Detour

It was a cold night.

Lord Kaiser and Atsuo shivered as they hurried to Loto station in the darkness, relying on nothing but their memory.

A few minutes later it started to snow.

“Sleeper, we’ll freeze to death if we don’t hurry up…” he said turning to Atsuo.

“So, what? You want to go back to the inn we stayed at earlier?” Atsuo asked.

“No…” Lord Kaiser replied, “but we can’t not do anything either…”

“What are you saying?” Atsuo asked, confused.

“You want to go for a small jog?” Lord Kaiser proposed.

Atsuo did not expect to hear that from him out of nowhere.

“I mean… I don’t mind…” Atsuo shrugged.

“Okay…” Lord Kaiser said, taking a deep breath and exhaling, “…let’s go.”

The two of them trembled as they ran, wishing they were back at their rooms in Drezore, sleeping in their cozy beds.

They hurried to the station to get on the train as soon as possible, which they knew from experience was still going at this time.

However, underestimating the weather, the two friends appeared to have taken a slight detour.

As they pushed past the accumulating rain, through the thick fog, they soon found their first problem.

“ARGHHH” Atsuo yelled as he tripped over something and landed on a hard protruding surface, “FUCK…”

“You okay?” Lord Kaiser asked, approaching him.

“…Yeah, just couldn’t see the rock under the snow…” Atsuo replied, rubbing his knees and elbows.

Lord Kaiser knelt down, glancing at where Atsuo tripped over, his eyes widening.

“That’s not good…” he said, visibly perturbed, “We’re on the railway tracks…”

Atsuo twitched, turning around and removing some of the piled-up snow in front of him.

His breath hitched as he saw another rail. Lord Kaiser was right.

“I don’t know how we even ended up here, but we’ll need to pick a direction and commit as soon as possible… I don’t want to miss our train…” Lord Kaiser said anxiously.

“What if the station is somewhere to the right?”

“…Or you can choose for the both of us…” Lord Kaiser said, starting to walk, “Make it warmer while you’re at it… and the train waiting for us at the station too…”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if it got warmer and the train was not moving, back at our station?” Atsuo said.

“Good. Thanks…” Lord Kaiser said, already feeling a little warmer.

They walked down the railway tracks, which were all too reminiscent to Atsuo of his dreams. He shook his head, not wanting to think about it, knowing how they ended.

They walked for nearly half an hour, before they saw a faint light illuminating the fog in front of them. They stopped and listened closely, hearing some rumbling coming from a distance.

It was the steam engine of the train.

They quickly exchanged relieved glances and ran in the direction of the light.

They hastily broke out of the fog with smiles on their faces as they saw their means of transportation and shelter for tonight waiting for them at the station.

The both of them climbed the station and approached the conductor who was smoking near the other edge of the platform.

“Hello” Atsuo said, startling the conductor who was enjoying the silence of the night.

“…Hello,” he said back, a little uneasily, “who are you…?”

“We want to go to Uverd, is this train going in that direction?” Lord Kaiser asked importantly, as they stared at the conductor.

“Yeah…” he responded a little suspiciously seeing their questionably dirty clothes, “…tickets?”

“…Uhhh…” Lord Kaiser uttered, glancing at Atsuo.

“Can you check your notepad, we should be in there…” Atsuo said.

“…Names?” the conductor said, getting out his book.

“Atsuo and Kaiser” Atsuo responded.

The conductor scrolled through twenty pages, searching for them.

“…Not in there…” he said, snapping his book shut.

He eyed them dubiously, before Atsuo spoke again.

“What if you missed us?” he said, “please check again…”

The conductor sighed deeply, before opening his notepad again.

This time, he froze on one of the pages, looking up at Lord Kaiser and Atsuo from his book.

“…What were your names again?” he asked.

“Atsuo and Kaiser” Atsuo repeated himself.

The conductor gulped, feeling weird.

“…Get on,” he said motioning to one of the cars with a nod, before turning around and stubbing out his cigarette with his shoe.

He glanced around the station and went towards the locomotive, while Atsuo and Lord Kaiser boarded the nearest car.

Luckily, they found an empty compartment and, without even turning on the light, sat down, finally able to relax.

“Good work sleeper, see you in the morning…” Lord Kaiser said, lying down.

“Wait,” Atsuo said, “What if–”

“Careful…” Lord Kaiser said unnervingly, hearing those first two words.

“We don’t know where Uverd is… relative to our current location…” Atsuo noted.

Lord Kaiser nodded in agreeance.

“Make it so that we arrive there after we sleep” he instructed.

“What if we arrive at the station after our sleep?” Atsuo said.

“Good night…” Lord Kaiser said right away and went back into his lying position.

“…Good night…” Atsuo said, exhaling. He looked out of the window for a few seconds before reclining as well.

***

Atsuo woke up a few hours later.

He sat up, rubbing his face awake.

It was a dreamless night.

He did not want to think much of it, but he still found it strange and slightly unnerving.

It has been a long time since he didn’t have a dream.

Looking outside the window, it was almost morning.

Judging by the large, wooded region below the cliffside to their left, they still seemed to be somewhere in Taigoren.

Atsuo looked around, seeing that Lord Kaiser was absent.

Suddenly, he heard an announcement on the speakers.

“NEXT UP…” it said, “Loto Station…”