Chapter Text
‘Vivi, wait up!’ I yelled at the girl striding in front of me, running hurriedly to catch up to her. It was 4 o’clock, and school was over. For once, I didn’t have any clubs after-school, so, I could finally go home on the 4:15 train.
Finally, my favourite part of the day, I thought, hoping that my dad would let me watch some tv before I had to do my homework.
‘Are you taking the train today?’ I asked as I caught up to Vivi, walking side by side, out of the school grounds.
‘Yep!’ she replied, casually brushing away a stray twig that had fallen into her hair.
‘Cause the traffic is absolutely horrible today.’ Vivi continued, pulling a face. I nodded in agreement. This week, there had been roadworks by Oakfield Park, and you could see millions of cars stuck in traffic. So, loads of kids chose to take the train instead.
Since so many people were going, the train would be really crowded, but that would be better than sitting in traffic for hour, I thought to myself.
We strode to the station rather quickly and waited a few minutes in silence.
Damn, the train was delayed, I thought, but I wasn’t surprised. Naturally, I started reading my book; I read in any spare moment. Unsurprisingly, Vivi was doing the same, and we had a brief, but exciting conversation about the books we were reading. We had similar tastes in books, so we always asked the other when we needed new recommendations, and it felt great to to talk to someone who understood the books I read. Our most recent one was a gripping tale of a fantasy world that had collided into real life, and it was captivating. We both stayed up reading it and wondered what it would be like if that happened to us. Would it be exciting? Terrifying? Or a mix of both? Well, we would soon find out…
A few minutes later, the train screeched to a halt in front of us, and the doors slid open to let us through.
‘Hey, Kana?’ said Vivi. ‘What’s the time?’
Not bothering to say that she could just check the screen where the ads were shown, I glanced at my watch just to be sure.
‘Strange…’ I muttered, and Vivi heard me.
‘Hmm? What’s wrong?’ She asked, and I just showed her my watch in reply. The digits kept on switching again and again dizzyingly.
‘Uhhh…What the heck?!’ She cried. ‘What is this?
‘I don’t know…’ I replied. ‘It seems something is messing with the magnetic fields.’
‘Wow, always the smart one, hm?’ She said teasingly.
I replied quickly. ‘Uh, no. We both know that Helena is the smartest in our friend group.’
Vivi shrugged; she couldn’t argue with that.
After a few minutes, Vivi found someone with a mechanical watch that seemed to still be functioning. ‘Hi, could you possibly tell us the time? My friend’s watch is broken.’ She put on an angelic face and smiled.
Wow, I thought. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve believed that act.
‘You really are born to be an actor, you know.’ I complimented her.
‘It’s nothing special.’ She teasingly pretended to fiddle bashfully, before throwing me a somewhat devious look while waggling her eyebrows.
‘Anyways, it’s ten to five.’
“Thanks.” I nodded briefly.
A few more minutes passed, and I tried to continue reading, but I had a bad feeling. Like… something catastrophic was going to happen. I was wondering whether to tell Vivi when the carriage shook.
‘Argh!’ Shocked cries of passengers resounded all around as they tumbled and fell. Vivi and I barely managed to stay on our feet (only because we grabbed a metal bar and held onto each other as tightly as we could). The man that had told Vivi the time flew past us, and I glimpsed a flash of his watch.
It was five o’clock.