"Klyde, Koo, I believe you two know each other."
"Barely," said the gecko.
The owl began grinning awkwardly. Clumsily adjusting his monocle.
"P… Pleasure to meet you there."
"You told her I was the Conductor?" Klyde snapped at the bird. "I'm going to roast you and eat you up for Thanksgiving."
"Why do you people keep saying that? I'm not that fat you know?" Koo said while looking back to his belly, "I used to be like 160 pounds back when I was human… I think."
"Don't dodge the subject. I won't have you ruin my good name you no good little thief."
"Well okay now that's taking things a little too far," said the owl. "First of all, I'm not a thief, I'm a conman, well… was a conman. But that's not the point. Secondly, if it didn't bother her, and if she's not going to – say, I don't know, hunt you down or destroy you for being our enemy then it shouldn't bother you."
"Speaking of which," said Klyde. "I just realize something," he then turned to the girl. "Why… are you taking all of this so well, Tulip?"
"Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing," Koo agreed. "I've been dropping nothing but bombs on you. Your mind should be blown to bits. Or you should be breaking down or something."
"I did break down," Tulip instantly replied. "But honestly, Koo. Is that what you want to see? Why not order a foot massage along with a movie ticket while you're at it?"
"I would if I could."
"I'm not your slave, Koo," Tulip told him. "I'm not going start tearing up just because you have some secret sick obsession with seeing little girls crying."
"I um… I don't… actually… have a…"
"Besides," she cut him off. "We don't have time for that sentimental nonsense. What I want to know," she then turned to the gecko. "Is how did you get here? After all that happened with that robot monster and that dragon."
"Um yeah… about that. I tried to buy you some time to escape. And…"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, but how did you get here?" Tulip interrupted him. "That's what I want to know."
But the gecko just answered with a blank face:
"I… don't know."
"What?"
"I just… opened the door to the next car… and here I was."
Tulip was confused at first, but after just a few seconds of pondering and going back to the clues she had, she finally deduced the reason why this was the case.
Instinctively, she turned to the gecko and asked:
"Klyde… do you… have a mysterious glowing number somewhere on your body?"
She then raised her green glowing palm for Klyde to see, showing off the number 18.
Klyde began to stare, blinking in disbelief, as if for the first time ever he was encountering something he thought only he and he alone could feel on this train. Like a lonely child finding a friend for the first time in his long life.
He gave a long sigh, and pulled open the duster he wore revealing his chest.
A number two, glowing mysteriously and green.
"I knew it," Tulip said. Surprisingly… not surprised.
"What?"
"What on earth are you talking about?" Asked Koo.
"Each human being on this train has a different number because they possess a different state of mind," she quoted the book she held. "Remember, Koo?"
The owl stared at her, still unsure of what she really meant.
"We all came on this train for different reasons," she explained. "But some of us have more demons to deal with than others. Each number represents a clue to the truth, but each of us have different truths to uncover, different ways to uncover those truths, different problems we each have to deal with. This is what makes the train different to every single one of us here and yet at the same time still the same."
The number on her hand began shuffling again – now dropping to 17.
Tulip continued:
"He has a number two because he has two problems he needs to deal with. One of those problems is learning the truth about the Conductor and getting off the train."
Klyde looked at her, knowing Tulip knew about his issue with his wife, waiting for her to bring it up.
But she never did.
"The reason I have so many is because I have many… and I mean many issues I have to deal with. That's why I have to go through so many cars while Klyde only has to go through a few. My journey is longer…"
But then a new question arose into her mind. Something she cursed herself for not asking earlier. She turned to the owl:
"Where is your number, Koo?"
The owl quickly backed off the moment the gecko and the girl turned their attention towards him. He gave them a slightly nervous look, then swallowed a mouthful before saying:
"I don't remember. My number disappeared from my body years ago. It happens when you transform on this train."
"Are you lying to me?"
"No, Tulip. I swear."
"If so then how do you explain Klyde's number? From where I'm standing, it's still glowing bright just like mine."
"I'm just as confused as you are Tulip. I promise you."
"I'm not confused."
