WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
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◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈
Episode 60: Geochilsan Express Train (6)
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Partner!!
Hertz’s voice felt as though it would tear through my eardrums. Yet it was muffled, like distant drums.
“Ah... Aah...”
A sound like an animal’s howl escaped me. It was coming from my mouth. I was screaming. No, crying. No, groaning. Laughing. Making a sound.
Was I really making a sound? My mouth was open. I had a mouth. Therefore, I could scream.
My mouth went bone-dry. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, then curled back on itself.
Time, sound, and light clung to me, each with a separate form.
Time made sounds. Sounds sparkled. Light groped across my body. Shadows danced and rippled.
No. The walls rippled. The walls waved their hands. The skin clinging to them twitched and danced. It gestured for me to look.
So I looked. I looked at the skin pasted along the corridor. I looked at what was inside it.
I saw something red still pulsing as it raced through it. It turned blue, then purple, then red, moving in time with the thump-thump of a heart.
I saw human skin stretched and flattened to an extreme thinness. Skin smoothed so flat I could see behind the eyeballs through it dripped wetly downward.
The tears someone had shed supplied it with endless moisture. Torn mouths inside it curved into smiles, and all those faces unfolded. Laughing today, crying tomorrow, furious the day after, delighted yesterday. Smiling. Smiling. Smiling.
Their innermost thoughts whispered as skin pressed against skin, rippling together. With no secrets left, another layer peeled away. They knew this and that. They no longer needed to think or read anyone’s mood. With only their eyes rolling, no faults left to pick at and no sharp teeth to hurl barbs, they only opened and closed their mouths inside that yawning black space.
Twitch.
Something wriggled across the skin, then became one again. It had no name. It never would. Melted together, it was neither lonely nor sad, only rejoicing with the rattling of the train, all of them stuck to the wall...
That was a person. Once a person, and still a person, unable to die as they clung there, an empty shell.
A crawling worm whose human brain could not endure time, which had lost its self and abandoned even its essence.
The moment I peered inside, it looked back at me. The moment I saw it, I understood. And the moment that understanding settled into place, my mind refused to accept its conclusion.
Like the fragile reason of a human facing myth, I collapsed. I toppled over, unable to endure through reason or will alone.
My legs gave out, and my vision spun. I headed toward that wallpaper almost on all fours.
Partner, part... Jaehyeon!!
“...!”
My vision went black. Static crackled like sand being thrown into the air. Old jazz began playing heavily, its saxophone loud enough to drown out my heartbeat.
As the hallucinated sounds and metallic scraping that had filled my ears faded into the distance, I finally began to come back to my senses.
“What was I...?”
You were about to throw yourself at the wallpaper. Are you coming around?
“...I think so.”
The wallpaper is right in front of you, so take about ten steps backward. That’s it. Very good...
Following Hertz’s instructions, I moved back, then pulled my knees to my chest and curled up. Blood reached my extremities again, and the tingling sensation gradually restored my sense of reality.
You’re doing well. Breathe slowly... Focus only on my voice. Everything you’re seeing and feeling is distorted right now. Just me, slowly...
Once the blood started flowing again, my fingertips trembled. Cold sweat had poured down me like rain in that short time, leaving my back soaked enough to make me shiver. Fireworks burst before my eyes, as if I had pressed hard on them, then faded.
“...I’m okay now. Thanks.”
How about we just go back to the dining car?
Hertz asked cautiously. Unlike when I had boldly pressed forward, this time the thought suddenly appealed to me.
I wanted to go back.
I wanted to return to that cozy, quiet dining car, lock the door, and sleep through the remaining two hours while pretending none of this existed.
My weakness raised its head.
Who was I, anyway? I wasn’t a Corporation employee, nor some hero flying around with supernatural powers. Maybe taking responsibility for people’s lives was nothing but my arrogance.
The strength drained from the hands clasping my knees. I forced myself to grip tighter, wrapping my arms firmly around my body. The shoes and belongings scattered close enough to touch if I stretched out my feet seemed to be pointing at me.
“What... What can I do...?”
Glint.
Something flashed once amid a hollow in the dust on the floor. It was neither a phone light nor a text notification. All the “wrong” things here were already caught in Hertz’s frequency and breaking apart into static.
Then that was not something wrong. If it wasn’t wrong within this ghost story, there was only one possibility.
At least for now.
Partner? What are you doing all of a sudden?
Before Hertz could even react, I had already crawled toward the light, pushed aside the dust, and grabbed the object.
“...This is.”
It was a crudely shaped PDA. The Ghost Story Records Corporation’s name, engraved in Hanja along its upper edge, was nearly worn away beyond recognition. One end was broken, and its light flickered on and off repeatedly, but even so, it was unmistakable.
To Mr. Seon Jaehyeon
“...Officer Ryu Hyeon-u.”
Why was this here? My thoughts went cold. Why would the belongings of Officer Ryu Hyeon-u, who should have been checking on and directing the passengers in the cars ahead, be here, and why was it calling for me?
With trembling hands, I operated the PDA. The display was cracked and filled with static, but the password and all security locks had been disabled. As though Ryu Hyeon-u knew I would see this information. No, as though Ryu Hyeon-u were certain that nobody but me could see it.
