Grandiose Delusions

Mond had been to Shinjuku Station once before, with his Dad the week he moved to Japan. He had flown in with him and stayed the week to help him adjust. 

He remembered how he laughed at his dad for being so wary of the trains, and how he laughed back when Mond fell down from the speed, insisting he didn’t need to hold the handrails.

 Now the building was empty, closed for repairs as the signs that littered the premises said, and the bustling heart of the city that moved the flow of people all throughout the country, now sat silent and dead, except for a low rumbling he could faintly feel from inside.

“Alright everyone, listen up alright.” Sonne stopped the group as they approached the side of the large station, they seemed to be the only ones on the street, at least that Mond could notice. “You all know what we're doing tonight right?”

“Oh seriously Sonne, how much of a jackass can you be?” Roses immediately cut in , stepping forward to the seemingly uncaring man. “You know for a fact poor Mond has no clue what we're about to try and do in there, and you haven't even made an attempt to warn him”

Vertigo hopped up swiftly onto the side ledge of the road, so that she stood slightly taller than Mond, playfully grabbing his shoulders and tilting him to the side, “Whatsa’ matta old man? Mond ain’t no fraidy-cat, you ain't gonna scare him haha!” She said in a mock gangster voice.

Mond laughed along with her, turning to Sonne who seemed to look back quizzically, “I'm not going anywhere Sonne, I've made up my mind and I'm done stringing myself out for my whole life.” 

He looked him in the eye, feeling ever more sure of his decision. “I get the feeling this isn’t some official job, It’s something you do out of conviction, curiosity and - “

He stopped for a second, thinking back to what motivated his own forays into the unknown as a child, into the woods after school to spot dragons, and the icy lakes to rescue aurora borealis foxes. 

“And something else…I want to know what that is, and I know you all have good intentions, I can feel it.”

The group around him smiled at this, all with that somber but grateful tone that seemed to be the trademark of the misfit gang. Sonne closed his eyes for a moment, taking a heavy breath, and turning to feel up and down the marble walls of the building, talking as he did. 

“Shinjuku station has a history of tragedies, as most places of its cultural importance tend to do”

His large half gloved hands ran along the white stone, as if feeling for a pulse, “In the early 20’s it served earned its acclaim when it served as a sort of bastion for people relocating from the great earthquake of the time, people looked to it as a destination to a new era you could say. It stood through then, through the war, and into the 60’s” His voice elated as his middle finger slid into a small crack in the stone, pulling out a tiny silver key.

Mond wondered how he had known such a convenience would be hidden in such a strange spot, but none of the others seemed bothered by it, Vertigo seemed bored even on her part, and he was interested in where Sonne's metro story was leading.

“Around then, the station's aura began to darken, “ he gazed sadly down at the key, before leading the long way around to the west exit “Protesters began setting up shop in this little area here, folks unhappy about vietnam , they weren't dangerous at all that I remember, of course I was just a child then, but I remember the songs they would sing” 

The tall pale giant closed his eyes, reminiscing. Roses seemed to be somberly touched by the nostalgia of the old man, despite her ire towards him. “ Riot police eventually cleared the place out of course, tear gas” He grimaced “Oddly poetic, in a grim way, considering the attack in 95”. 

Mond didn’t need a history lesson on that one, even in Canada he’d heard about the doomsday cult gas attacks, it was a tragedy that seemed to grip the public consciousness around the world even years after.”

Walking up the sleek metal stairs to a locked maintenance door , he could hear MF’s satisfying clinks and clacks going up them behind him, Vertigo on the other hand opting to balance along the handrail.

 Sonne slid the key effortlessly into the door, opening it to reveal a long dark path to the station's inner workings. “And now, last week, metro train nine went AWOL”

“What, like it just up and disappeared? Isn’t it a little hard to lose a whole train?” Mond asked, lining up right behind Sonne as they made their way single file down the damp narrow hallway.

 The humid heat of the outside air replaced itself gradually with dry bitter air, and soft echoes that rattled throughout the metal veins of this place.

“Yeap! A we gotta ghost train on our hands fairy boy!” Vertigo leaped up again, using his shoulder as a boost, just nearly avoiding smacking her skull on the low hanging ceiling. 

“Weird, and uh- don't, call me that.” Mond said awkwardly, Roses rolled her eyes and gave a quick smack across the shorter girl's head, who ducked down from the hit, “Hey! Whaddid I do!”