"I am not a liar!" Koo insisted.
"He's telling the truth, Tulip," Klyde suddenly joined in.
"Yeah?"
"Trust me, I have no feelings of friendship with this fat bird," said the gecko just as the owl glared back at him. Klyde continued, "you remember my partner Zapp?"
"How could I forget?" Said Tulip, "He dumped me into an old dark house like a barn animal without telling me what was going on. What happened to him anyway? Is he alright?"
"Let's just say I wouldn't be here standing if it wasn't for him helping me heal my wounds. I told him to go back home to the sand car."
"How?" Tulip asked. "Using these doors?"
Klyde chuckled:
"The Conductor didn't build this car just so we can take a shortcut straight to the front of the train. Don't worry about Zapp, he'll find his way back. Once a part of the train, always a part of the train. Such is both a curse and blessing… sometimes. We're getting off track, the point is Zapp used to have a number, too. It's gone now. It's the way of the train. But this thing here – this thing on my chest… it's something else."
"Yeah, that's right," said Koo. "Maybe he just hasn't been absorbed into the train like the others."
"Either way it doesn't matter now," said Klyde. "He knows we're here. There's no hiding it. Especially with these numbers on us. It's like we got a big target painted on our backs. Sooner or later he's going to come, and it'll all be over."
But Tulip responded to that with a sneer:
"Over my dead body."
She immediately turned the other way and started walking.
"Where are you going?" Asked Klyde.
"Where else? If he wants me so bad, I'll just come to him."
"Are you mad?" Klyde reached out to grab her shoulder, "Stop this foolish mission, Tulip. You can't win… you can't."
But Tulip only replied simply:
"So what?"
"Following me now?" Tulip asked, as the three of them stood in front of the door to the next train car.
"This is never going to end well you know?" Koo said.
Tulip then grinned:
"When has it ever?"
The door swung open into a large space of darkness. Instantly, Tulip could tell this car was unlike everything else she had encountered before. There was an atmosphere to it, an emotion vibrating through the metal of the walls.
A theater.
It was huge. Too large to fit into any train car in existence. Too large to fit into any building in existence. The seats were in the hundreds of thousands just by the glance of it, maybe even by the millions. All covered in fresh black and white leather, arranged in alternating patterns like a chessboard. It was more like a stadium than an actual theater. Spiraling down to a distant stage made of a bright shiny wood Tulip had never seen before, a type that she didn't think actually existed. But that was the least of her concerns.
What really caught her attention were the mannequins.
They were more like rough broken down dolls than actual mannequins. Puppets even, what with the spider-like thread dangling above every single one of their heads, stretching all the way towards a black ceiling that seemed to have no end. The mannequins had holes for eyes and noses, and a small wooden block for their mouths – it made them seem more like ventriloquist dummies than anything else. Instead of being smooth and round their body features were more rectangular and rough, as if a bunch of wooden blocks were put together by a curious child or an amateur woodworker. It was honestly kind of hard to tell if they were actually made of wood or something else more sinister – their faces were white, and their fingers were bulbous… like bones. They all wore clothes, fancy black suits and white dresses too expensive for any ordinary man or woman to afford and yet at the same time too torn, ragged and shameful for any homeless man to even want. These didn't seem like clothes for humans, rather cosmetics, toys put on for a child's plaything.
The mannequins sat there in the darkness of the theater, in silence – unmoving.
The only source of light seemed to be from the stage itself. And what was on the stage was an entirely different story altogether.
It was a large orchestra, filled to the brim with all sorts of rusty, old golden and decaying instruments seemingly too worn and broken to be even functional. The mannequins sitting in their chairs holding up their instruments were just as lifeless as the audience down in their seats. The wood of the violins were as moldy and rotten as the rust of the golden trombones, even their sheet music were torn and scattered all over the wooden floor of the stage. And yet for some peculiar reason, to Tulip, the scene did not feel really disgusting, horrifying, or creepy but rather just melancholic. The musicians were still in their playing position, wearing their tattered suits and dresses with fading colors. There were strings on top of their heads, too, just like everybody in the audience. It seemed as if they were in the middle of their performance and for some reason had to stop halfway.
