Chapter 1: Book:1 | Arc:1 | Ch:1

Book 1: The Aeternum Train

Arc 1: Confusion and Despair

'A Tuesday, huh.'

The worst day to have school and yet, I still had to go.

Well, it wasn't all bad since I had anime to look forward to when I got back home... and Mondays are worse. I needed to re-watch all of Tensura, if I didn't I wouldn't remember what happened before season 2.

'Right, I should probably get out of bed...'

I swung my feet to the right and stood up to look around my room. Next to my bed was a 1 meter cube with two shelves inside containing my anime figurines and my manga, Tensura merchandise being most prevalent. Below the shelves were boxes containing my tens of thousands of Pokémon cards and other merchandise gathered from afar. The wall opposite to my bed had a window from the top to around half a meter or so above the floor. There was a desk that goes up to where the window ends which hosted my laptop and tons of papers for homework, projects and some failed sketches. The chair was a beautifully soft crimson-backed black spinning chair. Of course, it always has to be a spinning chair, doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't change.

I meandered over to my spinning chair and took the clothes I prepared the night before and went for a shower. Out of the shower an hour later and dry, I got dressed in the prepared clothes: my grey t-shirt and my black-red button-down shirt over it, my black-red cargo pants and my red socks.

Don't judge me, I like these colors...

Down two sets of stairs later and I was on the ground floor putting the book I'm reading down on a random bookcase before going to the kitchen to make pancakes.

40 minutes of repeatedly pouring batter later I stepped out of the kitchen with 24 pancakes laid out in three stacks on a plate, it took a good 10 minutes purely balancing the stacks. I put the plate down on the table before I heard the pitter patter of footsteps and glanced back. I saw my sister walking down the stairs in pyjamas before coming over to the table just to stare greedily at the pancakes before looking at me.

I stared at her with a frightening frowning face, "No. Get ready for school before you get any."

She pouted and opened her mouth before her gaze turned deep and she decided to close her mouth and went upstairs to get ready for school. Hopefully.

I turned back to the stack of pancakes and licked my lips. After a few minutes setting the table, I sat down, served myself 4 pancakes and put my fair share of butter and syrup.

'Time to dig in.'

Following my pancakes end was the appearance of my little sister, little brother and older brother.

My older brother Fennes was a lean and tall man of 1.9 meters. He had sharp dark green eyes and messy black hair, a somewhat rounded chin, bridged nose and thin lips. He had been wearing a white t-shirt and a black button down with black jeans to match, the weird part was definitely his mismatched black and white socks.

He stared piercingly at me before sitting down while I shrugged and looked over at the other two.

My little sister had a relatively petite figure at 1.5 almost 1.6 meters. Cyrili bore soft hazel eyes with shoulder length golden brown hair, a button nose and thin lips with a rosy complexion. She wore a light blue blouse with short sleeves over her black sleeved shirt at the time. Paired with her black tights and navy blue shorts, she had a somewhat similar appearance to a doll.

She stared intently at the pancakes and then reached for an entire stack only to have her hand whacked away by my little brother Wrogue, or as everyone called him, Roro.

Roro's round face, with some remnants of his baby fat, contained curious emerald eyes and dark brown hair which matched his dark green t-shirt, button down shirt and jeans with brown socks to boot. He was roughly 1.5 meters at the time.

Roro also glared at me before rolling his eyes, picking up his pancakes and then sat down to eat.

After I've finished my pancakes I stood to clear my plate and almost ran into my dad when I turned the corner.

His rough voice sounded out, "Morning kid. What'd you make this time?"

I replied simply "Pancakes. Don't take more than four."

I then scooted around him to go clear my plate. I placed my plate on the counter and my mother came down the stairs and waved.

"Good morning Nika, how's the-"

Interrupted by a *clank* from the dining room, we looked out of the room. With my knowledge of my siblings present in my mind I thought up some scenarios while we went to check what happened.

Both me and my mother waltzed in and saw the situation. Fennes was eating without a care in the world, while Cyrili and Roro stood up glaring and borderline growling at each other. I looked at the table and saw the maple syrup spilled on the table with a water cup also spilled on the floor. I looked at the Maple Syrup and I could feel my blood boiling.

I walked as close to my growling siblings as I could get and death-gripped both their heads.

In a deathly cold, irritated tone I spoke to them as they turned their heads towards the 'smile' on my twitching expression.

"That was the last bottle of Syrup."

They both seemed to shiver before speaking incoherently as I dragged them both to the couch and unceremoniously dropped them there. I glared at them and they shut up and started sitting stiffly and waited. I went to clean up the mess and after everyone else finished eating, myself included, I allowed them to come back to the table.

While I monitored my troublesome siblings, making sure they didn't do anything else, my father, Ysali, spoke to us.

"I'll be going to work now, good luck with school today kids and don't cause trouble."

