Lucid's eyes drifted back to the side of the control room. To the dark shape slumped against the glass. His own voice echoed in his head, softer now, hesitant. "Someone is dead. Yet how am I not..." he let the thought fade away, unfinished.
'How am I not affected?' The question hung there, heavy and unanswered.
He turned it over in his mind. He knew he should be. A person was dead. Not just dead, but killed in a violent, ugly way. Right there. He had seen death in Karmen's memories, and it had always left a hollow, sick feeling behind. This was different. This was a civilian. Someone who had just been pushing a cart, serving drinks.
He waited. He braced for the familiar punch of horror, the tightness in his throat, the cold sweat. He stood perfectly still, expecting it to hit.
Nothing came.
There was only a cold, clear assessment. A problem. A mess. An inconvenient complication. The strongest feeling he could name was simple irritation. Irritation that this had happened, that it was now his problem, that it made everything harder.
That cold realization scared him far more than the sight of the body.
"Lucid?" Alice's voice chimed in his mind, sweet and light, completely unconcerned with the grim scene before them. "What is it?"
He didn't know how to answer. He felt a gentle, insistent pull in his thoughts, a soft pressure urging him to look away from the window, from the dark stain on the floor.
"Oh... is it that?" Her voice softened further, becoming a whisper only he could hear. "Look away," she soothed. "You are alive, and she is not. That is what matters."
Her words, delivered with such gentle care, made his stomach twist into a cold knot. The being who usually sounded so compassionate had just said something brutally, chillingly pragmatic.
"No," he thought back, the protest weak and automatic.
A warm, green light blossomed from within his chest, spreading through his limbs. It eased the tension in his shoulders, smoothed the frown he couldn't see. "It's okay, Lucid," the voice murmured. "Look away. Just keep living."
He felt strange then. A fluttering in his gut that wasn't fear. It was uncomfortably close to comfort. To reassurance. What is this?
Alice asked no more questions. She clearly did not care about the dead woman. That fact landed in Lucid's mind with a cold, final clarity. Her worry, her gentle words, were for him alone. Her morality did not extend to others. And her perspective, this calm, amoral focus on his survival alone, was beginning to seep into the cracks of his own mind, coloring his reactions.
'No,' he thought, more firmly this time. 'No. I don't want this.'
Alice's voice came again, a soft murmur that seemed to originate right behind his ear, as if she were standing over his shoulder. "It's okay to feel this way. Shhh, it's alright. Look away, my chosen. You are alive. Your capacity for empathy is a virtue, but you must focus on yourself now, Lucid. Focus on your own path."
He felt a presence then. A soft, green, translucent arm draped over his shoulder. Another crossed his chest, as if someone were holding him in a gentle, protective embrace from behind. It felt nice. Warm. Secure. Like being wrapped in a blanket by a loving parent.
And that warmth made him feel sick to his stomach.
"It's okay," the spectral voice whispered directly into his mind. "I am here for you. It was not your fault."
He had risen from the conductor's seat without realizing it. He stood in the center of the blood-spattered control room, caught between the visceral horror on the glass and the gentle, utterly detached comfort being offered to him. He was changing. Becoming something that saw a corpse and registered only a logistical issue. Something building an immunity to shock. Something mentally detaching. And the part of him that was terrified of that change was being quietly, lovingly, coaxed into accepting it.
He breathed in. He breathed out. Slow, deliberate breaths.
A sliver of his own clarity resurfaced, fighting through the warm, green haze. The spectral arms around his chest tightened for a second, a possessive squeeze, and then vanished in a shimmer of fading light.
He didn't dwell on it. He needed a distraction, a task. He turned back to the control panel and dropped into the seat. The train was still heading straight for Vex on its pre-set rail, but his eyes caught a small, orange arrow on a holographic map display. It was slightly off to the left of their current glowing path. An alternate route? A detour marker? Without thinking too hard, he reached out and pressed it.
The train banked smoothly to the left. The rail of solid light ahead of them curved to match.
'Okay,' he thought. 'So it does respond.'
Things weren't completely hopeless. The main conductor was just unconscious, his breathing steady. He'd wake up eventually. Most of the passengers were alive and unharmed, just scared. As for the killer... he'd have to deal with that later. Right now, he had to get this vessel to some kind of safety, or at least keep it on the rails until the real crew woke up. Ayame... he pushed the sharp worry for her down. She could handle herself. Probably. He'd search later.