The proof of this was in the singers, there were two female mannequins on the front of the stage, one was dressed elegantly and humble with a simple dress and long silky black hair draping down her head.
Meanwhile, the other mannequin was dressed like a queen. Her hands raised up high, in a frozen position of a high note and pure power. Her face seemed much more expressive like that of an actor. She wore a glittery black gown made of a bizarre silk that shined bright under the warm light on the stage. Strangely, she was also wearing a spiky crown made out of a peculiar metal that was decorating her dome in a way resembling a blooming flower. Not the most elegant looking thing to Tulip, but she was never really a flowery type of girl, ironically. As a kid, she had always done whatever it was she wanted and didn't really bother trying to act girly and all that.
Something that was peculiar however was that there was no sign of a band conductor anywhere on the stage. There was even a tiny podium and a sheet music stand dedicated specifically for a conductor. And yet there was nobody standing up there. Tulip began to wonder.
"The most dangerous car on this train, Klyde?" Tulip asked.
The gecko nodded.
"How do you know?" She asked. "Have you been here before?"
"No… I haven't."
"Then why should I even care about what you have to say?"
"Because…"
The moment was then interrupted by several sharp clicking noises that started to explode simultaneously from every corner of the theater, like the sound of an automatic rifle. It caught Tulip off guard at first before she realized what it was – the sound of the mannequins' joints moving. The irritating creak squeaking everywhere made it clear how old these doll things were. They raised their heads – and their eyes began to glow blue.
Before Tulip could even process what the mannequins in the audience were about to do, her attention was shifted towards the stage where the singers and the musicians resumed what they were doing prior to being frozen.
They performed.
The violins squealed.
The trombones screamed.
The flutes shrieked.
And the singer raised her voiced from an ancient time long forgotten.
"Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen," the one dressed as the queen raised her voice louder.
Her voice was angelic, beautiful and yet somehow demonic at the same time. It was a strange voice, with a strange darkness emanating from within. It was definitely coming from the mannequin standing on the stage and not from some speaker broadcasting at a distance. It sounded human, and yet it was a voice that Tulip didn't think could actually exist.
"Tod und Verzweiflung flammet um mich her!" The singer continued.
Tulip recognized this song. The costumes, the orchestra, the singers, it all made sense now. Memories came flooding back to her.
"Whoa, what is going on here?" Koo asked, floating around confusedly.
"Tulip?"
But the girl simply stood there, mesmerized by the hollow sound of the ancient flutes and broken golden trumpets along with the tightening of the violins straining on her ears.
"The Magic Flute," she said as she watched on. "Der Hölle Rache – Queen of the Night's aria."
"What?"
"Mozart," she told them.
"Oh…"
"So bist du meine Tochter nimmermehr," the queen sang on, her voice booming on the stage.
"It's a peculiar but classic fairy tale," Tulip explained. "It's a story about a prince, named Tamino, and his lover Pamina who must face many deadly trials while simultaneously facing off the evil Queen of the Night. It's a story of symbols…of doubts, confusion and the nature of good and evil."
"What on earth are you going on about?" Koo asked.
"Here, in this scene," Tulip pointed her finger, "the Queen of the Night is ordering her daughter Pamina to assassinate the high priest Sarastro while also threatening to disown her if she disobeys. Sarastro was previously thought by Tamino to be an evil sorcerer who had kidnapped Pamina. So he goes out under the command of the Queen to retrieve her daughter only to later realize that it was the Queen of the Night herself who is the evil one… it fills Tamino with doubt, confusion, makes him question everything he knew…"
"Verstossen sei auf ewig… Verlassen sei auf ewig… Zertrümmert sei'n auf ewig… Alle Bande der Natur…"
To an outsider who knew nothing of this story, her voice would've sounded like a beautiful little bird – happy and unafraid, dancing in the wind and innocent as a child. But when you understood the rage and vengeful spite behind the aria and the Queen's character – you would realize then that you knew nothing of the nature of the world and the nature of good and evil.
Tulip realized that long ago. But she asked herself right there on the spot – how could I have forgotten?
