Rattle! Rattle—!
The carriage rattled as a low, dying hum crawled through the metal walls, vibrating beneath the seats like something breathing under the floor. The lights flickered once... twice... then steadied into a sickly yellow glow that made every face look hollow.
I held onto the metal pole next to me, taking in my surroundings cautiously.
’This is a subway, right?’
No matter how I looked at it, this was a subway. From the moving darkness behind the windows to the advertisements plastered along the curved walls, there was no doubt about it in my mind.
But how was this possible?
I was just standing in the middle of the arena. How did I suddenly get transported into this subway?
’...Is this part of the trial?’
This felt like the most likely explanation. It was also for this reason that my mind sharpened as I continued to observe my surroundings. I took a look at the advertisements, the station map above the door, and the seats.
Details.
Trials always had rules. Rules meant patterns. Patterns meant a way out.
The advertisements were the first thing that I paid attention to.
At a glance, they were ordinary: whitening toothpaste, luxury watches, a hedge fund promising ’worthwhile investments’. But the longer I looked, the more I felt that I was wasting my time.
There didn’t seem to be anything particularly ’eye-catching’, but perhaps it was meant to be like that. Trials and scenarios were never easy to clear.
’Still, this does feel a little eerie.’
I was the only one in the subway.
There was no one else but me, and it was perhaps because of this reason that everything felt heightened to me. The soft hum of the subway, the faint flicker of the lights above, the restless rattling of the train, and the stale, metallic smell of the place.
Every sound. Every smell.
I could feel it.
Rattle—!
The carriage rattled violently.
I stumbled at the sudden jolt, my hand slipping from the pole as I dropped into the nearest seat. The plastic felt cold, much colder than I expected it to be.
The lights above burst into erratic spasms.
In that split second of light, the aisle looked longer. Or did it? I couldn’t quite make sense of what was happening around me. I took deep and steady breaths, my vision going dark with each flicker of the lights.
With each flicker, it felt as though something changed about the place. But when I looked, nothing seemed different than before. It all looked the same.
It all—
Flick!
Rattle. Rattle.
"....."
The carriage stopped rattling, the motion smoothing out as though nothing had happened. The steady rhythm of the tracks returned, almost comforting. But unlike before, a deep, unnatural cold seeped into my body.
But most importantly...
I wasn’t alone anymore. Figures appeared all over me, doing their own thing as though they had been in the subway the entire time.
A man stood by the pole near the doors, one hand gripping it loosely while the other held an open book. His eyes moved across the page, reading each word with such extreme concentration that it felt abnormal.
A woman beside him scrolled on her phone, her thumb dragging down the screen in a slow, repetitive motion. The glow from the device illuminated her face from below, highlighting the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
Further down, someone adjusted their tie. Another leaned back with their eyes closed, earphones plugged in.
But weirdest of them all was the woman sitting directly in front of me, two people next to her, her naturally sagging face giving away her age alongside the deep wrinkles etched into her skin.
Gray hair coiled tightly around her head in brittle, uneven curls, her thin lips nearly colorless, and her pale, papery skin stretched so tightly over her cheekbones that it looked less like skin and more like the last layer before her skull.
She stared at me.
She was the only one staring at me.
Her eyes were wide. So wide that I could see the whites showed all around her irises, red vessels branching outward like the limbs of a dying tree.
I swallowed nervously.
"Hello?"
I received no response. Instead, she continued to stare at me. I scratched the top of my hand, my tongue pressing against my bottom lip to wet it.
The more I looked at her, the more unsettled her gaze felt. Instead, I looked elsewhere. The two men seated on either side of her sat rigidly upright, shoulders squared, hands resting neatly on their thighs. They weren’t looking at her.
They were looking past me.
At the window behind me
"Hello?"
I tried to make small talk again. I wanted to see if I could interact with the people in the scenario, but once again, I was met with silence.
This time, the silence felt even more strained.
Shifting along my seat, I took notice of the woman’s eyes. They seemed to be following me. I stopped and stared back, feeling her stare to be more and more uncomfortable. The longer I held her gaze, the heavier it felt, like something pressing down on my chest. There was no expression in her face, no change in posture.
Just those wide, fixed eyes locked onto mine.
I knew that I had to do something, and right as I was about to stand up, the lights turned off.
Flick!
Darkness once again took over the space.
But in the darkness, I heard it. The slow, steady breath from somewhere in front of me, close enough that I could make out the faint rasp in each breath, and strong enough to rise over the hum of the train and the dull rattle of the tracks.
"Haaa... Haaa..."
My heart skipped a beat, my head slowly turning in the direction of where the breathing was coming from.
Right... in front of me.
The old woman?
Flick!
The lights flicked back on.
The woman’s face was closer now.
Close enough that I hadn’t seen her move.
The wrinkles along her cheeks sagged deeper than before, folding into one another like soft, collapsing fabric. The skin beneath her eyes hung loose, trembling slightly, as though it couldn’t quite hold its shape.
Her eyes were still locked onto me.
But her pupils had changed. What remained looked faded, washed out beneath a thin, milky haze. That was when I finally noticed the other details I’d missed before. From the gray tint of her skin to the faint blue of her lips.
And...
The fact that she wasn’t breathing.
Thud—!
Her head fell over, landing right in front of my legs as I froze.
Flick!
Once more, darkness took over the surroundings. As it did, the weight on my legs had faded. Almost as if the only lady had magically disappeared. But what hadn’t faded was the soft breathing sound that rose over the hum and rattling of the carriage.
"Haa... Haa... Haa..."
It was louder now.
Warmer.
...Closer.
But when the lights turned on, the scene that greeted my sight left me stunned. The old lady from before had returned to where she was, her eyes wide while she still looked at me.
’What the hell is going on?’