Those not seen, but heard

Writer's note: In order for the story to flow much easier, I have decided to trial a method of using varying fonts to distinguish the variety of voices used throughout the short story.

*GASP*

The nightmare is over. Kal was freed. How? He had no way of knowing. No way of knowing who freed him. No way of knowing what freed him. No way of knowing why *BLANK* freed him.

A memory. A memory is blocked. THE MEMORY. The memory of how he got here. The memory of where he is. The memory of why he is here.

Knowledge. Why is this all blocked? Kal cannot recall. His mind is shaking. Everything is shaking.

EVERYTHING IS SHAKING.

Stop. You need to relax.

Stop. You need to stop

You need to stop

you need to stop

need to

stop

Stop

STOP!

.

.

Everything is silent. His mind is silent. He can think now. He can breathe. Breathe.

*INHALE*

"KAL!" A voice screams from the opposite side of the corridor. No one there.

The corridor. Not a corridor. Seats. Seats horizontal. Seats lined the corridor. Windows next to seats. A carriage. Moving fast. Kal cannot comprehend. Moving too fast.

A train. He's safe.

We're safe.

We, the voices, are safe.

*EXHALE*

Kal is on a train. No one else in the carriage. Alone. No, not alone. Lonely, but not alone.

Outside the windows, a desolate land lay bare with ruins of a once thriving civilisation that lost its moral compass and imploded into despair and self-destructive substances. Weapons not being used to protect but to assault. Greed taking over the streets. Scraps of once glorious splendour tore down the visage of a mighty civilisation and left bare the bones of a civilisation born to self-destruct. Kal knew this.

Why? Why did he know?

Some did not know. I did not know. Others did not know.

"KAL!" The voice thundered through Kal's body and into the next carriage. Kal snapped his neck to face the direction of the calling voice.

"Where is your ticket?" Another voice gently asked in the one ear that didn't face the brunt of the thunderous cry.

No one's next to him. A voice from the past. Whose voice?

I don't know. Do you?

No.

No.

"No, but-" Kal began to respond to us. Cut off by another of the voices.

No. Whose voice is this?

Her voice.

That's right. It is her voice.

I thought so.

"Will you keep it down, please? I just need to know who spoke to me." Kal replied once again. He could have sworn he looked like a madman once again, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that he found out who was speaking to him that he didn't already know of.

What do you mean you thought so? You are a manifestation of his thoughts. You can't think.

Yes I can.

.

.

.

These voices sometimes go on like this for hours. I help tune them out.

.

.

.

"Kal. Where is your ticket?" The voice that spoke again to Kal, gently asked.

He frantically searched his pockets. No ticket. Searched his phone case. No ticket. Searched the seat he was on. No ticket. When did he start sitting down?

"KAL! IF YOU DON'T HAVE A TICKET, YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!" The thunderous voice rattled the windows and seats. No one was there. So much pressure from such a voice.

Kal stood up. Walked towards the door connecting the carriage to another one - he would hope.

The steel door revealed nothing of what was beyond. To his left, the view from the windows passed by much faster than they were earlier.

IT'S SPEEDING UP!

The train is not slowing down. He needs to get to the front.

Why? Jump off the tracks. He can escape.

He'll never escape.

He will.

He can't.

.

The cold, moist door handle was stiffly closed. Kal braced himself for impact as he slammed his elbow down on the door handle. It budged. There was ice. Clear. Shattered. Not noticeable earlier. Pulling the door handle all the way down, the gust of wind threw the door open. Nearly sent him flying.

That would have been funny. He's a stubborn one. Doesn't want to look ridiculous. Wants to stand firm. He does. It's vexing.

The wind died down. The lights in the carriage burst and shattered one by one. The dark rapidly filled the atmosphere around him. They grew closer. He crept even closer to his target than they did to him. He took a step. Another step. Step. And another step. He was careful not to lose balance or to slip off the train.

He needs to find out why he is here.

What happened to them?

The people he had been with prior to getting here, he couldn't tell. Some things may remain a mystery; however, some mysteries are designed to be solved.

Kal hammered and bashed the door to the next carriage with his elbow and shoulder. All the while, being careful not to slip as the train continued to speed up. "I need to make it to the front." Huffing his words as the wind continued to lower its icy blades, chilling even the metal which Kal was smashing.

One slam after another, Kal persisted. Desperate. Icy cold sweat building up at his hairline. "I need to find out what's going on." Kal could see his own breath within the wind now.

*SMASH*

The door handle broke free of the built up ice and opened its door like a child welcoming their father home after a long day at work. Kal rushed inside, pushing as hard as he could until he eventually closed the door - the force of the wind was much stronger than anticipated.