When did I forget these things I realized long ago? She asked herself. But perhaps what the girl did not realize was the possibility that she did not forget – rather she merely never understood the meaning behind it until now.
The world wasn't just black and white.
Things won't always be logical.
"Okay…" the owl began glancing around. "I don't really… see how this is dangerous at all. You said this was one of the most dangerous cars on the train. But I don't see anything that could remotely hurt us in here."
"That's because you haven't seen anything yet."
"WHOA, HOLY PEACH BALL OF DEATH, WHAT THE HECK?" The owl cried out, instantly flying behind Klyde for cover.
One of the mannequins sitting in the audience next to them turned their heads and started speaking to them. His voice sounded like that of a regular man but there was this slight hint of metal clanking behind his throat. It was the definition of the uncanny valley.
Another one of the female mannequins sitting on the opposite side also turned her head.
"Just sit back and watch the show," she said. "I've been waiting for the finale for so long now. It will be fabulous I tell you."
"Wait," Tulip raised her eyebrow, "what is that supposed to mean?"
"Oh?" Another one of the mannequins turned his head, "You don't know? We've been sitting here watching the show ever since the train started taking off. It's delightful."
"That's impossible," Tulip said. "The Magic Flute isn't that long."
"Oh no dear," said one of the mannequins, "this is not the only show we watch. It just doesn't end I tell you. Because once it ends… we can all go home."
Tulip's eyes widened, tensed up and started straining the moment she understood what the mannequins meant by that. A sudden feeling of tension began to creep from inside of Tulip, it wasn't exactly fear, but it was getting more powerful as time went on.
"What's going on Tulip?" Koo whimpered behind Klyde.
"Hört, hört, hört… Rachegötter… hört der Mutter Schwur!" The Queen's voice continued to boom.
There was something else about the theater, something much more sinister. The mannequins in the audience had barely moved an inch since they first came in. Even after showering the Queen of the Night with thunderous applause for the high notes she managed in her aria, the crowd instantly went back to being still as a rock. They sat back like statues, stone statues, staring beyond into the abyss that lied beyond the darkness of the stage, empty and emotionless.
They all sat there not moving even a slight bit… and yet Tulip could still clearly hear shuffling noises happening in the back and all around them.
Somebody was in the theater with them. And Tulip had a pretty good idea who – the blue glowing eyes, the blank expressionless faces of the mannequins, it was so obvious.
Tulip looked over to the side of the stage, and behind the curtains was something both horrifying and nostalgic to her. Something she thought she had gotten rid of from her memories, from her life, something she did not want to confront yet knew right then was inevitable sooner or later.
A drum kit.
It all became so clear now.
"You were right, Klyde," said Tulip. "This really is the most dangerous car."
"What? Why?"
"Because this car… this place… it's not meant for any of you…"
"What are you talking about?" Koo asked.
"They're coming… the Stewards."
"The what?" Klyde squinted his eyes.
"Oh right, you don't know," said Tulip. "You called them the Phantom People. Remember?"
"Oh."
"Yeah, lots had happened ever since we parted ways," said Tulip. "I'd love to catch you up but we're out of time."
"What do we do?" Koo asked. "Tell me you have some sort of plan. You came up with the greatest con in history, you can do it again… right?"
"I'm afraid that's the old me. I'm not that person anymore."
"So that's it then?" Koo said. "We're going to die…"
"Don't say that," Tulip told him. "I may not be the Tulip you knew – but I am still Tulip, the one he wants. That has to mean something."
And with that the number on her hand began shuffling again – dropping to 16. She glared down that number, focused and determined even with the shuffling noises behind the crowd. She knew – there was no coming back from this.
He's out there, she told herself. She just knew it, somewhere in this theater – watching. He gave her a warning and she didn't take it. And here they were now.
"I am not the Tulip of old," she told them. "But I am here now… I can't guarantee that I can send you home. I can't even guarantee you'll make out of this in one piece… but will you join me?"
The two of them stood there in the darkness of the theater – and yet somehow their fighting spirit came shining through. Even Koo, hiding himself behind the big gecko, even he showed this look in his eyes to Tulip – a look of trust, trust in an old friend.
