The train is gone. Gone, like everything else. Every image out of the train passes and goes, it never stays. The pictures out are too tedious to see, stains of green, pink, black, blue, white, it all mixes outside, behind the shaking plexiglas windows, where no one could reach, even if they endlessly try. It's out, where the wind blows too strongly, where every droplet of evening dew burns like acid, where every cloud seems like black smoke intoxicating the air, her lungs, they melt with the train's smoke, flying freely in the sky she can't see, she can't make out correctly, the train is too fast and her eyes are too tired. The air is heavy, too. It crushes her on her seat. It reeks of sweat and lies, too, it hits her nose, makes her gag. Her eyes tear up because of it. Maybe because of something else, surely too much things at once, but she tries to focus on one and only one thing. One at the time. Breathe. Fill your lungs with hope and exhale all your bad thoughts. She does, and the smell hits her even more. She focuses on the terrible smell instead of on this tragedy. And for a moment, it works.
But soon, she's out of the city, and the painting outside changes. Melted buildings are replaced by unfamiliar landscapes, ones she must have seen before but long forgotten, maybe purposely erased. And this change, the speed the train takes, makes her head spin. The smell isn't enough anymore. The familiar lull of a piano composition plays discretely, repeating the same notes again and again, almost inaudible against the regular sound of the metallic train. One, two, three, one, two, three. She steals a glance at her parents silently arguing from afar and takes her phone out of her small pocket discretely. Dozens of names are displayed on her screen. They all tried to contact her in a way. The guilt of her silent burns her throat. She couldn't answer their call, not like this, not now, stuck in her own train of thoughts, hostage of her own parents. But the names on the screen, lighting upon her hand shakily holding the phone, make her tear up again, and her wet and bloodshot eyes stare intensely at one familiar name. She badly wants to answer but she fears being caught by the two human-like monsters with her parents' names and appearances. The regular piano plays again, and his name flashes on her eyes. She fixes the screen, her parents and, hesitation buzzing on her mind, she slowly unlocks the phone, giving a chance to Shouto's voice to inaudibly penetrate her ears. She doesn't understand a word he says. He runs, he's out of breath, he seems alert and lost, worrying for her, for himself, for their own future as heroes, as adults, as lovers. He seems to worry too much about too many, and she can't blame him. She worries too, about the same. And this familiar, that yells his love, his promises, this voice that only wants to bring reassurance, helps her little heart, makes her calm and hopeful again, despite the lack of understanding. She only hears his voice, and that's the only sound she needs, crushed under a ton of metal, iron, heavy air and disgusting smell. She sighs and he seems to hear her, he becomes silent on the other side of the line. But his constant panting and heavy breath prove that he's still running, running to catch her, to find her, help her in the best way he can. She bends down, head over scratched knees, and breathes through the thin fabric of her green skirt.
"I'm going back home. Please, Shouto, find me," she whispers, breath shallow, hot against her cold legs.
"Where do you live ? Are your parents with you ?" He's tired- no, exhausted, and voices behind his own tell her that he's not alone.
"I live out of the city. I'm in a train, the last one. We'll stop at the terminus, it's not far. I'm begging you, hurry," she says too loudly, her voice quivering, bouncing against the train's shaking walls. Footsteps echo against the metallic ground, she knows they heard her. "Please, get me out of here," and before he can answer her pleas, her phone is taken away and thrown out by the opened window, becoming only a gray stain melting with the night. "Please !" she extends her arms, trying to catch what she would never be able to catch. But she soon shakes her begs away, fearing her father's hand falling on her instead.
The slap is too loud for her ears. It resonates against her bones, the sound of her father's palm hitting her skin stays in her head, bringing a headache she never experienced before. She can't even hear her cries of pain and pleas. She can't even recognize her own voice anymore. It hurts.
"Darling, don't hit her, please !"
Her mother's too kind, but they're fighting again, and at the end, she doesn't help. Momo quivers, covering her cheek with her sweaty hands, cowering against the shaking window. Shadows dance against the transparent vibrating glass. Shadows of her parents arguing again about her own future, about the choices she couldn't make, at the end. They dance and dance and dance, hideous yet graceful under the night's veil. Her head hits the glass and, slowly, her mind drifts away, eyes unfocused on the strange kaleidoscope that the night paints just for her. Voices lull her, and she sleeps. No state, nothing, just sleep. Because nothing comes when you don't deserve it, she knows, now. So she sleeps.