Looking around, Kal whispered one sentence that froze him in place... "where's Melanie?"

That was a mistake. He should have kept going. Shouldn't have thought, let alone said that. Though, who could blame a man in love with searching for his lost lover? I certainly couldn't. I wonder what you think.

Kal would take a bit longer than he originally anticipated, but, he eventually broke away from his trance. "Ugh. Could you knock it off for two minutes please?" Kal screamed, looking slightly up, toward the sky.

He's looking at us. He's looking at you, too. Be careful. Despite being able to observe, you are still within his reach. Although, he would never try such a thing. His focus is directed elsewhere, and for a good reason, too.

"Look, I really don't need any of this right now. I know I might seem crazy, talking to myself, if there was anyone around to see me, but just this once, could you be at least a little bit helpful?"

Do you want a side of grapes with that, your royal highness?

"Ugh.... damn. Can I really annoy myself that much with my own thoughts?"

Kal would let his thoughts spiral out of control at times. Not intentionally, like most people. His thoughts can sometimes influence the turn of events when faced with stressful, and sometimes life-threatening situations.

Look out! DUCK!

In a split second, Kal began to reach for the floor as a carriage seat flew over his head.

We have more pressing issues in front of us than hypothesising the impact that thoughts can have on situations.

"You shouldn't have gotten on the train if you didn't have a ticket, Kal." The thunderous voice now had a scratchy edge to it, almost gravelly in nature.

"Who are you?!" Kal shouted. Peeking up from his crouched position, he could see a hulking figure.

A man with muscles as big as a body-builder's started ripping out the next seat from the carriage. "Kal. Having no ticket will not get you to your precious friends or loved one." The man taunted with a wry smirk. One bolt popped out from the base of the carriage seat. "As much as your good pal Max would like to be here to sa-"

*BANG*

A deafening sound and a blinding light burst forth from the front of the carriage as smoke gradually filled the air.

And queue the heroic entrance.

That could have been you... but it wasn't.

"Dude! Get up! That won't hold him for long!" A familiar voice shouted through the ringing that plagued Kal's ears.

Come on. You have to escape. You need to escape. YOU CAN ESCAPE SO GO!

This figure, Kal had seen it before. He'd seen this person but he couldn't remember. He couldn't understand why, but they felt important.

*SLAM*

The carriages rattled and shook, causing the mysteriously familiar figure to release the gun he used in order to maintain balance as he stood outside in the blistering cold. The body of the muscular man slumped to the ground. The train seemed to continue to gain speed. Not nearly as much as it had prior to this encounter.

No, not nearly as much.

Each step gradually got lighter than the last. Pushing faster and faster, Kal reached the spot where the muscular man was standing not ten seconds prior. The blinding light gradually faded. Looking toward where the muscular man's body lie, a third of his head no longer existed.

The sight was certainly one for sore eyes.... Look away and keep moving. It won't do you any good to keep looking.

It'll be fine. Keep looking. You're scared if you don't.

Kal let his gaze linger a little longer than he thought he should, and he most certainly knew he shouldn't have gazed for as long as he did. The muscular man's eye twitched and started spinning rapidly around, looking in all different directions. The eye froze in place and Kal could only hope to one day forget the vision he would see in the few moments he should not have stayed.

The muscular man's face that was blown to smithereens, had raw flesh and innards dripping blood slower and slower than what might be expected of such a sight. Worms began to crawl out of the face as they began to slowly create the missing parts of the head. Not even a minute later and the nose that had disappeared into the abyss had almost been completely reconstructed.

Run. Your life depends on it.

Kal leapt across the gap between the carriages and safely made his way into the new carriage where the person who saved him lay on the floor, huffing and puffing. "Aaah. I finally found you. Man. It's been so long since we've seen each other and the moment we reunite is me saving you from some overgrown gorilla? Ha! What a joke."

He's insulting you. Don't take that. Teach him a lesson.

You'll die if you touch him. You can't beat him. You couldn't even save yourself.

Asking this man the most crucial question he had on his mind was a lot tougher than he originally thought.

"Right... you all have a point. Well, not really, but I get what you're getting at... I don't know who he is and he might be danger- Oh, great. I'm talking to myself again, aren't I? Dammit. Alright. Moving on." Kal struggled to not say any of his thought discussion out loud and stood in place, staring at the man on the floor. "Excuse me. Thank you for saving me, but have we met before?" Kal asked with a quizzical look on his face.

