Interface

Okay, don’t panic.

I’m definitely panicking.

Where am I? Colors swirl before my line of sight, like waking up from a long sleep, where the line between dream and reality blurs. It’s hard to keep my eyes open.

Flashes appear in my consciousness: bump, window, door, speed, noise, light, dark.

Where am I?

Take a deep breath!

Who said that? I shake my head repeatedly.

Was that me?

Everything’s going to be fine. It will all be over soon.

I’m suddenly aware that my stomach feels like a trapeze artist, leaping off the bars with nothing to grab onto and no net beneath to catch me. I feel velvet beneath my fingertips. The inside of my mouth is dry and I can't use my voice.

A bare, incandescent light bulb shakes above my head, back and forth, the dangling string swirling in dizzying circles.

I blink.

Wherever I am, it’s –

Yes, you are moving very, very, very fast. Too fast, probably. But look on the bright side!

The door. There is a door right beside my head quivering noisily in its frame. The glass is frosted opaque, but light and shadow flicker past with the speed of the room. Here, it says. Here, here, here, here, and then you are gone again.

No, on your other side. The window.

I sit up, groggily, slowly, like swimming in cement. The window! I gasp.

I am definitely not on Earth anymore.

Look at those gorgeous, nebulous, colorful galaxies! The stars are a catastrophe of heat and light and dust! All the gifts of Creator lay just beyond your reach.

Would you believe you’re only a few lightyears away from home.

Do you remember your home?

No, I think to myself.

Do you remember who you are?

Who is this voice? So familiar --

…No, you can't remember. Good. That will speed things along.

I shake my head. Perhaps I’m talking to myself. I look around the room, but it’s not a room. It’s a cabin. Red cushioned benches crammed between a window and a door. The walls are beige. The overhead luggage rack holds one small briefcase, which tumbles to the floor.

Is it a train? Yes. It looks like a train. Like in an old film.

Ancient technology, but flying in space.

There hasn’t been a train on Earth in a hundred years. What is this place? What’s going on? Who am I? And why – ?

By now, you’re wondering why you’re here.

Who are you? Show yourself!

Naturally, you can’t remember how you got on board.

No. I can’t remember anything. I slam my palms against my eyes and think.

Metal and gears, gravity and oxygen. We thought you'd like this setup. You were always grinding in such a rush to the finish line.

I don’t recognize the star clusters outside the window. I hear the chug of the engine as we zoom past an unfamiliar planet, all blue. The room quakes with every movement.

But the dizziness is gone.

I stand up and reach for the door handle.

I wouldn't do that if I were you.

I wrench it open, sliding it into the pocket frame and peering out.

A hallway. More cabins. More clattering doors. More flashing windows of space.

I glance to the left. I look to the right. I take a step.

If this is a train, in space, certainly there is a driver?

You won’t find any answers that way.

The voice. I shrug it off. If it’s me, I can certainly learn to ignore myself.

In fact, you’re totally, completely, inescapably alone. Not another soul on board.

…What?

Besides us of course. But we don’t count - we have no souls.

I look behind me into the cabin. Is there a camera? I run my hands along the wall. I try to wrench open the briefcase on the floor, but it won’t budge. I stand up and untwist the light bulb.

Nothing.

I feel my head - did someone insert a chip?

How is that voice ringing in my head?

I’m the interface.

The interface? An interface of what? The… train? The ship? Where am I?

So many questions! There’s nothing to worry about. Just sit back and enjoy the ride! You won't be here much longer.

It must be programmed without empathy, because the last thing I want to do is stay in this dingy little cabin by myself and watch as this runaway train goes speeding into the next nebula. Maybe I can slow this thing down.

I sit down on the stiff cushion and wrack my brain. If there was ever any engineering knowledge in there, it was gone.

I punch my fist into the seat. The briefcase wobbles, mocking me.

It’s just like a roller coaster! Do you remember those? Or nuclear fission. But you’re no scientist, are you? No, no you’re not.

So, interface, if I’m not a scientist, you must know me.

Before you ask, no, I can’t tell you who you are.

Then wh–

No, I can’t tell you why you’re here. Just follow the rules and you might make it out alive.

What rules? You’re not making any sense!

I grunt in my frustration and, picking up the briefcase with one hand, I step into the hallway. I stumble with the motion of the train. I pick a direction. It doesn’t matter. The cabins stretch endlessly from one void into the next. We hit turbulence. I slam right into another door.

I step inside. I hear a crunch beneath my foot.

A face. Or what was a face. Some now-broken skull where there was once consciousness. A sternum where there once beat a human heart. I see its hands clenching a briefcase, popped open and empty.

Okay, now panic sets in.

You’re going to be fine!

“WHERE AM I?” I scream to nothing. “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”

No need to shout! I can hear everything you’re thinking. And you’ll want to be quiet, because it’s coming.

I gulp. What’s coming? I peer over my shoulder back into the void, and down again at the crushed bones beneath my boot.

Don’t move.

I hear breath. Heavy, soiled breath. The noise crushes me. I press myself against the seat. The jangling bones that once held another mind like mine quiver with every wavering gasp. The noise echoes loudly.

The breathing sounds more like a chuckle. I shut my eyes.