With shaking fingers, I tapped through the files displayed on the PDA screen one by one.
■ Report on Controlling Abnormal Phenomena Aboard the Train
Author: Grade 8 Archivist Ryu Hyeon-u
■ Days 1 through 14 of Isolation: Cognitive Dissonance and Initial Control
A total of 327 passengers from Cars 1 through 9. After returning to Car 9, there was a temporary failure to connect to Car 10.
On the third day of isolation, the passengers realized that “the sun does not rise” and “the scenery outside the windows does not change,” resulting in signs of mass panic.
■ Day 128 of Isolation: Faction Formation and Concern Over Internal Division
Measuring time is meaningless. The passengers have split into three factions. All attempts to leave the train have failed. There are no signs yet of attempts to establish a religion.
Some passengers have begun displaying symptoms of slipping beyond control without any will of their own. They sit in their seats without moving. They stare into empty space with their eyes open, drooling. They are the easiest to control, but they have no sense of self and are difficult to communicate with.
One faction seeks to control the remaining humans and monopolize the train’s resources. Centered around physically large male passengers, they have occupied Car 7 and are blocking movement in both directions. Because of this, returning to the dining car has been delayed. I must negotiate with their leader.
■ Day 187 of Isolation: Conflict Occurs
A violent conflict broke out with the faction in Car 7. The reality we had tried our best to avoid became clear throughout every car. Someone remained alive even after a steel frame protruding from a seat pierced their abdomen.
During the fight, one passenger’s carotid artery was severed, but they did not die. With their neck hanging on by half, they crawled around, spraying frothy blood.
Another conflict arose among the remaining people over whether the living who were clearly dead should be isolated.
■ Day 3,758 of Isolation:
142 passengers whose bodies remain intact.
38 “dead” living passengers isolated in Car 1.
147 passengers with incomplete bodies isolated in Cars 2 through 6.
Those who are injured are being pushed into the cars ahead. Some passengers who have lost their sense of self have headed for Car 1 on their own. It is hard to sleep at night because of the sounds of passengers in Car 6 pounding on the passageway.
A mutation that could not be confirmed in the recording reports has been discovered. Some passengers’ bodies have begun to recover. However, their wounds are not healing. Their damaged bodies are merely reattaching.
Monsters with crookedly fused bones, nails grown in backward, and faces twisted by tangled nerves walk through the train cars. They no longer have human forms. There is no distinction between the leather of the seat upholstery and their flesh.
After much discussion, a conflict broke out with the deteriorated passengers in the forward cars in order to make Cars 1 through 6 an area for ordinary passengers.
■ Day 1,856,871 of Isolation:
Every night, they scrape the floor and call my name. My mind is nearing its limit. Fewer than fifty passengers remain. Fewer than twenty of them can still hold a conversation. We are still holding on.
I am Ryu Hyeon-u, Grade 8 Archivist of the Ghost Story Records Corporation.
There are currently 48 passengers.
Cars 1 through 7 are not safe.
They are watching us from outside the windows. They rub their bodies against the train walls and groan. This train is turning into an enormous mass of flesh.
We only need to endure a little longer. We are almost there. We have only made it halfway. We only need to hold on for another three thousand years. It might end before then.
We are still alive.
I can endure. I can endure. I will soon forget all of this...
“...”
The cries that made it hard to breathe grew farther apart, but they never stopped.
At the bottom of the scroll, the report became a gentle letter that seemed to speak directly to someone.
To Mr. Seon Jaehyeon, who may be reading this record. This is likely the last record I can leave behind. I dare say that immortality is not something to wish for. From what I have experienced, I think vampires who live forever may truly be cursed. Since I could not find Mr. Seon Jaehyeon even by this final record, I will believe you are either in the cars behind me or have found a new path through that dining car. If so, I am sure you will need what I found, and I believe you will get what you need from it. The Seon Jaehyeon I came to know is someone who finds answers no one else considered. From this point on, I intend to make my way to open the engine room. If we are lucky, let us meet at Busan Station.
“...”
Click.
Something rattled inside the PDA. When I removed the old screws, I found something wrapped round and round in tape. Unlike an ordinary key, it was round, heavy, and cut with unusually shaped grooves...
“...It’s a key.”
Emotion caught in my throat, and my voice came out harsh and metallic. I clenched my fist tightly around the key, and the dull pain restored my sense of reality once more.
Do you know what it unlocks?
“...It must be the engine-room key. Ryu Hyeon-u thought I would be able to enter a space inaccessible on the 100 Million Years Button train... and somehow left it for me.”
I still did not know how it had ended up here, nor the exact relationship between this space and the train. But one thing was certain.
“Let’s go.”
I pushed myself up from the floor. I knew where to go, and there would be a new answer waiting there.
You have no intention of going back... do you?
“I’m not going back. I’m moving forward like this.”
The fact that Ryu Hyeon-u had left the key meant Ryu Hyeon-u had been unable to enter the engine room. It meant that the Geochilsan Express Train containing the 100 Million Years Button had no engine room.
Then either the dining car and engine room belonged to the original train, or a train with those sections had been inserted into the train we had boarded.
That must have been why Ryu Hyeon-u entrusted the key to me and asked me to find a way.
After going forward for a while, a tightly shut door finally came into view.
It was the engine room.
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