A smile creeped up my face as me and my siblings turned to our father. We all spoke in sync as my father shivered in annoyance as a result.

""Goodbye, Father.""

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He glared sharply at Fennes who turned away and then scolded us with an annoyed glint in his eyes.

"Stop doing that, damn it, it's the creepiest thing you could possibly do!"

I nodded before checking my father has everything. His favorite blue pencil was behind his left ear, pairing weirdly well with his brown hair and hazel eyes. His clothing consisted of a thin blue button down over a light blue t-shirt and dark blue pants with a black belt. His shoes were completely white while his socks looked like zebras.

My mother's smile twitched at the sight of the lopsided brown and white striped tie around his collar.

"Bye Ysali, have fun at work."

She spoke as she fixed the tie. Father was hopeless with matters like that. Honestly though, I couldn't imagine my Father's co-workers caring about the tie.

After my siblings had finished eating they got up to leave and I gazed back at their places.

"Oi, clear your plates."

They both froze in their tracks before coming back and doing as such. I followed them and watched as they followed through with the direction. When they finished, I walked into the hall to pick out our jackets for the weather.

It was cloudy outside and I saw the dark grey tint emphasizing the chance of rain. Since it presumably wasn't going to rain meatballs, I prepared the normal rain jackets.

By the time I had gotten all of them from our nightmare of a closet, Fennes, Roro and Cyrili were lined up with their shoes on and bags held. I handed out the jackets, black to Fennes, red to Roro and green to Cyrili. Mine was a light blue. Quite a weird pairing with my red clothing but in the end I didn't care.

I opened the door and the four of us said goodbye to our mom, Sepharine, weird name to be honest, before leaving.

It took the usual half-hour walk to the train station and I boarded the next one on the way to my school. The train ride was soothing, calming even as I took in the passing sights as the train speeds by them. The stop I needed to get off at was soon announced and I stood to do so. In the corner of my eye, I spotted a few people with stereotypical American Government suits and glasses boarding the train and I felt glad I got off, I didn't want to be in a train car with someone like that, it would have made me nervous for no reason.

Soon after, I arrived at school and saw my friends there chatting and waiting for me at the front. They were too nice at times.

One was Hifumi Hades, a tall tomboy with a harsh personality and even harsher taste in men and women. Yeah, she's Bi-sexual, Bi-romantic too. She usually dressed in boys clothes and was in a relationship with Yuuki Malone, a straight man who had more A+'s than A's. If he could get an S, he'd get it. I wondered whether it was the dirty blonde hair and dark blue eyes with his sharp features or the gentlemanly personality he had that made her fall in love. Her usual taste was immensely different after all.

Other than that, there was my cousin Tyson Schulte with black hair and red dyed streaks that matched his rare red eyes. There was also Bilge Lambert and Moana Joyner. Both had dark brown hair while they had green and blue eyes respectively. I'm the only one who was average. Well, average in terms of our group, I wasn't narcissistic but I looked pretty dang good. Still, the others were damn supermodels. No, above that.

As I walked up, Moana spoke with her soft voice and sass overwhelmingly high.

"And? Why'd you take longer than usual. You're usually here before us."

"Siblings."

They all had a look of realisation. The momentary silence was then broken by Hifumi.

"Let's go then?"

We all then went inside and school progressed as it usually does: go to a class, learn, go to a new class, learn then eventually go to lunch. Then you go to more classes then home.

Except that for the past week, whenever I went to the train station to go home. There would be no-one there. It had almost always been bustling but now it was always empty and the sunset illuminates it as I waited for the train. However, it all passed a few seconds later and everything seemed to 'appear' out of nowhere. This is when the train I take opened its doors for people to get off and on.

Today was no different.

'Maybe I'm having repeat hallucinations...'

The first time it happened, I was severely creeped out and even missed the train home but I eventually got used to it. I stepped into the train and I saw them again, the same people with the government suits.

'What the hell is going on? Maybe they got an anonymous tip off about a terrorist group or something? Why are people like this here.'

I obviously wasn't the only one thinking something along those lines as the people around were giving them not so discreet stares and glances. I went right and sat near them in one of the only available seats.

My doing so seemed to have surprised some people from the few eyebrows raised I saw. One of which even came from one of the government people. I looked down and pulled out my phone, I started to read a webnovel and as I read, the clacking of the wheels against the tracks led me into a trance. An awkward silence had begun to stretch as a feeling of unease settled, causing my stomach to swirl as butterflies plagued it. I looked up and was met with a different sight than before.

I was still in the train, as were four of the ten government people and a handful of others. The differences were that we were the only people in the car and that the train car itself was completely different.

The chairs were softer, nicer, the sunset outside illuminated the inside of the car and changed its white and orange to a light yellow and really deep red.

"Well, I guess my notion of having a normal Tuesday is out the window now."

My mutterings went unheard as my life on the Train began. No longer did train rides feel calming.

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