This was supposed to be the chill chapter

The journalist—me, in case you’ve forgotten—was beginning to feel something dangerously close to optimism.

The train was gliding peacefully across the rails. Nobody was screaming. Nothing was on fire. For the first time since I started documenting this chaos, I thought I might finally have a paragraph that didn’t include the words “explode,” “owl,” or “oh god why is it blinking.”

Even the trio looked… calm.

Kaito Sasaki sat near the window, staring at a paper map like it might confess its secrets if he squinted hard enough. Sota was curled in the seat next to him, whispering something about pigeons and destiny. Hana was across the aisle, arms crossed, giving off the powerful energy of someone trying not to commit a felony in public.

“So… this place, Shodoshima—it’s an island,” he said.

“Yes,” Hana replied, not opening her eyes.

“But like, a west island, right?”

“Technically southwest.”

“That counts.”

I had just started drafting the opening for this section of the article:

“The journey resumed quietly. No screaming. No explosions. No owls.”

Then everyone’s phones buzzed.

BZZZZZT.

Kaito blinked at his screen.

It was a Duolingo notification that said: "Did you do your Spanish lesson?"

He paled.

Hana’s phone buzzed next.

Duo: We noticed you missed a lesson. We also noticed your location. :)

A guy three rows down stood up and screamed, “I NO EVER SIGN UP FOR SWEDISH”

Sota dove under his seat like the floor had declared war. “OH GOD, HE'S BACK! NOW WE'RE ALL GOING TO LEARN HOW TO DIE IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES!”

Hana didn't even have enough time to roll her eyes before a deafening boom ripped through the train as a plane - yes, an actual, full-sized commercial airplane - smashed into the front car. Metal tore like paper. The world lurched sideways.

Screams. Sparks. Baggage overhead unbuckled itself and launched like ballistic luggage.

The back half of the train tilted sharply over the edge of a bridge, dangling precariously above a winding river.

Kaito clung to a pole, face pale. “I THOUGHT TRAINS WERE SAFE!”

“Sota said they were,” Hana growled, barely keeping her balance.

"SAFER! I SAID SAFER, NOT SAFE!" Sota wailed.

The car rocked forward.

A pause.

A creak.

And then gravity made its final decision.

The train fell.

And for the record?

They did not land well.

It was the kind of crash that makes you reevaluate your life decisions.

The train didn’t just fall—it plummeted, screeching through the air like it had given up on public transit and decided to audition as a meteorite. Below, an unsuspecting ferry coasted along the river, its passengers blissfully unaware that gravity was about to file a very aggressive complaint.

BOOM.

The train crashed down like punctuation at the end of a sentence no one finished writing. Metal crunched against the deck. Wood exploded into splinters. People screamed in three different dialects, none of which made sense anymore.

For a brief second, everything was noise.

Then, it was nothing.

I landed just fine, of course.

Being an omniscient journalist has its perks. One of them is never needing a seatbelt. The other is being able to hover dramatically as the chaos unfolds below you.

I floated down, perfectly intact, landing with the grace of a man who knows he doesn’t pay taxes. Around me, wreckage smoldered. The train was partially embedded in the ferry, which—judging by its markings—wasn’t even from Japan.

Its autopilot flickered in a panic.

“WELCOME ABOARD. DESTINATION CONFIRMED: TIBET.”

It said it in English. Then Mandarin. Then something that might’ve been whale.

The vessel—now carrying train, wreckage, and three unconscious humans—began to drift.

Toward the desert.

Naturally.

Kaito lay slumped against a bench, a smear of travel-sized shampoo leaking beside him. Hana had one arm draped over her face like she was already regretting waking up. Sota was upside down in a luggage net.

The autopilot continued calmly.

“Estimated arrival: unknown. Please enjoy trip. fun.”

And so, our heroes slept. Or died. I'm not a narrator anymore to know these things.

After a few hours, Kaito woke up with sand in his mouth and hatred in his spine.

The sun loomed above like it was trying to boil the world from orbit. Around him: dunes. Endless dunes. And, just to shake things up, a slightly different dune.

The wreckage of the train-ferry hybrid was smoking in the distance, half-buried in sand. A suitcase had burst open beside him, spilling its contents—four identical Hawaiian shirts and a very cursed pair of sandals.

“Where are we?” he muttered.

Hana stood a few meters away, already upright, already unfazed. “Not Shōdoshima.”

Sota sat in the sand, knees to chest, softly weeping into his sleeves. “All I wanted was a nice end of the world quiet, crying in my bedroom...NOT A DAMN DESERT!”

The ferry’s onboard AI sputtered out one final message from beneath a pile of debris:

“Thank you for riding. Weather forecast: dry. Outlook: grim. Enjoy your stay!”

Kaito groaned. “How do we get out of here?”

“Walking?” Hana suggested.

“Through that?” He pointed at the endless waves of golden doom.

“No,” she said. “Through them.”

Kaito turned.

Two camels stared at them with what he could only describe as judgmental exhaustion.

Hana climbed onto one with practiced ease.

Kaito and Sota looked at the second camel.

Kaito sighed. “No. No way.”

Five minutes later, they were crammed together on Camel #2, rocking awkwardly through the dunes.

Kaito: grumbling.

Sota: sobbing.

Hana: serene.

The camels: visibly regretting everything.

Sand stretched in every direction, blanketing the landscape in a dry, golden shrug. The sun blazed above them, determined to erase anything that still made sense.

Kaito wiped the sweat from his forehead for the seventh time in three minutes. “I thought camels were supposed to be comfortable.”

“They are,” Hana called from her camel ahead. “You’re just not supposed to ride one with a whimpering programmer glued to your back.”

“That's not nice,” Sota muttered.

Kaito groaned. “I swear to god, if you sob into my hoodie one more time—”

“I’m scared and sweaty. Let me have this!”

And just like that, the camels kept trudging forward like they were carrying the last three functioning neurons in all of civilization.

And somewhere, not too far behind…

I followed. Pen in hand. Documenting it - one wrong turn at a time.