Prologue: The Train Car

It was quiet. I opened my eyes, discovering I was inside a train car. The window was enveloped in the darkness of the night, and I had no way of distinguishing where the train was headed.

"Where is this?" My heart skipped a beat when I heard someone else's voice. I now realized there was someone sitting across from me. He looked more than twenty years old. As he drowsily opened his eyes, there was a bewildered expression on his face.

I had no way of answering his question because I seemed to have lost my memories. I couldn't recall anything that happened before I awoke. I looked around. There were more than ten people in the train car, and they all appeared to have woken up from a deep sleep, their expressions vacant.

Soon, many started asking the same question.

"Where am I?"

No one had an answer to this question. The train continued to rumble as before, and with it, the silence grew ever louder.

I couldn't endure this kind of atmosphere, so I decided to take a walk in the train car. I quickly walked to the end of the car. There, I saw a strange machine. It seemed to be a ticket vending machine. On it, gray and white lines interweaved into a pattern. It surrounded a black screen, drawing people's gazes toward it.

I stopped walking and carefully sized up this strange machine. A faint light shone through the screen. Then, a white light lit in the center of the screen, and it eventually turned into an image. In it, the silhouette of a person appeared, his appearance hidden by the darkness. In the background were countless screens. Some of which were incessantly flashing, while others were flooded with white light. That person moved slightly, and my heart palpitated. I felt like he was staring at me.

"Welcome to the Late Night Train."

Everyone in the train car heard him speaking. One by one, they gathered around and inquired him in a rapid-fire manner.

"Who are you?"