The Right to Live Here

Everyone turns around, curious to see what the person who had been hiding behind the intercom looked like.

He was a tall man, dressed in a heavy black trench coat that hung loosely from his shoulders. It was noticeably more refined as if it was made out of better materials than the ones we were wearing, and it was riveted with a few golden star-shaped accessories. He had curly black hair hidden beneath his conductor hat, and his striking golden eyes complimented his lightly tanned skin.

“Hiya” the man says, giving us a wide grin, his left canine visible, “my name is Izan Delgado, and I’m one of many ‘Conductors’ of the Elysian Rail. Specifically, I’m the Conductor of this train, and the man that just saved you all is the Conductor of that one.”

He points off into the distance where another train was moving along a set of tracks perpendicular to ours.

“Man?” asks a rough-looking dwarven girl with auburn hair and a stitched-up puncture wound on her neck, “but that was clearly a dragon.”

“Ah right. That, yeah. He can turn into that sometimes. He’s part dragon after all. But he can’t really fit inside the train in that form so he has to turn back every so often to do his duties,” Izan explains.

My mind wanders off somewhere as I imagine the ways the dragon could otherwise ride the train.

Maybe he can cling onto it as it moves? I think for a second but shake the silly thought out of my mind, on second thought, why does a dragon need to ride a train to move across the skies anyway? That’s a bit dumb.

It probably had something to do with the ‘duties’ this Izan guy mentioned, but as for what exactly those wore, I had no idea.

“But enough about us. I’m here to explain why you’re here. Naturally, you must be curious after everything that’s happened right?” he continues.

Everyone warily nods their heads.

“Great. Let’s first start off by clearing the most common misconception,” Izan says, “this is not the afterlife. It might be hard for a few of you to comprehend since every one of you has made the effort to kill yourselves, but this is in fact another world—another reality. In other words you are capable of dying again, and ending up in whatever afterlife follows after. In fact, if you’re more interested in what that’s like, you’re more than welcome to jump off right now if you wish.”

Everyone nervously looks at each other as if unsure of what they wanted to do. Suddenly, a male fox spirit with white hair and fur and no notable ‘marks’ on him inches towards the broken windows and stares down.

It was a long fall from here to the clouds below and who knew how much further the actual ground was beneath that. Despite this, he clutches his hands onto the bottom frame as if preparing to hoist himself over it.

I instinctively move to grab him, but pause as I find myself hesitating.

Who was I to stop him? I didn’t know their circumstances, nor what kind of life they lived before they got here, or how bad it was that they were prepared to commit suicide twice in succession. In fact, I was probably the only one here who didn’t kill myself on purpose, which gave me even less of a right.

I looked towards everyone else for help, but it seemed like they had a similar sentiment. After all, were they really better than him just because they were less prepared to do it again?

“But,” Izan suddenly says, his words catching everyone's attention, “if you choose to stay here then you might just get to live the life you always wanted. This is a realm powered by dreams after all.”

The fox spirit stops in his tracks.

“Ah, did I forget to mention that? Silly me,” he jokes, “I just wanted to see something that’s all. You see, there’s another condition to enter this realm besides killing yourself: you must have died with an unfulfilled dream, and a strong leftover desire to pursue it. And judging by the fact that I have the attention of even the weakest willed among you, I suppose that condition still remains true even until today.”

We all turn towards the fox spirit who just stands there with a wide-eyed face.

Suddenly, a tall demon boy with red skin and spiky white hair walks up to the Conductor and roughly grabs him by the collar of his coat. He had a silver cross chained around his neck, and although it was hard to tell underneath the trench coat he was wearing, the way his hand gripped Izan’s collar implied that he had immense strength.

“You…” the demon says, “you said that we have the chance to live the life we always wanted here. Are you telling the truth, or are you just saying that to mess with us?”

“Do you not believe me?” Izan says with a smirk, unfazed by the sudden aggression, “I’m not the type to play jokes.”

“Then what was that you did just now,” the dwarven girl from before challenges, “if it wasn’t a sick joke, then is encouraging suicide to a group of vulnerable people something you normally do?”

“You were also hiding behind an intercom while we were being attacked,” I added, beginning to also distrust how unserious this man was coming off as, “and only came out after the situation was resolved by the dragon. If you really cared about helping us you would’ve come out to stop the attack earlier.”

A frown dawns on Izan’s face, sending a shudder down my spine at how fast his expression changed. He then lets out a sigh before a golden aura envelops his hands and he slams his fists into the demon boy’s chest, launching him to the other side of the train. Everyone gasps as they move back in fear, but not the dwarf girl. Instead, she rushes over to help the boy up.

“Now then,” he calmly says, “I don’t like being accused of being unruly, so let me clarify a few things. First, everything I do is with a purpose: we Conductors are the caretakers of this realm after all. Second, like I said, what I did was just a test—a test to make sure that rules for the people entering this realm haven’t changed. If Mr. Fox Boy over here had attempted to jump off, I would’ve saved him with the exact same energy floating that’s currently around my arms. Whether or not you believe that, I don’t care, but it seems to me that I was the one who ultimately ended up stopping him because none of you made a proper attempt to. Lastly, whether or not you get to live the life you always wanted in this realm will depend entirely on you.”

The room was silent, filled with a mixture of emotions. Fear at the power that Izan had just manifested, confusion about where it came from, and even a little bit of anger from someone that it had just been used on, but no one protested further. He was right. As much as we wanted it, we didn’t have the moral high ground here.

“It depends on us?” the dwarven girl asks, breaking the silence as she supported the demon boy on her right shoulder, “what exactly do you mean by that?”

Izan’s serious expression immediately shifts into his wide grin from before. It was uncanny, and made me unsure if I preferred him smiling or frowning.

“Oh, that’s simple,” he says, “you must earn the approval of the denizens of this realm. You see, there’s been a lot of you guys popping into this world, and over time it has built up to become quite troublesome. It’s a special realm after all. You get to do what you want. Be what you want. But as you guys appear, you bring along your troubled past lives and that has caused some… problems for us. And now they don’t want you guys living here until you’ve earned the right to.”

“...And how do we do that?” the demon boy asks, clutching his chest.

Izan spreads his arms wide as if presenting himself.

“Why, by becoming Dreamweavers of course,” he declares loudly, “as a Dreamweaver your task will be to exterminate the Nightmares that roam this realm. You’ve seen them before—those were the monsters that appeared just moments ago—the very ones you were afraid of. They’re created by the negative emotions that people experience in this realm: fear, confusion, sadness… anger.”

He makes a finger pistol and fires a bolt of golden energy at the demon boy, killing a Nightmare that just spawned behind him.

“Keep your emotions in check,” Izan continues, “you mustn’t be afraid of them. Not only will you be fighting them for the next ten years, but these negative emotions will only end up spawning more of them. After ten years of your service, or if we deem your contributions great enough before then, you will be allowed to live in this realm as its natural denizens do: a life full of happiness and getting to do what you enjoy the most. However, if you refuse, then…”

He gestures over to the broken window.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to stay in this realm for very long.”