"Are you kidding? It hasn't been that long, idiot. It's me, Max. Remember when we went to the cabin together with our friends from university?" Max looked dumbfounded that Kal would ask such a question. "Alright. You know what? Take a seat. I need to catch you up to speed pretty quickly." He stood up from the cold, steel floor and made his way to one of the horizontal seats.

"Hahaha. Get it? Catch you up to speed?" Max spoke, looking towards Kal, expecting some kind of reaction. "Yeah... bad joke. I get it."

"Alright. Well... Max? Where are we and why are we here? Well, actually, how did we get here in the first place?" Kal faced Max. The one man who might have some answers as to what's going on.

Kal wouldn't remember this, but he and Max were good buddies for a long time. No matter where they were in the world, they would always reunite once a year with a group of friends for a week at one of their cabins in the Australian mountainsides.

"Well..." Max hesitated to answer. "It's a bit hard to explain how we got here because... I don't really know, myself."

"Wait... hold up a sec. You don't know yourself?" Kal asked, stunned at his friend's response.

"Look. All I know is that I woke up on a train platform with no exit and no entry. Outside the windows was nothing but white. I know, weird, right?" Max paused for a minute and stared at a spot on the floor with a distant look.

It's hard to read him.

I can't tell what he's thinking. He must be lying.

He's definitely lying.

"I looked around, searching for you, for Melanie, Abigail, and Dan. I couldn't find anyone. This train was just sitting there, doors open, and no one in sight. I decided to brave it and get on..." His voice trailed off.

"What happened next?" Kal pat Max's shoulder.

The shoulder pat: a commonality in the language of humans who are both comforting each other, and encouraging each other. Kal and Max were no different from any other human.

Max let out a deep sigh. "That's what I found it. The Lord of Living Nightmares, the Torturer of the Conscious Sleepers, the God of Déjà Vu..." Max's eyes slowly glazed over the more he mentioned the creature he found. Every passing word, another bit of light faded.

The lights are on.

Yeah, but I doubt anybody's there.

Slap him. He needs to wake up.

Be an actual friend and slap him! He needs to wake up!

Wake him up.

With a loud crack that echoed through the entire carriage, Kal's hand rapidly changed colour from spotty olive and pink to vibrant pink, nearing crimson red. "Max, snap out of it!" Kal called out to Max, snapping him back to his senses.

Max was now looking to the right, toward the exit of the carriage Kal and Max were in and onto the next. He held a hand up to his cheek. The throbbing pain persisted through the pain of biting one's gum mid-conversation. Blood trickled out of his mouth. "Duth. You witterawy mathe me bweed! Come on."

* * *

"Ow. That really hurt, man." Max mumbled as he spoke with a distinguishable note to his speech after biting his gum.

"Who the hell is this 'God of Déjà Vu' you spoke of earlier?" Kal's brow furrowed as he stared down someone who was supposedly his long-time friend.

Is he your friend?

Does he have answers?

They kept asking him questions. He persisted to ignore them. That was something he always struggled with; however, this time, his focus has driven almost everyone in and silent, almost everyone. Not me though, nor you. Keep listening and you'll see how this story ends for Kal. If you don't listen, you who are listening in will end up like those out of the window, lying in the wicked wasteland which many like yourself called home. One's lived experiences and stories are another's hopes, dreams, and more importantly, warnings.

"I don't think you remember that day a few years back, right?" Max asked, standing up to stretch his legs, ready for the next bout whenever it came, if it ever did.

Kal cautiously nodded in acknowledgement.

"The creature you saw 3 years ago is known as the Kangalaree, the Lord of Living Nightmares, or, more colloquially known as the God of Déjà Vu amongst the locals of the mountains."

He looks like a ghost.

He looks pale. Is he joking? Pale already?

You've gone through worse things than he has.

Clearing his throat, Max continued on with his story. "The train didn't move for a while after I boarded it. I looked around the entire train and didn't find too many things of note at the time. After it started moving, that must have been when you got on. The train started moving, and fast. I looked out the window to get a grasp on where I was and only saw the disastrous sight that is the city outside."

Look outside.

Do it.

He won't do it.

He can't do it.

The high pitched snickering of one of the voices could be heard over the thumping of Kal's heart beating its way out of his chest.

Max took a deep breath. A little bit of colour started returning to his face. He wasn't nearly as pale as he was before. "Nothing happened until we moved past the high-rise neighbourhood, and that's when I saw the Kangalaree, destroying part of the mountain's forest. It's hollow, soul-sucking, beady eyes locked with mine and held its gaze for a time before I dove out of sight." He grabbed onto one of the nearby seats, stabilising himself as the train continued following its destined path around the curve of the mountainside.

