Day 2, 02.1

The train gets quiet, the four of us eyeing each other. Sebastian's eyes are on me,

mine on him, Zachary's on mine, and Masked Face on Sebastian's. The kids crowding

around us are looking at each other; the teacher follows suit and reacts

promptly, warily guarding her students by the front. I take a step back, Masked

eyes switch from Sebastian's to mine.

"Don't move." Not-so-Sebastian tells me.

"No one move." Masked corrects.

"How did you-?" I turn to Sebastian. He coughs in his hand, looking away.

"Followed you. "He quickly spits out, avoiding my eyes.

"Wait, who's Sebastian?" Zachary follows mine and Masked eyes. "No one's going to tell me…?"

"He's right-." He's in dead mode. I forgot. "Don't worry about it, Zach." I said,

ignoring the funny, yet confused look on my brother's face.

"He should," Masked snickers, "he's been stalking you like a mad man. Kind of

creepy."

Zachary frowns. "Stalker? Where-?"

"At least he's not trying to kill me-?" I said.

Zachary turns to Masked Face, fist balled. "You're trying to kill who-?"

"Zach-." I start.

"Don't try it kid." Masked Face snarls. "I'll kill you too."

Not-so-Sebastian sighs. "You're not killing anyone." He said.

Masked turns to Sebastian, amused. "Oh?"

"I warned you last time, didn't I?" He asked.

Masked Face growls. "Fuck off-!"

Zachary's teacher gasp. "There are children-!"

"Fuck the children!" Masked Face raises their fist. I take a step-in front of the

teacher, holding a hand up. "We got not business involving other people in

this-." I said, but Masked cuts me off, bawling their fist in rage.

"If there in my way," Masked Face said, "then they're involved."

"Killing me isn't enough for you, is it?" I asked.

"Killing you…" There's a sapphire glow in Masked Face's eyes. It's so bright, so null,

so familiar, that it makes me pause, almost shake in fear, "Is my greatest pleasure."

"Oh." I respond with.

We all stand in silence again.

"Fuck." Masked Face says, before they charge at me.

Sebastian reacts quickly and jumps, grabs on to the metal bars on the train's ceiling,

and hops over the crowd of people. He lands a swift kick to Masked face, who

staggers and bumps into a crowd of kids.

"Scram, you fuckers!" Masked Face takes their whip and readies to launch it. I rush and

grab a hold of their wrist, fighting against their strength.

Masked Face brings me close, their mask inches from my face. "Someone's a little

ballsy today, huh?"

"I guess, yeah." I'm shaking—both from fear and strain--but I can't back down now.

"Got tired of you killing me, you feel me?"

I raise my foot and stomp as hard as I can on Masked's foot. Masked screams, grabbing

my hand holding their wrist and twist my hand away. I flinch, staggering back.

Masked Face pulls me forward, and with the strength of one hand, slams me to

the ground. I hurriedly sit up and crawl backwards on the balls of my hands and

feet. Masked grins, crawling and chasing me like a predator.

It doesn't stop until my head bumps into the train's bathroom door. Masked raises

their whip and swings it. I jump away in time to miss the razor blades sinking

into the door. I gather enough strength to slide myself as far as possible, but

Masked is already on their knees, chasing me. I grit my teeth, close my eyes,

and breath.

"Fuck!"I raise my hand and slam it on the train's cold floor. The hands appear,

dodging and gliding through people and grabbing Masked Face by their shoulders.

They slam them into the bitten bathroom door, the door breaking on impact. Masked

screams when they back-of-the-head-first into the bathroom's toilet.

I gasp, my stomach aches, and torso burns.

"Andy-!" Zachary calls.

"Andrew!" Sebastian calls.

I ignore them both, more focused on my stomach throbbing in pain.

"Fucking cunt piece of shit." I raise my head, breathing heavy. Masked Face looks at me,

they're eyes screaming with rage. "Fucking cunt piece of shit-."

The whip comes faster than anticipated, but my body still reacts. I roll out of the

way in time. Sebastian quickly reacts as well; he lunges ahead, ready to attack, but ends up dodging a fist instead.

Masked rages, swinging left and right, hitting left and right. Sebastian dodges, gets

hit, dodges, gets hit, throws a hit, dodges, throws another. People are moving

out of the way of the tango; moves are in sync, like some sort of ballroom

dance. Two people— "villain" and "hero" having a boxing match in the middle of

a train is the oddest, weirdest, most entertaining thing I've ever witnessed.

"What the hell is happening?" Zachary comes to my side, looking back and forth

between me and Masked. I shrug, shaking my head.

"If I could explain it in a sensual way, I would," I tiredly smile, "but I don't know how-."

"Great shit, but why do you look like you're in so much pain?" Zachary looks at me,

worried.

"Yeah, stomach hurts…" I shrug. "And I'm kind of hungry."

Zachary rolls his eyes. "Not what I expected, but okay-?"

I see the whip, thrown and headed Zachary's way. My hands react first. One pushes

Zachary out the way, and the other slams itself to the ground, almost like

instinct.

Zachary's flat on the ground, looking at the shards piercing where he once was with big

eyes. Sebastian's looking at the same place with big eyes too, but then he

turns his head, and he goes stiff. Masked goes stiff too, but that's because

there's a hand ripping straight through their stomach, blood leaking through a

hole the size of a large bracelet.

