Everything was really dark.

Troy's head really hurt. He was swimming in darkness, and his eyelids felt like they weighed a tonne and he couldn't open them. Wherever he was lying, it was really uncomfortable. He felt a breeze constantly whipping again his face, and it was stinging his skin. The smell of petroleum and fumes filled his nostrils, making his senses tingle just a bit. He cringed his nose and shifted a little, wherever he was lying, turning away from whatever it was that was around him and decided he was having some kind of weird dream. Any moment now, he expected to hear his alarm go off. Any second now.

"RIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!"

Troy jolted and his eyes flew open. He was on his back and quickly sat up, looking around anywhere for where the alarm was. It kept ringing, and loudly too, and he realized an alarm clock had been taped to his forehead. He hastily pulled it off and switched off the buzzer. Once it silenced, he was able to breathe again and his heart slowly even out. He felt drowsy as the adrenaline rush passed, but for the first time, he noticed he wasn't in a familiar area, and there was a Vietnamese woman sitting opposite him.

She was trying not to smile, and touched her ear to indicate to him. Troy stared at her confusedly and touched his own ear, pulling off the last bit of tape. He looked around, his eyes flickering.

"Where am I?" he murmured in English. He didn't expect the girl to answer him, but that was a question he just to had ask, anyone or anything right at that moment. The girl didn't look up from her book.

"You're on a train," she answered back in English. Troy sat up abruptly, immediately awake at her words.

"What did you just say?!" he exclaimed. The girl finally looked at him.

"You're on a train," she said again calmly. Troy felt his pulse pick up and he looked wildly around.

He was indeed on the train. It had strict rows of tall seats which hide each passenger behind them, all in a boring grey in a straight line along a long narrow aisle that ran through the middle of the carriage. The lights flickered every time the train would jolt, and it those split seconds the light from outside would take its place. The light was dull and distant, overshadowed whenever it would pass one of the palm trees on either side of the railroad, casting silhouettes into the carriage. And the train was was moving fast.

All the blood rushed to his head. Troy threw himself at the girl's feet as panic overtook fibre of his body.

"A train?!" he exclaimed. He grabbed the girl's legs. She dropped her book.

"Hey!" she shouted. She grabbed his hands and tried to pull him off. Troy didn't even notice her attempt.

"What… what am I doing on a train?!" he demanded.

"Why are you holding my feet?!" she shot back. Troy fell to his knees and pulled her legs tightly to him, as if it were the robes of God.

"What am I doing on a train?!" He didn't care that he was repeating himself.

"You were sleeping!" she said in frustration.

"Sleeping?!" he said incredulously. "Why am I sleeping on the train?!" He looked out the window. The scene did not look familiar at all. "My fiancée's coming back tomorrow for our anniversary and engagement party!" The girl stopped pulling and took a deep breath.

"Today," she corrected him calmly. Troy looked back at her, forgetting he was still holding onto her. He suddenly realized she was speaking English to him.

"What?" he blurted. The girl sighed.

"It's past midnight," she told him matter-of-factly, holding out her watch. "Your fiancée is coming back today. Your friends told me."

Troy had stared at her with the same dubious look until she mentioned his friends. His confusion changed into rage, and he flushed a deep red.

"Those bastards!" he shouted. Troy glanced down the aisle when the girl again tried to push out of his grip.

"Let go!" she said angrily, pulling his hands off. "You're American! Do you want to draw more attention than you already are?!"

Troy's panic subsided when he noticed many of the people on the train were looking at him. The girl was right, and he let go and returned to the opposite seat. He sat awkwardly in his seat, shifting his eyes around for any hiding Americans.

"Where are they?" he said in a low voice.

"I don't know," the girl said with a shrug. Troy glared at her.

"How can you not know?" The girl placed down her book and looked at him with hard eyes.

"Do we know each other?" she asked.

She was a very beautiful woman, possibly in her mid- twenties, Troy noted, from her wide English vocabulary. Her black hair was tied in a ponytail, hanging down the side of her long slender neck. Her lips had a healthy pink hue that pursed together whenever she would look at him, and from under her thick eyelashes her dark eyes would then speak. Troy felt a little intimidated by them, and for some strange reason, he felt as if he were to blink, she would turn into some kind of monster and rip his organs out.

Her eyes traveled down for a split second before she looked back at his face. Troy could tell she was trying to keep a straight face, but why?

For the first time, he suddenly realized that his legs felt particularly cooler for some reason. A thought hit him, a horrible thought. He slowly followed the girl's gaze and looked down at his lap.

