The silence that followed that sharp, commanding voice was absolute. Angela, Eve, and Carmilla remained frozen, their eyes fixed on the shadowy doorway where the voice had originated.
Then, slowly, deliberately, the figure emerged from the darkness.
It was none other then Vera.
"You all shout too much," she said, her voice as cold and smooth as polished ice. There was no anger in her tone, no emotion whatsoever. It was a simple statement of fact, delivered with absolute certainty.
Carmilla was the first to recover from the shock. She stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor of the train car. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and when she spoke, her voice was sharp with barely contained fury.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded. "How did you even get on this train?"
Vera tilted her head slightly, regarding Carmilla with the kind of detached interest one might show an interesting insect. "I came here to see Eve," she replied simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The temperature in the compartment seemed to drop several degrees. Carmilla's eyes narrowed dangerously, and when she spoke again, her voice had taken on a quality of cold steel.
"You think I will let you talk with her?" Each word was enunciated with precise, controlled rage. "After you tried to steal her synthetic soul? After everything you've done?"
For a moment, Vera said nothing. She simply looked at Carmilla, her expression unreadable. Then, without warning, she began to laugh.
It was not a pleasant sound. It was dark, hollow, echoing strangely in the confined space of the flying train. The laugh seemed to go on and on, building in intensity, until it filled every corner of the compartment. There was something deeply unsettling about it, something that suggested a mind that had long ago abandoned conventional morality and embraced something far more twisted.
Carmilla felt her anger intensifying with each passing second of that mocking laughter. Her face flushed, and she took a step forward, her body tense with barely restrained violence.
"Why are you laughing?" she snapped. "What's so damn funny?"
The laughter cut off as abruptly as it had begun. Vera's face settled back into that cold, composed mask, but now there was something else there too. Something cruel and satisfied. When she spoke, her voice dripped with mocking contempt.
"How can you say to me I'm the villian you all almost killed by the sinners" She said with mocking tone and the voice was soft yet dark and then she close her eyes
"You can't even save your loved ones," she said softly, each word carefully chosen for maximum impact.
The effect on Carmilla was immediate and devastating. All the color drained from her face in an instant. Her body went rigid, and her eyes widened with a mixture of shock and something that looked dangerously close to fear. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out at first. When she finally managed to speak, her voice was barely above a whisper, trembling with emotions she could no longer contain.
"How do you know—" she began.
But Vera interrupted her, stepping closer with predatory grace. "You're pathetic," she continued, her voice soft but cutting like a razor. "A failure to yourself. You just act like you know everything, like you have all the answers, like you're in control. But you're not, are you? And now you've lost that guy. How disappointing."
The words struck Carmilla like physical blows. She stood there, frozen, her mind reeling. For perhaps the first time in her life, she found herself completely speechless. All her usual confidence, her sharp wit, her intellectual superiority all of it crumbled in the face of those simple, cruel words.
She couldn't say anything. Not a single word of defense or defiance would come. Her throat felt tight, constricted, and her chest ached with an emotion she had spent years trying to bury.
The silence stretched on, uncomfortable and heavy. Eve watched the exchange with growing concern, while Angela looked between Carmilla and Vera with an expression of Boredom.
In that moment of crushing silence, Carmilla's mind did what it had always done when confronted with unbearable present circumstances it fled to the past.
*The memory came unbidden, vivid and sharp, cutting through her consciousness like a knife.*
*The laboratory had been her sanctuary in those days. It was a large space, filled wall to wall with equipment, diagrams, half-finished projects, and the organized chaos that came with intensive research. The lighting had always been poor she'd never bothered to install better lamps and the air perpetually smelled of chemicals, metal, and the ozone scent of electrical equipment.*
*It was late. It was always late when she worked. Time had no meaning in the laboratory, only progress and failure, success and setbacks. She could work for sixteen hours straight without noticing, could forget to eat for days if no one reminded her.*
*But someone always reminded her.*
*Little William had been perhaps nine years old at the time. Maybe ten. She'd never been particularly good with someone she just saw as weapon. He seemed irrelevant compared to intellectual capacity and potential. But she remembered him clearly: small for his age, with large curious yet selfish eyes that seemed to absorb everything around him, and a quiet demeanor that most people mistook for shyness but was actually intense observation.*
*He stayed with her during those long nights. He never complained, not once. Not about the late hours, not about the boring waiting, not about the strange smells or the occasional small explosions that were an inevitable part of experimental work. Instead, he would sit quietly in the corner of the laboratory, working on his own mind by meditation, mostly, or attempting to understand the principles behind her work.*
*What she remembered most clearly was how he questioned her confidence. Not in a challenging way, not to undermine her, but with genuine curiosity. He wanted to understand not just what she was doing, but why she believed in it so strongly, why she was so certain of her methods when everyone else doubted.*