There's loud screams of panic, Zachary's teacher's eyes roll in the back of her head; she faints. The other teens on the train are either trying to avoid looking at the

injured fiend, running away, or crying.

"Fuck," it's not Masked who says it, but Sebastian who does, "fuck."

My hands already reach to cover Zachary's eyes. Zachary groans and complains, but

he doesn't move to pull me away.  "What's

going on? Andy, what's going on?"

"Shit…" The limb retracts, and Masked staggers. Sebastian catches them, holding them upright.  "This is not...what I was

expecting..."

"Stay breathing," Sebastian said, but he's looking from Masked to me. "Andrew…what

did you-?"

"I-it was an accident." I squeak out. "I-I swear it was an accident."

"A fucking good one…fuck…it hurts, you bitch." Masked Face sneers.

"It hurt every time you killed me, you asshole." I'm shaking, bad, and my

eyes are starting to water, and I feel so, so bad. How could I do that, but also something in my head is fucked up. Something in my head is fucked up because it's laughing, saying it's satisfied, that it's karma. "I-It was an accident, but you deserve it."

"Look at you…" Masked Face laughs. "You tryna tell yourself…you tryna tell yourself

that its fine right? Good for you…convincing yourself-."

 "I'm not," I croak, "I'm not."

"But you are." Another mocking sneer comes from their mouth. "And you hoped I died sooner or later-."

"I didn't!" I cry, but then I choked out "but I wished you would disappear. I

won't lie about that."  

Masked flips me off, hangs their arm, and throws their head back, laughing and crying

before their head tilts back, and their body goes limp.

The three of us stare at each other in silence. But it's Sebastian who turns to me,

tears in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," he says, his eyes filled with tears, "I'm so, so sorry."

A few tears slip from my eyes too, but I'm not sure why.

"I'm so confused," Zachary slaps my hand away, "wait, why are you crying-?"

The train suddenly jerks.

The kids, the teacher, and other bystanders on the train sway and fall, the train wildly

moving from one side to the other.

Then, the train jerks backwards.

 A fire ball suddenly burst through the train,

grabs Masked's body, and burns a hole until the end of the train. Fire alights

and burns whatever grazed the burst of flame. People go into automatic-panic-mode,

pushing and trying to escape the train. I grab a hold of Zachary, protecting

him from whoever pushes and shoves past. Sebastian calls from wherever he's at,

trying to dive through people to make his way to us.

"Are you okay?" Zachary asked me. "You're still crying."

"Oh?" my stomach growls. I stand up, but my knees turn to jelly and my feet give out.

Zachary catches me in time, holding me tightly, calling for me over and over,

but I can only hear a voice that says, "good job," "good job, but we should

have eaten."

Then I fell Sebastian grab my arm, pulling me to him.

"And-Andy-?" Zachary asked.

"I'm taking you home." Sebastian pulls me from my brother's arms. Zachary looks at

his hands both horrified and confused.   

"Andy, what the fuck?" He asked.

I open my mouth to explain, but my mind goes blank.

"My brother," I said to Sebastian, "I can't leave him-him here."

"Of course." Sebastian said. "I'm taking both of you home."

Sebastian turns to Zachary, grabs him by the waist, and hurdles him over his shoulder. Zachary starts screaming, hitting Sebastian on his back.

"What the-let me go, strange-weird ghost-!" Zachary cries out when Sebastian

adjust his hold on him. "Holy shit-! Holy shit, I'm floating-!"

"Relax," I laugh but hold on to Sebastian. "He won't hurt you."

"He?" Zachary sniffs, snot running from his nose.

"Yea, um…" I point to Sebastian, "you can't see him…but this is Sebastian. Sebastian,

this is my brother Zacahry."

"Hi." Sebastian said.

"Y-you know a ghost?" Zachary cries out. "Why are you friends with a ghost?!"

"It's complicated," I shrug. "I would explain, but we kind of have no time at the

moment…"

"Well, try to-." Sebastian cuts him off, kicking open the train's doors. The spikes of

sun rays peak and sneak through the broken door and into the train. It's so bright out—maybe it's because we've been trapped in the underground railways with mid light, but I have to squint while looking outside; my eyes focused and entranced with the way the sunlight reflects the back of the train's metal skin.

"Let's leave first-." Sebastian holds me and my brother to him tightly, getting ready jump

out the train., but then his eyes widen, and he looks at me, and around us, and back at me. I take a minute to soak in the look he gives me in--diving in it--until I swim back up, understanding.

"We have to stop the train." I said.

"No, I'm going to stop the train-." Sebastian clarifies.

"Sebastian,"I groan, already know how this arguments going to go "you have to let me help-!"

"If he's telling you not to," Zachary nods, "I hundred-percent agree. No way. Absolutely

not, man."

"Guys," I roll my eyes, "I can help-you shouldn't do this alone-!"

"You are clearly hurt," Sebastian frowns, "and I can handle it myself."

"Can you?" I asked. Sebastian looks to anywhere but me. "Don't lie to me man. I can

try to-."

"Andrew-." Sebastian sighs out.

"Sebastian," Sebastian blinks, surprised at my tone, "you can't do everything alone-."

The train jerks, I stumble back. Sebastian pulls me forward, holding me close.