The metro train was late, again. It always seemed to be late when Matthew was in a hurry. Ordinarily, he would have been philosophical about it, and might even have indulged in a hot dog sold by one of the vendors walking around the square. He had a great capacity to enjoy himself in situations that other people might find as nothing but a nuisance. Today, however, he was impatient to get home. It had not been a good trip. He had missed a connecting flight on his way back and had already had to spend an extra night in the cheap motel, begrudgingly provided for him by his workplace. Then, when he did get aboard a flight, technical difficulties forced the flight to land and further delayed him.
The whole thing had been long, tedious, and frustrating. Nothing even made an interesting story to tell his friends back at the office. Although the emergency landing had been rather odd, thinking back on it. He hadn’t been quite awake at that point of the journey, and apparently the events of the breakdown were mingled with an unpleasant dream he had been having at the time. There seemed to have been a lot of yelling, and a young man in a hooded sweatshirt standing at the front of the cabin holding everyone hostage. That had to have been the nightmare. Something about a fuel tank - or was that the dream? Then he could have sworn they had crashed, but considering he appeared to be very much alive at the moment that must have been a dream too. At any rate, he was tired, and ready to get back to his home and forget about work and airplane travel for a while.
After what seemed like ages, the train pulled into the station. Matthew climbed aboard and took hold of a strap. Of course I’d have to stand, he thought angrily to himself. All the seats were taken. Maybe the trip won’t be so bad. Hopefully. Just a while longer and I can get back to my bed. This thought made him a little happier. He began to daydream, as someone often does when fatigued, about sleep. Perhaps he would even try for a lucid dream tonight. Nah – too tired. Dreamless sleep would be good enough.
The train made a few stops, which were mainly uneventful. At one stop, a group of teenagers boarded, and grabbed the straps in front of him. Matthew sighed resignedly as they began to act like the undesirable fellow passengers that he feared they would be. He wasn’t much for vulgarity himself, and today of all days he wasn’t in the mood for the overabundance of cursing that the emanated from the group. Nor was he in the mood for their antisocial behavior, which eventually began to get on the nerves of the other passengers as well.
Things quickly went from bad to worse. The kids began to drop stink bombs. This was the last straw. Matthew spoke up.
“See here,” he said, trying to control himself and sound reasonable, “you guys can play when you get to your next stop. But some of us have had long days and just want to get home. Could you have a bit more respect here?”
One of the kids turned around quickly and peered into Matthew’s face. The eyes that looked at him alarmed Matthew. Something was not right with them. He noticed something about the other kids as well. At first they appeared to be normal street kids, though belligerent ones. But their eyes reflected a deadly seriousness that was also frightening. Menacing, in fact. It told him that the kids were not being careless, but instead enjoyed inflicting unpleasantness on others. They did not even seem to be doing these things out of a warped sense of humor. The eyes glared out from under a dark hooded sweatshirt and spoke of pure, unadulterated malice. Matthew had never seen such hate, and had not been prepared to find it here.
The boy stared a moment, and then replied in a voice that was equally frightening- more of a hiss than a voice, really. “Don’t like the smell of eggs? Tssk. ” A bit of humor was in the intonation of these words, but again, not like the typical humor of a mere immature prankster. This was, well, demonic. Matthew opened his mouth to speak again, but the boy spoke again with a shockingly crude reply. The same hate and contempt dripped from the voice, and Matthew looked away from the piercing eyes to see the eyes of the rest of the group looking at him in the same way. He decided to back down.
At the next stop, the boys left the train. The one he had confronted turned to look at him again, and again Matthew had a sick feeling as their eyes met. From nowhere, he had a flashback to the nightmare on his airplane flight. There was a strange similarity between the boy and the hooded figure in his dream, he had to admit. But it was probably just his mind subconsciously filling in details. Man, he wished he were home.
Three stops later, he left the train. It was good to get out of the cramped, dismal atmosphere and into the fresh air. He stretched, picked up his suitcase, and looked around him in expectation of the welcome familiarity of his home station.
But it was neither welcoming nor familiar. This puzzled him. Surely he had gotten off at the right stop? He had to have, his station was the last stop on the line. Looking around, he saw no clue as to his whereabouts. The station was in a gorge, about 50 or 60 feet deep, large trees casting gloomy shadows from overhead. In front of him were stairs going up the hillside, leading away from the station. To his right was a bulletin board, with a map of the railway. This would help him get his bearings, certainly.
But it didn’t. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Surely this was a joke of some kind. The map showed the Green Line, the one that he had been traveling on, and all of the stations along the way. But this station wasn’t on the map! And the map displayed showed no indication of where this station was. He walked around the billboard to the other side. Here was displayed another map, this one with a large red X with the words printed below it “you are here”. But the map was blank.
“I’m nowhere?” Matthew said out loud, not sure how to react. He laughed incredulously, but he could feel a growing fear within. A distasteful thought had been growing in the back of his mind all day, and now, tired and confused it was starting to peep out from behind the barrier of his consciousness. What if it wasn’t a dream, back there on the plane? What if we crashed?
“But then I’d be dead…” he chuckled again and tried to ignore the ridiculous thought.
“Yes, you would be,” hissed a voice close to his ear.
Matthew turned to see the hooded face sneering at him. His heart lept into his mouth and he jumped away. Staggering back, he hid himself in the crowd. He tried to force himself to think, but no reasonable thoughts came. Deep down in his mind, he knew there was a dreadful idea that he did not want to face. An idea that the hooded one represented.
The exit to the gorge lay ahead of him. He mounted the stairs, hoping that at the top he would have a better view and see something familiar after all. But the higher he climbed, and the closer he drew to the exit, the less familiar things looked. In fact, everything concrete appeared to be fading away with each step.
And with it faded the dreadful atmosphere of the metro. He knew now what his subconscious had been telling him. He couldn’t fight it any longer, and as he reached the top of the steps he didn’t wish to any longer. He knew he had to let go.