*"How do you know it will work?" he would ask, his young voice thoughtful and serious.*
*"Because I've calculated every variable," she would reply, not even looking up from her work. "Because the mathematics supports it. Because logic dictates it must."*
*"But what if there's something you can't calculate?" he would press gently. "Something unexpected?"*
*And she would smile actually smile and ruffle his hair. "Then I'll recalculate and try again. That's what science is, kiddo. Persistent inquiry in the face of uncertainty."*
*He had always stayed by her side, no matter how late it got, no matter how absorbed she became in her work. His presence had been a constant, something she'd come to rely on without ever really acknowledging it.*
*One particular night stood out with crystalline clarity in her memory.*
*She had been working on a particularly complex problem she couldn't even remember now what it had been, which seemed tragically ironic and had lost herself completely in the calculations. Hours had passed without her noticing. The laboratory had grown cold as the night deepened, but she hadn't registered the temperature, too focused on the equations sprawling across her notebooks.*
*She hadn't noticed William moving. Hadn't heard his soft footsteps approaching. Hadn't realized he was there until she felt the weight of the blanket settling gently over her shoulders.*
*She'd looked up, startled out of her concentration, to find him standing beside her chair. He'd pulled the blanket from the laboratory's small rest area and brought it to her without being asked, without expecting thanks or acknowledgment. He'd simply seen that she was cold and took action to remedy it.*
*"You should rest," he'd said softly. "It's very late."*
*"In a moment," she'd replied, already turning back to her work. "I'm close to a breakthrough."*
*He'd nodded, accepting this as he always did, and returned to his meditation.But the blanket had stayed on her shoulders, and despite herself, she'd felt grateful for its warmth.*
*That small gesture, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, had meant something. She understood that now, too late, in the way one always understands things too late.*
*And then there were the conversations about God.*
*Carmilla had been a staunch atheist. Still was, technically. She believed in what could be measured, quantified, proven through empirical observation. The idea of a divine being seemed not just unlikely but unnecessary the universe operated on principles of physics and chemistry, cause and effect. There was no need to invoke supernatural explanations and she knew about religion illusion. *
*But she had listened to William's discourses anyway.*
*She wasn't sure why, even now. Perhaps because his faith was so selfish, so blind, so free from the dogmatic rigidity she associated with religious belief.
*Those conversations had been comfortable, intellectually stimulating in ways that her interactions with other scholars rarely were. There was no ego involved, no competition, just genuine exchange of ideas between two minds trying to understand the world.*
*For those times those long nights in the laboratory, with William practice his combat quietly in the corner or engaging her in her work sometimes, with her work progressing and her mind free to explore without constraint she had been happy.*
*Truly, genuinely happy.*
*And free. Free from the expectations of others, free from the need to prove herself constantly, free from the loneliness that usually accompanied her singular focus on her research.*
*William had given her that. His presence, his quiet companionship. He had made those long nights bearable, even enjoyable. He had been the one person who saw her not as a means to an end, not as a tool or a threat, but simply as herself.*
*And now he was gone,died infront of her.*
The memory released its grip on her, and Carmilla found herself back in the present, back in the train compartment with Vera's cruel eyes boring into her. The weight of that loss, which she had been carrying for so long, suddenly felt unbearable.
She looked at Vera, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, doubt crept into her mind. Doubt about her abilities, her choices, her worth. Had she really failed so completely? Was she truly as pathetic as Vera claimed?
But before she could form words, before she could voice either defense or admission, another voice cut through the tension.
"You don't have the right to say who is right or wrong!" Eve's voice rang out, clear and determined, trembling slightly with emotion but resolute nonetheless.
Vera, Angela and Carmilla turned to look at her. Eve stood from where she had been sitting, her artificial body rigid with conviction, her eyes fixed on Vera with unusual intensity.
"Lady Carmilla tries her best," Eve continued, her voice gaining strength. "She always has. She does everything she can. You have no right to judge her like this!"
Angela's response was immediate and cutting. Her voice was cold, clinical, stripped of any warmth. "Eve, you're doing that for no reason. You're not the protagonist here. This isn't your story to intervene in."
The words struck Eve like a physical blow. Her conviction wavered, and she seemed to deflate slightly. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter, uncertain, accompanied by a heavy sigh though, being synthetic, she technically didn't breathe at all.
"I don't want her to be brought down like this," Eve said, almost to herself. "I just... I don't know what I was doing. I'm sorry."
The apology hung in the air, sad and sincere.
Vera watched this exchange with clinical interest, like a scientist observing an experiment. When Eve finished speaking, a small smile played at the corners of Vera's mouth.
"Interesting," she murmured, drawing the word out. "How very interesting."
Then her demeanor shifted again, becoming sharp and businesslike. Her voice took on a commanding quality that demanded attention.
"Well, enough drama," she declared. "I came here for something specific, and—"
The scene shifted abruptly, jarringly.