The owl laughed – possibly genuinely for the first time since forever. A laugh of that old mischievous conman, a laugh that Tulip remembered.
"Ah what the heck," said the owl. "If we're going out, might as well do it here – with all the theatrics."
And Klyde nodded in agreement – confident and strong.
"Good, here's what we need to do. I need to go up there and pull out that drum kit there behind those curtains, you see that? Right over by the corner. So I'm going to need you to go and make some room. That's where you two come in, just do whatever you can to get rid of the timpani over there. Get rid of all the violins too. Wait… actually, you know what? Just keep a couple of violins here and there, but other than that, kick them off the stage. Keep the trumpets and the trombones, though. We're going to need those. Also, one thing – I can see a bunch of saxophones over on that cardboard box behind the drum kit from where I'm standing. So try to replace whatever the violinists are holding with those, I'm sure the system will adapt itself, also…"
"Wait, wait, wait just a minute," Klyde cut her off. "What are you trying to do exactly?"
"What does it look like I'm trying to do? I'm going to perform."
"What? Are you mad?" Both Koo and Klyde shouted at the same time.
"Listen to me, this place, this show, it's a never-ending show, a show that will go on for the rest of eternity unless someone finishes it, and it sure isn't going to be any of those mannequins standing up there. So we have to perform. And we can't just perform anything we want either, we HAVE to do it right. I have a feeling the audience isn't a super forgiving bunch, they seem hard to please. Look, I know this sounds hard to believe, but I've figured it out. None of you will be able to beat this thing without me. And that's not my hubris talking. This theater was designed specifically for me, and that is the reason why anybody else who tries to solve this train car will lose. No other way around it."
"How do you know it's made specifically for you?"
"The drums, the saxophones," she explained. "He knows who I am. Who I was, what I've done. He knows my demons… if… if I for whatever reason can't perform… then we lose."
"How do you know you're going to be able to perform then?" Klyde asked.
But Tulip merely shrugged:
"I don't."
She was trying to come off as carefree and confident, but Klyde could see right through her. Tulip turned to the owl and said:
"You never told me how my previous version lost her memory… even after the greatest con in history. You never told me how I lost."
Koo gave a long disappointed sigh – disappointed not towards her but himself:
"I… I'm sorry… I… was not there. I do not know what happened… I'm sorry…"
Tulip nodded:
"Figures."
The shuffling noises began to grow louder, almost to the point of it sounding like footsteps. But it was too dark to make anything out.
"Go!" She commanded them. "This is our last chance."
The gecko and the owl bolted right towards the stage where the orchestra was still raging on. The audience began turning their heads and looked on with their ghostly pairs of blue glowing eyes. They watched and proceeded to do nothing.
Tulip went straight towards the drum kit behind the curtains. She was a little short for the height of the stage, but one small leap off the ground was enough for her to grab onto the ledges and pull herself up.
The kit was surprisingly clean and not covered in debris, dust or any kind of filth whatsoever. The metal of the edges and the gold of the cymbals seemed as if they were forged from the stars themselves. Not just shiny and reflective, but thick and powerful as well. Tulip could already feel the strength of the sound even without having to hit it with the stick.
There was only one reason why the kit was so clean and undamaged in a room full of old broken down mannequins.
He knew they were coming, so he prepared this for her.
Meanwhile, Klyde and Koo were furiously kicking off all the violinists and the singers they could lay their hands on, while also tossing all the unnecessary instruments off the stage, one piece at a time. Klyde was mostly the one doing the heavy work obviously because Koo was so tiny, he tried to help pushing it but in the end it didn't matter all that much because Klyde was just that much stronger.
Tulip was thankful she didn't hear anybody in the crowd gasping out of shock. It reaffirmed her theory on how this was all a setup.
"We got most of them off the stage, Tulip," said Klyde.
"Good, the saxophones are here in the boxes. You know what to do."
"You sure you know what you're doing?" Koo asked.
"No I'm not, now help me push the drums will you? Thankfully this thing comes with wheels."