The night before he had wore grey trousers. Now… all he had on were the Dr Seuss boxers Gabriella had got him last Christmas.

His face turned red again and Troy let out a cry. He automatically pulled his shirt further down to cover his boxers.

"Where are my pants?!" he squeaked. The girl just stared with a bored expression.

"Don't you remember anything?" she asked.

"Remember what?" Troy asked, getting increasingly impatient. She sighed and leaned forward on her seat, resting her cheek on her hand.

"You must have drunk too much," she told him. The girl shook her head with disapproval and ran a hand through her hair. "What a waste of money."

She watched with mild interest as Troy struggled to recollect what the hell had happened last night. He remembered going into a bar with Thuy and Chad… but after that it was all blank. Troy took a deep breath and put his hand to his forehead, trying to go back in his mind. But he couldn't.

"I don't remember anything," he muttered to himself. He looked at the girl with widened eyes. "I swear… I really can't remember." He suddenly felt panicky and automatically patted all his pockets. "Where's my wallet?" He kept staring at her for some much-needed answers, but she said nothing. "Where's my wallet? Where's my passport?" He reached into every pocket or opening in his shirt, but he couldn't find his wallet anywhere. He hand touched a piece of paper in his breast pocket and his pulled it out. It was a train ticket.

"One-way ticket?!" he read. He looked horrified. "How am I supposed to get back to Saigon?!" The girl merely shrugged and casually went back to her book. Troy didn't even seem to care for her rudeness anymore.

"Co, toi nang ni co…" he pleaded. "Miss, I'm begging you…" The Vietnamese words caught the girl's attention. Troy put his hands together. "Please tell me what's going on." She shrugged again.

"How would I know?"

"You don't know?!" Troy said with a bitter laugh. "You speak English and you don't know?" The girl glowered. "Why are you even here?!"

"Your friends insisted in buying my ticket because I could speak English," she told him. "They asked me to look after you. It was convenient so I agreed."

"Convenient?!" Troy spat. "How?! I don't even know where I'm going!" The girl just stared at him in a sombre manner.

She was being very patient; he was bullying her, after all. Troy knew he couldn't just vent all his anger on a stranger, and he probably made himself look really bad if he was yelling at a Vietnamese girl. He cleared his throat and recomposed himself.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, genuinely feeling bad. He fidgeted the ticket in his hands. "I'm not always like this. It's just…" He emitted a weary sigh. "… I'm having a bad day." He took a moment before he looked back into those dark emotionless eyes. "Can… can I ask where you're going?" The girl seemed less offended enough to reply.

"Phan Thiet," she said. Something clicked in Troy's mind; he had seen Phan Thiet on the map. It was located north-east of Saigon somewhere.

"How far away is Phan Thiet from Saigon?" he asked timidly. She turned a page.

"About 98 miles," the girl told him.

"98 miles?!!!"

Troy almost had another heart attack. He fell back onto his seat, defeated.

The train moved noisily along the rails and jolted every now and then as images of Gabriella holding a rolling pin and smashing a picture of him filled Troy's head. It seemed to play like a film as he stared deadpan at the white ceiling.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," he said over and over again. "This is not good."

That drink, that one stupid drink started it all. Why was he so weak to persuasion? Why were his friends such idiots??

The girl set her book aside for the last time and watched Troy ponder to himself. He was starting to look pathetic, and she was starting to feel sorry for him. The girl smirked and leaned forward at him.

"Give me your hand," she said. Troy snapped out of his trance and looked at her with a dubious expression.

"What?"

"Your left hand," she urged. Troy still felt a little uncertain, but nonetheless he obeyed.

"What are you doing?" he asked as she took it in her hands.

"I'm reading your palm," she said. She examined it closely, running her finger gently through the middle. She screwed up her forehead. "Hmmm… your love line is very long." Troy frowned.

"What does that mean?" he asked, intrigued. The girl ran her finger on the line and looked up at him with a smile.

"It means you'll get back to Saigon on time," she told him. "You and your fiancée will have a wonderful vacation and then you'll go back to America and live happily ever after." She let go of his hand so he could look at it for himself. She looked at her own hand and frowned at it. "Unless…" Troy froze; he didn't like the sound of that.

"Unless what?" he said nervously. The girl kept staring at her hand.

"Unless it's your health line," she said lightly, leaning back on her seat. "I usually get those two lines mixed up." She smiled at him as he again looked uneasy. Suddenly, her face changed as something outside caught her eye. Troy looked out the window as well, and a grin spread across his face.