From the back of the line, MF’s strong voice funneled through the narrow corridor, “Sonne likes to find us little community projects like this, keeps up from wasting around alleys and what not acting like junkies”. “Pfft, we are junkies MF, “ Roses remarked, “the only difference is we're not just being a burden on society if we do stuff like this, it's a good use of our… special, reactions to the hallucinogens, and gets us the drug were really after”

 She leaned her head forward to Mond, with a roguish grin, “that sweet sweet adrenaline baby” she laughed to herself a little, and he couldn't help but laugh a bit too.

“So- we’re here looking for a lost train then?” Mond questioned as they finally emerged from the thin passageway to a small ledge, hanging over the deep dark void of open electric railway, the city's circulatory system beneath the earth. 

A rumbling could be felt through the floor and walls and into their own veins, and Sonne gripped onto a pipe alongside the damp brick wall, “ Oh, It’s not lost anymore Mond-”

Before his words could even fully begin to register , the force of electrically charged tons of steel rushed by his face, air force pressing him back onto the brick wall like the divine gale of an angry machine god. The sound of metal and wind and lighting and glass and a thousand other tiny mechanical elements screeching like an urban devil reverberated around his lungs till he thought he would suffocate. 

Until in just as sudden of an instant as it had come, the vast cavern fell silent, except for the distant echo of a roaring train down the pitch black tunnel.

The feeling of silence after a sleek metal storm like that was shocking, bone rattling. It froze minds every nerve and nearly cemented him to the wall, each muscle twitching in rapid succession. He loved it.

“S-So… It's a runaway train then, nice” he willed his legs to stand fully, even if they were still shaking violently, the others making their way from the narrow path onto the ledge with them. Sonne stood unfazed on to his left, watching as everyone poured out.

“Holy crap! Ol’ choo choo still got some life in em’ huh?” MF slapped Mahou on the back, nearly knocking him down onto the tracks before catching him by the coat, laughing gleefully. 

Mahou of course let out several high pitched squawks at this surprise before patting down his coat in an attempt to collect himself, he’d already been embarrassed once today with the whole vomit debacle. “Ahem, so what's the plan here exactly Sonne?”

The old man's looming silhouette gazed down for a second, as if assessing a risk, “Hey Mond, go ahead and pop a pill, you brought them right?”

Mond did his best to hold in the surprise, but the request had caught him blindsided partially because he felt stupid for not thinking about that tidbit earlier. He of course not only hadn't brought the bottle of Mahou's mysterious psychedelics with him, he had never even taken them to begin with like Sonne believed.

Mond felt bad for lying to the old man, especially after seeming to have enough trust in him to bring him along on this little excursion. But something in him felt like he didn't need the pills, he hadn’t needed them before to have a real enough experience like on his birthday. Sonne had told him insanity would never be enough to trigger synchronicity, but maybe Mond was just that far off the deep end…

The thought unsettled him, but was quickly snapped from the front of his mind when Mahou began waving in front of his eyes, “Hello? Earth to bozo- well maybe not earth earth exactly im not quite grounded here myself, moon maybe?” he trailed off , but Mond got the message.

 “Oh, uh right, I took one right when the train came by, kinda a fear reflex ya know?”. It wasn’t entirely a lie, the strange and exotic yet grossly familiar atmosphere down here was pretty much the perfect environment to trigger some visual distortion. 

So many shadows and disproportional details along the walls, and the intense adrenaline rush from the subsonic train rushing by so closely had him feeling like he was on something already.

Sonne seemed dubious, but something in his gaze also looked insatiable, curious, excited even, like a lost and starving adventurer lunging headlong into unexplored ruins simply from a lack of other options. He nodded to Mond, then stepped down the 5 foot drop onto the tracks.

“Crap Sonne no! Those tracks are electrically charged you’ll-” Mahou shouted over the ledge, the whole group leaning over to try and see what had become of their leader, who had stepped so graciously off as if it were a step on a staircase. 

Mond gasped as well, instinctively grasping his hands into tightly balled fists like he was gripping onto the air for the dear life of his new friend. Somewhere down the tunnel, a loud pop and spark could be heard fizzling along metal into galvanized embers.

A silence passed over the abyss, Mond shut his eyes tight, fearful of what horrific scene he might see. “Danmit, Danmit he really was just a crazy old cultist, I cant believe I let this happen I cant -” “Mond, Mond open your eyes, but whatever you do keep those fists tightened ok?” Sonne's voice interrupted his terrified mutterings, a flush of hope and soft guilt flooding Mond's heart. “Open your eyes son”