The thoughts and experiences of a friend... something that one instinctively wants to believe; however, not all stories are believable. Kal couldn't even remember the nightmare he lived because of the Lord of Living Nightmares, God of Déjà Vu. The odd thing was, and still is, that even I can see his thoughts, his memories, and even his desires passing around me. I have seen the nightmare he lived. I'm sure you have, too. He so desperately wants to survive, to live, to save his friend who is stuck on this train with him.

A funny thing is, we're not even sure he can.

Hahaha! He couldn't even save himself. How is he going to save his friend and look for his other friends who are somewhere else?

Melanie...

"Melanie... where are you?" Lost in his thoughts and voices, and the story Max was telling him, Kal mumbled the one question that had been on his mind since he woke up.

Max's nostrils began flaring up as he heard Kal lost in his own thoughts. "Kal. I need you to listen. After several minutes of lying on the ground, I looked up and saw the Kangalaree shrink in size. It started walking toward the direction of your grandparents' cabin."

"The cabin? Wait... what? But we were just there?" Kal's voice began to shake louder than the steel on the speeding train.

Max had never seen his old friend as lost as he was sitting there in front of him.

A high-pitched screech of tearing metal pierced the pair to their core. Looking back to what the source of such a grating sound was, all colour was flushed out of their faces as they saw fingers clenching on the steel door, slowly pulling it further and further back.

Run.

Run!

Run now!

"Max?" Kal called out into the emptiness of the space ahead of him.

"Max." He looked around and saw him stunned at the sight of incoming doom.

"Max! We need to run. Now!" Kal launched from his seat, snatched his friend's arm and ran for the next carriage bridge.

One step at a time. The train continuing to pick up speed. The trees outside the window blurred into a sea of green and brown. The sight of a vast ocean in the distance didn't hold much hope for leaving after crossing over it.

The crashing of metal against metal echoed through the carriage as the pair neared the next door. Turning back, half the muscular man's face had that disappeared into oblivion had been rapidly healing itself. The skull reformed as it rebuilt its former structure. The muscles, like the tendrils of an other-worldly being, wrapped and clung to each other as they extended and reshaped the basic form of what once was a face.

*SLAM* *CRASH* *CRASH* *RATTLE*

The steel door flew off its hinges, crashed several windows in the previous carriage, and spun into the wind. The muscular man had reached their carriage.

"Quick, man! Open the door!" Max cried out over his shoulder as he fiddled with the staff emergency kit by the exit of the carriage.

The door handle to the next carriage wouldn't completely turn, almost like it was locked, despite there being no indication of a lock and key.

"I'm trying, dammit! It's stuck!"

"Well... Un-stick it!"

"You think I'm not trying that?!"

The handle of the entrance slowly turned. The air around the pair froze. Everything, silent. Naught but the sound of the train on the rails could be heard.

An eerie creak of the cabin door filled the empty void of sound as the muscular man stepped into the carriage.

Max threw his hands around in the kit of unknown tools, hoping for a miracle.

What do you know? Miracles do exist.

Max found a window hammer and a flare gun.

Kal braced himself with one foot forward and the other behind as he strained the door handle enough to snap it off the door.

"Gah-" The door swung open, slamming into his knee, knocking Kal to the floor. "The door's open. Go!"

Things couldn't be more urgent than they are now.

Get to your feet. If you die, we die with you.

GO!

Kal tried standing up, griping to the chairs either side of him to help pull himself up. Getting up to both feet, he felt a cold, unnerving feeling from his leg.

Keep moving!

Forget about everything but moving forward.

He's nearly caught up to you.

The thumping of the muscular man's steps grew louder and louder the closer he got to the pair of friends.

Kal leapt through the iron wall of wind between the two carriages, barely keeping his footing as the train continued to twirl around the mountainside.

He needed to call out to Max. He needed to help. His voice was hoarse from all the screaming. His throat burnt in the icy wind. Would he be able to help the one friend who was with him?

You can't win. Leave him.

He has weapons. He can win. You can't.

You're hopeless in this situation.

"Kal!" Max's voice drowned out the ones in his head, snapping him back to reality. "Keep going! Stop this train and get us out of here!"

* * *

The muscular man looked at Max. He looked at Kal. He looked at the steel seats beside him. A sinister smile stretched across his almost fully healed face.

* * *

"Almost there." *Huff* "I'm almost at the front of the train." Kal scampered through the one carriage after the next. The continuous Exit signs showed no hope of the end, until the sixth carriage from where he woke up brandished the sign:

Locomotive

Staff Only

If only you were stronger. You can't get through that door.

Just give up at this point. You're not strong enough.

