Her last train

Looking at the window I notice anxiously that the sun is already shining as if it were afternoon, when in reality it is just eight in the morning. Fortunately this train has an air conditioning system.
I yawn. I’m tired. When did I go to sleep last night? Was it four o’clock? Maybe half past four… I thought I’d have time to sleep on the train, but the journey is barely three hours long and I’ve already covered half the way.
And there is also the phone that doesn’t let me sleep. I hold it in my hand and turn on the screen every five minutes to choose which song to play. Technically I wouldn’t need to do that since I’m listening to a playlist, but I’ve heard some songs so many times that I don’t want to hear them again, so I skip them manually.
I yawn again and focus on the landscape that very quickly flows on the window. The railways are adjacent to a highway which unfortunately covers most of my view, but beyond I see fields, trees, distant villages, what look like farms… and my mind starts to travel.
I think about what I will do when I get home. I can’t wait to say “hi” to Lucrezia and Giorgia, who I haven’t seen for weeks. I can’t wait to throw myself into my room and rest for a while. And most importantly, I can’t wait to see Alex again …
I also think about the fact that it will be very hot there, which kills my enthusiasm a little. I will certainly miss the sea, and the fan in my room will not be enough to beat the sun.
I close my eyes. Maybe I can get some sleep. There is an hour and a half left before my arrival, so I would be happy to sleep for an hour.
I open my eyes. It is better to not sleep. An hour of sleep would just destroy me, I wouldn’t be able to get up later. Best to stay awake at this point.
After a few seconds I close my eyes again. It’s stronger than me. I’m tired and the train is rocking me. I can’t resist any longer.
I open my eyes once more time. I have to change the song that just started if I want to sleep. Maybe I should directly change the playlist and put something more relaxing… some lo-fi maybe? Or a little bit of asmr?
While I’m staring at the phone, someone decides to turn off the lights. The sudden drop in brightness makes my head jump up with both fright and annoyance: why did they turn them off? Has the power gone out? Is there any problem? It’s true that I want to sleep but … but …
Wait a second …
While the shrill scream of what seems to me a little girl passes through the carriage, I look at the window once again. The lights have not been turned off, they were never on after all, so … is it the windows that have turned off?
<<W … what -?>> this voice comes from the man sitting next to me. He is looking at the window with my same perplexity but a little more energy <<What … what the …?>>
To his words the ones of other people are added, people who I do not see because I’m too busy looking at the window to understand what is happening.
Has anyone put a black sheet over the train? It does not seem so. So … did we go into some kind of tunnel? I don’t think so … yet … yet I don’t see anything! The window went out. The window… went out. But not just mine. All the other windows went out. But how is it possible? What is happening? Windows can’t darken like that suddenly.
Are these virtual windows? I was warned that this train is super technological, it was created by the DTC after all, but… what’s the point of creating virtual windows?
Between swearing and screaming, the people seem to be asking the same questions as me: “What the hell is going on”?
At this point I turn on my phone’s flashlight, as do many other people. But that doesn’t improve the situation much, on the contrary it just makes the wagon more disturbing than it already is.
Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe I’m sleeping. Maybe it’s a lucid dream, one of those hypnagogic paralysis… But no… I know that I’m actually awake.
I’m not sleeping.
By continuing to look at the window, my brain is processing information that it cannot believe; I start to get out of breath and shivers start to shake my whole body …
The window did not actually go out, because on the highway the cars started to turn on the headlights … and I can see them. I see the headlights of the cars in total darkness. So the window is not the problem.
Nobody threw a black sheet on the train. Nobody turned out the lights.
But something must have gone off though. And I think I know what, but I don’t want to think about it.
I can’t think about it.
I’m too afraid to think about it.
I don’t understand what’s going on.
I look up to the sky and … I don’t see anything. Nothing.
Maybe am I really sleeping?
Yet I’m sure I’m perfectly awake.
And I’m sure of another thing: now I’m screaming too, because there is something that has gone out. But I don’t want to believe it. I can not believe it.
Yet … is not there.
The sun is not there.

My sight trembles, my hands are shaking, my ears burn and I’m out of breath. I am so scared that I can barely hear the people around me, who are still panicking.
But I became lucid again. I’ve stopped screaming, I’ve stopped crying, and now I’m slowly trying to process the situation.
The train has stopped. It is dark outside, the sun has disappeared. It is not an eclipse however, it has been like this for an hour and the situation does not seem to want to change.
At first I seriously thought I was dead. I thought I was going straight to hell, just like in those stories where the protagonists have a train accident and wake up on the same train but headed for the afterlife.