In the distance, standing on the platform were the shadowy figures of Chad and Thuy, and they were holding up the sign 'WAKE UP, SLEEPHEAD!!' Troy let out a triumphant laugh and turned back around to the girl.

"Those bastards!" he laughed. "They're waiting for me up there!" She smiled as well. "Holy crap! They tricked me!" He looked back at his two friends, a devious plan unfolding as he watched them. "Oh… I'll get them…" Troy sat back on his seat. He smiled again at the girl, feeling much better.

"Can you do me a favour?" he asked. "When the train stops, I'll sneak out. When they come up to find me, tell them I was so scared, I jumped out the window."

Now let's see who would freak out when that happens. Those bastards…

The train kept it speed however. It went on and on until Troy saw Thuy and Chad's heads pass him by, and only then did his smile disappear.

Thuy and Chad stood there and watched the train move away. Chad lowered the sign and the two just stared, completely bewildered, after it.

"Crap," was all they could say.

Troy leapt off his seat.

"Why isn't the train stopping?" he exclaimed. He stood up and looked around. Everyone was still sitting down. He began to panic again.

"Hey!!" he shouted in Vietnamese. "Stop the train!! Someone stop the train!!" He looked back at the girl opposite him and she was trying hard not to laugh. Trying quite unsuccessfully.

"Okay," she said shakily. "You can jump out the window now if you want." She giggled. Troy turned his attention back to her and his expression became stony. She had known about it... The girl shook her head as she trembled with laughter.

"They put you on the wrong train," she choked. "This one doesn't stop at stations." Troy's eyes were slits, and he felt his fist close up.

"You think it's funny, huh?" he said hotly. She kept laughing. "Go ahead!! Laugh! Laugh at the pathetic American who doesn't have any pants!!!"

"I'm sorry!" she gasped, unable to control herself. "I… I just can't hold it in anymore!!!" Troy watched her a little while longer, feeling his face turn red, and went back to his seat in a sulk.

"I can't imagine you on a plane!" the girl said. Troy stared at her menacingly, his arms folded across his chest. She laughed. "Look at yourself." Troy rolled his eyes and stood up. He had enough.

"Leave me alone," he grumbled. Awkwardly, since he was in his boxer shorts, he made his way down the aisle, not really knowing what else to do.

He couldn't ask them to stop the train, but he couldn't just sit there and let a girl abuse him any longer. The train jolted a little more but Troy kept himself steady. The girl sighed after her laughing fit and felt a little bad. She stood up and followed him.

"Hey!" she said. Troy glanced at her over his shoulder. She pulled her handbag over her shoulder and resumed her neutral stare at him. "I want you to know I had nothing to do with this." Troy scoffed loudly.

"If it wasn't for you," he said harshly. "They never would've even put me on this train!"

"How was I supposed to know they'd put you on the wrong train?!" she said defensively. Troy rolled his eyes, like it was so obvious.

"Couldn't you tell they were stupid?!?"

"It's not my fault your friends are stupid!" she spat. Having enough of this, she shot him and turned at her heel back to her seat, leaving Troy just standing their in his underwear.

Humiliation again crashed down on him; he helpless to what was happening to him, and a girl was making him feel bad. Troy gathered as much of what was left of his pride.

"Fine!" he called after the girl. "What good can a call girl like you do anyway?"

That hit a nerve.

The girl got up from her seat, and stormed over to him.

"What did you just call me?!" she hissed, grabbing the collar of his shirt. "YOU WATCH YOUR MOUTH, AMERICAN!!!" Gosh was she strong too. Troy was scared; he could've sworn he saw those black eyes glow green. The girl violently threw him back down and dusted herself. Uttering a soft "hmmph!" she went back to her seat again, and Troy felt ten times more humiliated than he did five seconds ago.

A motorbike zoomed down the dark road, past the palm trees on the grainy path of rocks and soil.

Thuy sat in front and handled the bike while Chad sat behind him with a map in his hands and a flashlight in his mouth. Thuy stopped the bike at the end of the road and looked around as Chad jumped off.

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" Thuy asked. Chad nodded, the flashlight still in his mouth and holding out the map in front of him.

"Positive," he mumbled. Thuy looked around again.

"That train was supposed to head to MM Station," he muttered, glancing at his watch. "We have to get there before Troy does, or else he'll kill us." Chad frowned as he examined the map.

"Is MM Station located East or West?" he asked.

"West," Thuy replied, still not looking at him. Chad spat out the flashlight.

"Then why have we been driving East?" he asked naively.

Thuy scowled.