"Out into the center of the stage?" Klyde asked.
"Yeah, yeah, where the timpani was… ooh, I almost forgot."
Tulip lunged to the back into the shadows of the curtains where the cardboard boxes were. She rummaged through the various broken instruments and equipment.
"It's in here somewhere, I can feel it," she mumbled to herself.
"What's in there?"
"AHA!"
Tulip pulled out a folder from under the disorganized boxes, inside was a sheet music. Just like the kit, it did not look torn or dusty at all. In fact it looked as if it was printed five minutes ago.
"Caravan," Tulip said.
"Cara… what?" Klyde asked confusedly.
"You know? Caravan. Oh, right, right, you don't know. This came after '71. It's a Jazz standard you see. Duke Ellington, 1936. I practiced this a while back with my um… ahem… well, I practiced this a while back. I'm a bit rusty, but I should be able to improvise along the way."
"Uh… Jazz?" Klyde continued to look confused.
"You know what? I don't have time to explain. Let's just say I have a feeling if we play any song other than this we are going to lose. Now let's push this thing out."
"Right."
Klyde, using all of his reptilian might, dragged the board with wheels beneath the drum kit by his bare hands right out into the light of the theater. It was like holding on to a lump of solid gold.
Tulip picked up the pair of drumsticks she found in the box and ran out onto the stage.
The light of the theater was blinding, and the blue eyes of the audience staring right at her gave her this uneasy feeling that was somehow nerve-racking… and yet exciting and familiar at the same time. Tulip knew deep down that some previous versions of her had done this a million times before. But she also now understood that there was the possibility that it was her who was the one who had done this a million times before, not any previous versions.
The sound of the footsteps were growing even louder now, and the audience glared even more intensely.
There was no turning back now.
Tulip picked up the drumsticks, the wood was smooth and familiar, oozing with untapped power. Not in the wood itself, but in her palms. It had been so long. She slowly slipped the first stick in between her middle and ring finger of her left hand, then held up the second in her right, it was all coming back to her now.
"Um, why are you holding the sticks like that?" Koo asked, "It looks weird. You look like those kids in marching bands with the drums."
"It's the traditional grip," Tulip told him. "My… ahem… my old man… he's old school like that. He… taught me that."
Koo tilted his head, picking up a strange sadness in her tone of voice.
"Still hung up about him huh?"
Reluctantly, Tulip nodded her head.
"Listen," Koo flew by closer, "I know I may have sounded a bit… insensitive back in that car with the mirrors. And I'm sorry, but you don't have to do this if you don't want to. I get it, trust me I do. It's not easy facing the past. Heck, I've been running and hiding for as long as I remember. Because I thought, you know, if I could just constantly run away with someone else backing me up I wouldn't have to feel so… ashamed of who I was… who I am."
"It's okay, Koo," she said, "You don't have to tell me… I know. Thank you… old friend. We'll get through this, I promise, so that the two of us will never have to run ever again."
Koo gave her a warm smile, one of the few genuine ones he had ever given.
"Tulip… are you sure about this?" Klyde asked.
"Honestly? No… there are still a few things missing, like the piano. There's a celesta over there if you want to give it a shot, but…"
"I'm not talking about the instruments. I'm talking about you."
"Oh…" Tulip simply shrugged, "can't know if we don't try. I'm going to need you to help me fend off those Stewards in case they come anywhere near the stage. Think you can do that?"
Klyde gave her a big grin:
"Good luck, Tulip. You'll need it more than I do. Come on, Koo. Let's go."
And so the two of them leapt off from the stage and disappeared into the darkness of the audience, leaving Tulip alone behind the drums.
But…
Tulip knew…
Right there and then…
She was not alone.
The empty conductor podium in the front of the stage, the podium that was empty before…
Was not empty now.
There he stood, behind the darkness and the light of the theater. In his white uniform.
There was a baton in his hand, Tulip also noticed he was wearing a pair of white gloves.
It was difficult to make out what his face looked like, partially because of the darkness and the light of the theater. But Tulip had a guess that even without any of those she would still not be able to see any of the details.