Fortunately, this is not the case. The train still seems to be in the real world because in addition to me the other passengers also panicked, and I still have internet available, which allowed me to see that the situation is similar in the rest of the world: the sun has disappeared everywhere.
I called my mom, then my dad, then I tried to call my friends but they had their phones busy. The other passengers did the same thing too, all of them threw themselves on their phones to make calls, videos, or to search for information. Everyone wanted to be sure they didn’t end up on the train to hell.
<<CAN WE START MOVING AGAIN? >> I hear a boy scream.
Unfortunately, there is no answer to that question. No passenger has the opportunity to restart the train, and the driver probably didn’t even hear the boy, especially because this is an automatic train and therefore no one is probably driving it.
But I agree with him, I too would like to get to destination as soon as possible, and I would like to be able to get off the train and see better what is happening.
<<C-close the windows!>> I hear screams after a while from a lady with a fairly old tone of voice.
<<Why?>>
<<Outside there is … There is …>>
<<Lady, be calm, don’t panic like this ->>
<<DON’T TOUCH ME! THERE IS THE APOCALYPSE OUTSIDE! WE ARE ALL DEAD!>>
<<Lady …>>
<<CLOSE THE WINDOWS! CLOSE THEM, CLOSE THEM, PLEASE!>>
I listen to the voices of other passengers with distance and passivity. I feel slow. I feel like I am having sleep paralysis, awake but unable to control my body or thoughts. I feel tired, even more tired than I was before.
<<Come on, close them otherwise this one will die of a heart attack!>> shouts another boy.
The old woman continues to scream in panic in the meantime, and with her there is also a crying girl making noise, followed by adults intent on talking loudly on the phone.
Detached from the events that are taking place, I move my gaze to the window. Beyond I see the lights of the cars and the street lamps, which have been turned on … but they are lights a little different from those I see when I walk around at night … they are darker, weaker, they seem almost suffocated by the darkness outside … and staring at them for a long time, I also realize why they give me this strange impression: the sky is black. Not like when it’s night though, because there are no stars or moon up there. There is nothing.
Maybe that’s why the darkness I see seems heavier than usual. I have never seen such a dark night in my entire life. Maybe because I’m used to the city and the night lights, but even when I went camping I didn’t experience a night like this. There was always something to shed light, whether it was a pale starry sky or a timid rising moon.
Now, however, the darkness seems so thick that it gives me the impression that it can be touched.
The feeling it gives is almost claustrophobic.
<<Hey.>> a man’s voice interrupts my thoughts <<Can I … close it?>> and points to the window <<There is a lady who is feeling bad and ->>
<<Yes, yes.>> I tell him immediately <<Close it, it’s better. I don’t want to see anything either.>>
<<Yeah …>> he tries to smile, but it does not come out so well. He lowers what appear to be curtains and in doing so blocks my view of the outside.
But I keep looking at the window. I have the phone in my hand which occasionally vibrates with messages, but I don’t have the strength to read them. The music I was listening to wasn’t even interrupted, but I took off the headphones and don’t want to put them back on.
I look at the now closed window without thinking of anything.
And I keep doing it until the train slowly starts moving again.

The situation calmed down inside the wagon. Almost everyone has stopped screaming or crying, now I only hear a little girl who keeps asking her mother questions, a lady who is sobbing and a man who seems desperate because his wife does not answer his phone.
The train proceeds fairly quickly, but I am very tense: I’m afraid of having an accident, I’m afraid the train won’t stop and take us directly to the other world, I’m afraid of what I might see once I get off from here.
Who knows where my friends will be now. Who knows what my parents are doing. They are the ones who should pick me up at the station but I don’t know if they can do it in this situation. The roads will be super clogged, I can only imagine the amount of accidents the cars have done by now.
Oh my God … I feel like when I have butterflies in my stomach, but considering the situation I would say that they are more bad wasps than anything else.
I turn on the phone screen again to check for new messages: apart from mom who asks me if everything is going well I don’t have many other news. It’s full of scary videos and photos on the internet though, and I’d probably be in one of those videos if I wasn’t on this train.
What worried and saddened me the most was a video taken by a person who was enjoying the view that his room gave him over the sea. He was filming people on the beach when the sun disappeared, and what happened was terrible: the beach, the whole city rather, plunged into total darkness.
The street lamps, the car headlights as well as most of the lights in the buildings were initially turned off (since it was morning), so the only light sources were the phones… and the result was obvious: people screaming in the dark and nobody understanding anything.
The person who made that video also dropped the phone on the floor initially, he ran to turn on the light in his room and then went back to the balcony to take again the phone and film the situation: the sky was black, but the most worrying thing is that even the beach was completely black. Except for a few lights given by the screens and the torches of the phones, I could not see anything. But I could hear the screams, I could hear the cars crashing into each other and on the buildings, I could hear the fear in the voice of the video recorder.