The voices persisted their badgering even in a situation as dire as the one Kal found himself in.

It's hard to live like this. It's hard to not drive yourself crazy. Kal isn't physically strong enough in this instant, but he sure as hell has the mental fortitude to carry on despite the despair any other person might feel right now.

A familiar presence hushed a whisper that drowned the worries and terror from Kal's eyes. The voice echoed around him a few times as it gradually became clearer with each time it spoke; "look for a key". Those were the only words this presence spoke. It was strange how calm he became from hearing this lady's voice.

"Who is this?" Kal asked himself, struggling to remember the connection he made before.

Forget who. Listen to the voice.

Listen to Melanie.

This is the time that the voices spoke words that did not register to Kal. He could now only think of the immediate task at hand. A strange one he is. An even stranger stage he sets up for us.

Bursting through various doors nearby the entrance to the Locomotive, Kal searched, rummaged, and occasionally tumbled his way through the storage rooms of the final carriage.

Minutes later, the sound of Max fighting off the muscular man with the flare gun and the occasional ringing of steel against steel as he swung a metal beam, crept ever closer to the final carriage he fumbled through.

"The key!" Kal rejoiced, holding up a strangely shaped key that looked like it might open the chest of an other-worldly being.

Inserting the key into the lock, Kal rotated the key and heard the loud clunking of the bolts and cylinder in the door lock. The now slack door pulled itself inward to the final chamber of the carriage, the Locomotive, the final destination in the train to slow it down and get out.

*

Look out.

*

The ringing in Kal's ears threw him into a daze of unbalanced stumbling and disoriented vision. Being pulled in and out of reality with a slap and a push, Kal saw Max narrowly dodging a makeshift club from a steel train seat. The sparks from metal crashing on metal spun out to the distant electrical devices as the train maintained its current speed.

"Kal! Pull the lever!" Terror-fueled, Max loaded his final ammunition into the flare gun amidst rolling back and forth on the floor, dodging the metal club.

In a matter of seconds, Kal had gone from being relieved for finally opening the door to the locomotive, to dodging for his life as he continued to struggle for his and his friend's life.

The struggling would stop if you just gave up.

We would die if you gave up.

It would be easier than struggling, though.

Keep going. Survive. You survive and we will live.

"Kal..." The hushed whispering swam back through his ears as everything around him slowed down. "You're thinking fast. Do not worry. You need to slow the train down. You need to escape from here."

The voice of the lady he loved and was loved by. She would come to the rescue at times like this. It would not be often he would need this kind of assistance, but help from the lady known as Melanie was almost always welcome by Kal.

Straining the limits which his arm could reach from where he lay, Kal reached toward the lever. The control to slow down the speeding train and hopefully pull it to a halt.

It wouldn't be easy just because he wanted it to be, but he earned his right to get something right this whole trip.

With that last line he heard, he pulled the lever as hard as physically possible.

...

The train slowed down, but nowhere near the speed that it would be safe to walk off of. Peering up to see what the issue was, he was met with the sight of a now bloodied, makeshift metal club. Sparks and lights flickered from the main console. Max lay limp on the floor of the passenger section of the carriage.

He is alive. You can see him breathing. Run and save him. Get to safety.

Rapidly crawling toward Max, Kal's hand sat on something he thought would be useless now.

One last shot.

Shoot it.

Survive.

So we can live.

He picked up the flare gun, rolled onto his back - luckily and barely missing the slamming of the club where he laid but moments ago.

The trigger - it was something that felt so easy to pull, but hitting a target this close, isn't that...

Shoot!

The trigger was pulled. Blood, bone, hair, and-

Well, that can be left to your imagination.

Everything splattered on the ceiling of the locomotive. No more head. The hulking body slumped, motionless.

Kal crawled over Max's limp body, rolling over and picking him up over his shoulders. Kal searched for a nearest, safest exit. The hissing of wind gushing through a minute hole in glass filled in any peace left to think clearly.

*CLANG* *RATTLE*

The window hammer.

Use it.

Jump.

* * *

Max woke up to his ears nearly rupturing from the wind rushing past his ears. Looking around, he saw a clear evening sky, clouds, and a bird...

"A bird? What's this doing in the... wait..." The hesitation to look down flooded Max with unnerving, soul-crushing anxiety. "Where-"

"Max! Get __ __ dive!" The wind drowning out most of what Kal cried out.

"What?!"

Kal appeared to be swimming in the air as he gradually floated closer to Max.

"Get __ to dive!" The wind was too much at times. Now was one of those times.

"WHAT?!"

"GET READY TO DIVE!"

"Oh -"

*SPLASH*