A movie theater, dark except for the flickering light from the screen. The seats were plush and comfortable, arranged in neat rows leading down to the screen itself.
In one of those seats, alone in the vast empty theater, sat Pranit.
But he wasn't simply sitting. He was engaged in an activity that would have horrified any normal theatergoer. In his hands, he held something far a human body, or rather, pieces of one as Popcorn. He was eating methodically, treating human flesh with the same casual indifference one might show actual popcorn, his eyes never leaving the screen.
On that screen, a chainsaw man movie played. The specific details of the plot unfolded in animated sequences, showing characters in intense emotional situations. The animation was stylized, violent, with a dark aesthetic that matched Pranit's own twisted nature.
As the story reached a crucial moment, showing two characters one with distinctive hair held in a specific style, the other looking determined and desperate moving toward a door, Pranit leaned forward in his seat. His consumption of his grotesque snack paused, all his attention focused on the screen.
The character with the distinctive appearance reached for the door handle, the other character's hand clasped in theirs. The scene was clearly significant, emotional weight building with each frame.
"Nooo!" Pranit shouted at the screen, his voice echoing in the empty theater. "Don't go! Don't do it!"
But the characters on screen didn't listen to his plea. They couldn't, being fictional projections. The door opened, revealing what was beyond.
Another character appeared in the doorway, this one smaller, holding what appeared to be a birthday cake. The scene that followed was emotionally devastating the kind of moment that anime series built toward, where happiness and tragedy collided in the most brutal way possible. The character with the cake called out a name, joy and innocence in their voice.
And then, in the way these stories sometimes unfolded, that innocent character died. Right there, in that doorway, that moment of celebration transformed into horror.
Pranit began to cry.
But his tears were theatrical, exaggerated, the kind of fake emotional display that would have been comical if it weren't so disturbing. They were crocodile tears in the truest sense
performative grief without genuine emotion behind it. His face contorted in an expression of sorrow that didn't reach his eyes, which remained cold and calculating even as water streamed down his cheeks.
"How sad," he declared to the empty theater, his voice dripping with false sentiment. "How terribly, terribly sad."
Then, without missing a beat, he returned to his snack. He pulled a human eye from the body he'd been consuming, examining it briefly in the flickering light of the screen before popping it into his mouth like a grape. He chewed thoughtfully, savoring the taste, his tears already drying on his cheeks.
"I wish I could eat Makima," he mused aloud, referring to one of the characters from the film. His voice took on a thoughtful quality, genuinely contemplative. "I wonder how she would taste. Would she be different from ordinary humans? Would there be something special about her flavor, something that reflected her nature, her power?"
He considered this question seriously for a moment, taking another piece of his gruesome meal and consuming it slowly, analytically, as if trying to imagine the flavor profile of a fictional character.
"Perhaps sweet," he continued his monologue, speaking to no one but himself. "Or maybe bitter. Control and manipulation might leave a bitter taste. Or perhaps she would taste like nothing atspac empty, hollow, a perfect mask with nothing underneath."
The movie continued playing on the screen, but Pranit's attention had drifted now. He was lost in his own thoughts, in his own twisted imagination, contemplating impossible meals and fictional flavors while surrounded by the very real evidence of his monstrous nature.
The theater remained empty except for him. No other patrons, no staff, no witnesses to this bizarre scene. Just Pranit, alone with his thoughts, his grotesque snack, and the flickering images on the screen.
Outside the theater, the world continued on.
But in this moment, in this theater, there was only Pranit and his dark musings.
The screen showed the closing credits beginning to roll, the emotional climax of the story concluded. Pranit watched them scroll past, still eating methodically, still alone, still completely at peace with his own monstrosity.
As the final name appeared on screen and the theater lights began to slowly brighten, Pranit stood, brushing crumbs though they weren't really crumbs from his clothes. He looked around the empty theater with satisfaction, as if he'd just had a perfectly normal moviegoing experience.
"Well," he said to the empty air, "that was entertaining. Though the ending was a bit predictable. You could see it coming from several episodes away, really."
He made his way toward the exit, leaving behind the remains of his meal scattered across the seat and floor. Someone would find it eventually. Someone would have to clean it up, would have to confront the reality of what had happened here. But that wasn't his concern.
At the door, he paused and looked back at the screen, now dark and empty.
"Still," he said softly, "it made me feel something. That's worth something, isn't it? Even if the feelings are fake, even if they're just chemical reactions and electrical impulses, they still feel real in the moment. That's what makes fiction so fascinating. It lets us pretend that things matter."
Then he came out of the theater and saw the children running in the road and he said "they will die now" And then there was car accident and both of the kids died
Then he annoyingly sighed and said "stupid kids"
Then he look at the sky, it was dark, clouds were forming, everything feel hollow like eclipse
He said "I remember the new York" He paused and look at the accident, the children were dead, the mother was crying and then he continue said " I wonder if it is true or not"