So … it’s true. I am not dreaming. The sun is gone. It disappeared. Or worse. Maybe it exploded.
God … I still don’t believe it. I can not believe it. I don’t want to believe it.
What is happening? Is this the end of the world?
Maybe it’s only an eclipse. A super eclipse. Maybe the sun will return soon.
I look for reassuring videos on the internet, but I can’t find anything like that. Other than videos of people in total panic I do not find anyone who speaks with a clear mind about what’s happening. For now there is neither information nor speculation.
The train slows down. At first I don’t pay too much attention to it, but then the slowdown begins to become a real braking, which shouldn’t have happened more than once during this trip, and we’ve already stopped before.
What happens now?
<<Are we arrived?>> asks the girl I heard earlier, but the answer, although given with a low voice, seems to be negative.
So why is there this slowdown?
When the doors of the wagon open we have our answer: we have to get out.
<<NO!>> a boy exclaims at that point <<I’m not going out! Forget it! I stay here until the train leaves again!>>
He is not the only one to protest this decision, but … I expected it to happen. I knew it would stop sooner than it was supposed to.
I look at the maps application on my phone and notice that we are in a station halfway between our starting point and the arrival point. Here, theoretically, there is no stop for this type of train, but I don’t think anyone will object now.
Well, at least they aren’t letting us in a completely isolated place. This is a big station.
Listless and with the other passengers complaining, I stand up and take my suitcase: I would not want to get out but apparently I have no choice, especially because a robotic voice informed us that another train will come to pick us up as soon as the situation will calm down; I hope it’s true because I don’t have much money with me, but I have a really bad feeling about this.
I am one of the first to get out of the wagon, and it’s like doing it at night. All the lights in the station are on, and fortunately there is no an open sky above me, but rather … a nice, corrugated ceiling.
I don’t stop to study the architecture of the area however, I’m too nervous, too anxious … and too tired; around me there are other people visibly disoriented and frightened, and I don’t like the idea of ​​having to wait for another train because I have the feeling that until the sun comes back that train will never come.
And I’m not sure if the sun will ever come back.

This station is not really the best place to stop. There are a couple of bars, machines where you can buy food, benches where you can sit … but there is nothing else.
The exit of the station opens onto a huge car park, and this place is apparently isolated from any residential center. I do not see buildings in the distance, and not even many lights. The car park itself doesn’t seem to have many street lights, so it’s very dark and gloomy out there.
I hope our second train arrives quickly… but I don’t think it will, especially because the first is still standing there. He hasn’t moved from there, but at least the doors are still open. If I want to, I can go back there and try to sleep a little …
But it’s better not to do stupid things. If I really have to sleep, I prefer to do it in a place where there are other people, so at least I’m sure nothing will happen to me. Besides, I don’t think I can really fall asleep now. Sure, I’m very tired, but I’m also too nervous. And I wouldn’t want to be sleeping while the second train goes by, I would risk missing it and staying here alone like an idiot.
<<Taxi! TAXI! Stop!>> the voice of a man chasing one of the station taxis caught my attention; that poor fellow is chasing a taxi that apparently has no intention of stopping, and how to blame him? Who would want to work right now? That taxi’s probably going home.
I see it moving further and further away, until my eye falls on the horizon and then the sky.
It has been a couple of hours that I have been giving fearful and fleeting glances to the sky. I don’t have the courage to look at it for longer than a few seconds, it seems to me that I am looking at the seabed at night… and it is scary.
The night generally does not scare me. The sky is not so oppressive, you understand that it is “far away” … but this sky here is different. It is so dark that it looks like both a ceiling a few meters away and a bottomless pit. Looking at it almost makes me dizzy. I’m afraid I may start falling over there.
And there is something strange up there. Every time I look up at the sky, my body vibrates and anxiety and nervousness begin to rise. That sky… it’s too weird. Not really scary, but it puts incredible anguish on me.
Before I tried to watch it for more than five seconds. It looked like it was getting closer. Strange to say but I had the impression that the sky was approaching me.
Or that I was approaching it.
It is probably due to the total absence of light. Looking at the seabed has the same effect… I think.
I yawn again because I’m very tired.
Maybe … maybe I should rest a little. I know I shouldn’t. I don’t want to miss the return of the sun, nor would I want to have my things stolen while I sleep, but in such a situation I don’t think anyone will start stealing someone else’s suitcases.
I need to close my eyes and let my mind rest, even if it is only for ten minutes. Otherwise I really risk fainting.
I’m going to look for a place where I can do it. Maybe a place not too isolated, and not too dark.