Don’t speak.

But noise escapes my throat as I hear dragging footsteps just outside the door. Slow. Threatening.

Don’t shout.

I hide. Clutching the case to my chest, I shut my eyes and wait.

The dragging footsteps are gone.

The heavy breathing has stopped.

Maybe it's gone?

I steel myself and turn my head to peer just around the edge of the cabin's open, rattling door.

I see a boot, muddy and bloody and dripping wet onto the plush carpet. I clasp one clammy hand over my mouth as fear grips my entire body.

What am I going to do?

Don’t ask questions.

I stare at the briefcase clenched in my other hand, and as if reading my mind, it pops open.

A brilliant red light fills the room, and I yelp.

The boot in the hallway turns in my direction.

I feel the breath before I hear it, his darkness dripping down my neck as he lets out rasping, deadly laughter.

A phaser gun swings down near its knee in a grotesque hand.

I hear a cruel laugh.

I glance up and see the cold, dead eyes of what must be some ancient bandit. He is shrouded in death’s cloak, missing one eye and one leg. His wings spread out behind him like a fallen angel.

He is somewhere between the living and the dead. A devil and a demon. Something between alien and man.

He smiles at me, gold glinting in the red light.

I pick up the open halves of the briefcase and hold it up like a shield, quivering. The light spreads across the ancient bandit's laughing face.

“INTERFACE!” I scream. “INTERFACE, HELP ME!”

But only silence answers my plea.

I wait for him to move, but he doesn’t.

“What do you want?” I ask.

He inches slowly toward me. I want to scream out for answers! Who am I? Why am I here? What am I going to do? Please don't touch me, please don't come any closer --

I shut my eyes in terror. But the bandit reaches into the briefcase.

The red light spreads out from a sphere, and in its reflective glass I see only myself.

And a name.

My name.

The ghost of a man holds up the sphere so I can see closely.

I hesitate.

"Are you trying to show me something?" I ask. "Is this why I’m here?"

He only smiles and holds up the glowing red orb once more.

I lean in, a hungry, searching energy fills my entire body. I am desperate for answers.

But there’s nothing reflected in the glass but my own face, awash with terror and red light and confusion.

The bandit looks at me and laughs.

“You cannot escape what you have done,” he said with a thick accent.

“What did I do?” I scream. “WHAT DID I DO?”

The bandit stands tauntingly before me, and with an inhuman movement, he unhinges his jaw.

He swallows the red orb of my life whole.

I see his phaser raise up and I hear him pull the trigger.

The window breaks with a deafening crash. I am sucked into the void of space, the scream in my throat leaving me with the only breath left in my lungs.

I am frozen instantly frozen. What should I do? I watch the skeletal remains from the cabin turn to ice. I see the back of the train.

I see its name. The train’s name. It is him, and he is my captor.

Lucifer.

He laughs in my head as the gorgeous landscape of outer space start to fade.

I remember, I remember, I remember...

Murder. Money. Adultery. Stealing. Pain. Abuse. Hate, hate, hate.

In my life, I was determined to put as many people beneath me as I could. I chose money. I chose power. I chose to hurt in the name of the false Lord.

I led an army of the uneducated to the gates and tried to take as many people down with me, just because I could.

And then I died in the struggle. But nobody mourned my passing.

But I was good! I argue. I was right! I think.

That's not who I am! Tell him, interface!

I scream in my head, but my voice is gone.

The train is gone.

Silence.

Interface, I pleaded. You claimed to know me! I was an upstanding citizen!

But nobody hears me, because nobody will ever hear me again.

Again and again I beg. But there's nothing. Just the empty void of swirling galaxies staring back, its pressure collapsing my lungs. I can't breathe. Thinking leaves me. This is...

Familiar. The same. Again.

I realize, of course. The bandit. The interface. The train.

This has happened before!

In death, they sent me into space, where I could hurt nobody else.

And God put me on a runaway train, where I would try escaping my fate for all eternity.

Empty of people. Empty of compassion. Empty of love.

Like me.

The skeleton was me.

The bandit was him. The servant of the True God.

And this is my punishment.

The icy vastness of space squeezes my chest further and further. I cannot breathe anymore. I am losing my life, again. I watch the colors swirl together and it all goes black.

The void.

There is nothing.

Dark.

Forgotten.

Forlorn.

Lost soul.

I wait.

I wait.

I wait.

I wait.

But there's nothing coming to save me.

And then I see it: the light at the end of the tunnel!

Am I forgiven?

Will I be remembered in the land of the living as the honest, hard-working, billionaire philanthropist I was?

I am smug with anticipation as I begin to awake.

I feel it: movement. Shaking and quivering locomotion.

I hear it: the noise of the engine.

My mouth is dry. My head aches.

And I am back in the cabin.

The briefcase tumbles to the floor, but I won’t open it. I know it contains nothing but my sins… red and glowing and endlessly circular, coming back around to haunt me over and –

Over and – I – I can’t –

I’ve forgotten…. Something…

There’s something I’ve forgotten… and it’s – big –

Important –

The light bulb swirling. The door rattling. The engine chugging.

Where am I?

Who am I?

What is this place?

A voice fills my head. It is... so familiar...

Don’t panic.