Outside, the void was no longer empty. Chunks of debris, some as big as cars, littered their path. The train's protective barrier shimmered as smaller rocks glanced off it with sharp, cracking sounds.
Alice spoke up, her voice clinical. "Lucid, you could press that command right there." She indicated a symbol that glowed with a faint, amber light near his right hand.
He looked at it. A sick, cold feeling clawed up from his gut. He recognized the schematic next to it. It wasn't a control for speed or direction.
It was an emergency separation command. It would detach the engine and control cabin from the rest of the passenger carriages.
If he pressed it, he would save himself. He would condemn ninety people, including children, to be left as a powerless, drifting coffin in the void.
He questioned Alice's morality then, with a cold, clear dread.
"Alice," he said, his voice flat. "This will separate the carriage from the cabin. We would kill the passengers."
A moment of silence stretched between them, thin and sharp.
She spoke, her tone shifting to one of light, apologetic surprise. "Ohhh! I am sorry. I thought it was an acceleration command."
He felt no reassurance. The question hung in the air, chilling and unanswered: *Had she actually meant it?*
He pushed the thought aside. He couldn't afford to spiral now. He had to address the passengers. He found a small, microphone-like device with several buttons. He fumbled with it for a second, then found the right one.
A soft chime sounded through the train's speakers. He leaned close.
"Passengers," he said, forcing his voice into a calm, practiced, customer-service tone that reminded him eerily of Rebecca back at the tavern. "There has been a slight deviation. The train shall resume its course normally now. We appreciate you for boarding the Vex Express Line and wish you a great voyage."
He released the button. The silence that followed felt heavier than the void outside.
Alice let out a faint, audible sigh in his mind. "You have a surprisingly charming tone, Lucid."
He didn't reply. His eyes were fixed ahead.
"Shit!"
The train jolted violently, not from a glancing blow, but from a massive impact. Lucid was thrown forward, his head cracking against the edge of the solid control panel. White light exploded behind his eyes. He felt a warm trickle start down his temple.
He shoved himself upright, blinking away the concussion. What was it? A massive rock? Had the rails given out?
He looked up through the reinforced crystal windshield.
His eyes widened.
"Holy..."
Floating directly in their path, colossal and serene, was a creature. It looked like a narwhal, but woven from starlight and nebula dust. It was enormous, longer than the train, its hide a swirling canvas of deep blues and purples that mirrored the void itself. From its head extended a spiraling horn of crystalline light, shimmering with impossible colors. It was mesmerizing. And they were on a collision course with it.
Alice's voice became urgent, a sharp command in his mind. "Lucid, avoid that by any cost! Separate the—"
He cut her off, shouting both mentally and aloud. "No! We are headed straight for it! The train can't change direction that fast, and the rails ahead are damaged!"
His eyes darted over the controls, panic rising. Then he saw it. Below the main panel, almost out of sight, was a large, red lever. It looked unmistakably like a brake.
'I knew I should have passed my driving license when I was on Earth,' he thought with a burst of hysterical clarity.
He grabbed the lever and hauled it back with all his strength.
The train did not screech. It simply stopped. Instantly. The inertia was brutal. Lucid was slammed back into his seat. From the carriages behind, he heard a symphony of shouts, screams, and the crash of unsecured items. The giant narwhal creature continued its slow, graceful drift, now passing silently, harmlessly, just above them, its belly of stars filling the entire windshield.
They were safe. But they were also dead in the water, floating in the void with a broken rail ahead and a mythical beast overhead.
He looked up. In the roof of the control cabin was a circular hatch. An emergency exit.
Alice screamed inside his mind, her voice raw with a fear he'd never heard from her. "Stay inside! Please... do not do it! You need to live by any means! There are other ways! I will try to manifest that rift seed so we can get away!"
She was pleading.
Lucid didn't listen. His mind had cleared to a single, razor-sharp point of focus. All other thoughts, the dead attendant, Alice's morality, the passengers, Ayame, burned away.
He stared at the hatch, then out at the infinite, airless purple expanse beyond the glass.
One simple, practical question filled his entire being.
'Can I breathe in the void?'