had answered one or two—his cowardice and the glass mask. As vague as it seemed, a victory is a victory at the end of the day.
Without as much of a thought or a noise, he had fallen asleep—this time, peacefully, with very few questions plaguing his mind.