But she knew it was him. No doubt about it. All of this, the drums, the song, the boxes, the doors, she knew he was expecting her.
He was right there, just a few steps right in front of her. It would've been so easy to just get up and confront him, ask him, demand him answers and a means to go home.
But Tulip knew – she knew this was a challenge. He expected her to struggle playing, struggle with her past, struggle with her inner demons and in the end choke up in the middle of her performance.
He was wrong.
Without a moment's notice, he raised the baton up high. He was tall, imposing, confident, fearless, grand, perfect, skillful, shrewd, experienced, commanding.
But he did not underestimate Tulip. That much he knew.
Tulip started off with a simple rudiment working off the snare drum and the hi-hat. Tapping super lightly on the gold, not even a tap to be frank, more like caressing it gently as if stroking a child or a pet. It was a simple beat, nothing too fancy, good enough to let the other musicians slide in seamlessly.
One thing Tulip noticed right away was the sound of a piano joining in shortly after she had started. She turned her head and there it was, a mannequin in an old black suit, sitting by a grand piano that appeared out of nowhere, tapping on the piano keys. It was rather ominous, and gloomy in tone.
The shuffling noise behind the audience began to grow even louder now. There were even sounds of whispers mixed in. There were pounding sounds, and sounds of metal breaking. They must be getting physical down there.
Tulip took one look at the Conductor. She still could not see his face. But she was sure that he could see hers.
She smiled.
And then began to speed things up.
The tempo was getting more intense. She was still following the rhythm of his baton wave. But she knew then she was the one in charge of the sound, the rhythm.
The pounding of the bass, the tapping of the cymbals, the rolling of the snare, it was all coming back to her now. All the things she had been desperately trying to deny for so long. It took a short while before she was finally able to overcome the awkward out-of-practice feeling. After that it was just a matter of slipping back into her groove, which made all this something she could do even with her eyes closed.
The beats were accelerating, pounding, sneaking into the darkness.
It was too easy, which would've normally be a cause for alarm, but she knew how this story was supposed to go. The last thing she was going to do was let this be a typical and predictable hero's journey where the hero would go through a conflict that he would inevitably struggle immensely to overcome. It was just logical.
This however didn't make logical sense, but once she got her muscle memory back, this was not a challenge anymore. She didn't even have to break a sweat.
Tulip sat there, reminiscing the time in the past when she would lament how none of this made sense, how stories needed to be logical, needed to follow a structure.
That was the sign for Tulip to realize then – she was not that same person anymore.
The sounds of footsteps grew even louder, as did the sound of the metal being torn apart. The fight was raging on. But there was another sound that snuck into her ears, making her hair stand – a voice:
"Re… re… turn to you… your seat…"
The tentacle robot.
Even now, she still held fear in that monster, a fear she could not understand nor explain. A fear she did not know whether from her worrying for Koo's and Klyde's life or from worrying for her own life. The answer would've been easy if this was a long time ago – but now she realized she had someone other than herself to fight for.
The song was near its end now, the trumpets, the trombones were roaring.
Tulip decided then she was not going to let this end in mediocrity.
So she began speeding up the drums even more.
The orchestra stopped – but Tulip was still going.
The beats on the snare, the banging on the cymbals – they were like machine guns.
Tulip poured every ounce of strength and stamina she had left onto the kit, slamming her feet into the bass and the hi-hat pedals. Her sweat burned under the heat of the theater light, she even began to emanate steam from her body, which was impossible – but not on this train.
On this train, she was drumming faster than she had ever been able to in her entire life, moving from the tom-toms to the crash cymbals and back down the snare in a blink of an eye. And she knew right there and then that this speed wasn't because of some magical power boost the train granted her.
She knew it was simply because she had finally accepted who she was.
And thus the power came pouring into her fingers, sharpening her senses, her reflexes, giving her those muscles and stamina she had long forgotten.
And in the end…
She finished the song only to then be met with the loudest round of applause she had ever heard in her life.
But when she looked up – every single mannequin in the audience had vanished.
Even the musicians on stage, the violinists, the pianist. Even Klyde and Koo – all gone.
Even the conductor podium was empty.
