(16) “No One Is Allowed to Get Off”
The red letters on the ticket were still seeping blood. Not ink, but something like a wound that had just been made—“No one is allowed to get off this train.”
Morse stared at it for several seconds, then looked up. “So that world just now… was a trap.”
The Conductor did not deny it. “Yes.”
Morse frowned. “Then why did you let us see it?”
“Not me.” The Conductor answered too quickly. Morse froze. For the first time, the Conductor did not finish his sentence. “Someone used the remnants of the Market Zero Archive to open a completed world. But that world shouldn’t exist.”
The Bookkeeper immediately cut in. “More precisely—” The old man looked at the ticket. “That world shouldn’t still have any ‘people.’”
Asti suddenly asked, “But I saw another me.” No one answered. She lowered her head and stared at her hands. “If she was real… then who was she?”
The Partner stood beside her. She had not spoken since earlier. Now, at last, she said quietly, “Maybe she was you.”
Asti looked up. “Maybe she wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
The Partner looked at her. “You’ve all been treating ‘Asti’ as a name. But in this world, a name doesn’t necessarily represent a person.” She pointed at the ticket in Morse’s hand. “It might represent a position.”
Morse understood immediately. “A passenger’s position.”
The Partner nodded. “Or—” She looked toward the blank door that had already sealed itself shut again. “The position of the absent.”
Suddenly, The Absent in the old man’s hands began turning its pages by itself. One page, two, three—the speed grew faster and faster. The old man’s expression changed. “That’s not right.”
Morse looked at him. “What is it?”
The old man did not answer. He opened the book. The densely packed names within were disappearing one by one—not crossed out, but vanishing from the paper entirely. One page, ten pages, a hundred pages, as if someone were deleting them from the back of the book forward.
The old man immediately pressed down on the pages. “Stop!” It was no use. The Absent continued turning on its own. At last, it stopped on a page. Only three names remained there—Morse, Asti, and Partner.
The old man looked at the third name, his face instantly darkening. “How could this be…”
The Partner saw it too and slowly walked over. “My name…”
The old man said nothing. The Partner reached out and touched the page. The next second, her name began to fade—the two characters of “Partner” growing paler bit by bit.
Asti grabbed her sharply. “Don’t touch it!” But it was already too late. The name disappeared, leaving only blank space on the page.
The Partner stared blankly at it. “So that’s how it is.”
Morse asked at once, “What?”
But she smiled, lightly, almost like the Asti he knew. “I’m not being collected. I’m being deleted.”
Morse’s expression turned grim. “By whom?”
The Partner raised her head. “I don’t know. But there’s one thing I’m certain of now.” She looked at the Conductor. “This isn’t the Conductor’s order.”
The Conductor did not argue. The Partner looked at the Bookkeeper next. “And it wasn’t the Bookkeeper.”
The old man fell silent. “Then who else can manipulate The Absent?”
No one answered this time. Until Morse suddenly remembered something. He looked at the ticket. “The eighth ride. If the seventh ride is the one we’re on now…” He paused. “Then what’s the eighth?”
Everyone fell silent at once. The Conductor slowly turned his head. “You’ve misunderstood.”
Morse frowned. “What?”
“The seventh ride isn’t the one you’re on now.” The Conductor looked at him. “The seventh ride has already begun.”
Morse froze. The Conductor pointed at the ticket in his hand. “It began when you took this ticket at Market Zero. And the eighth—” He looked at Asti. “—is the next stop.”
Asti’s face slowly went pale. “Where’s the next stop?”
The Conductor did not answer. Instead, the announcement suddenly sounded—not in a mechanical voice, but in a man’s voice, hoarse and exhausted, yet exactly the same as Morse from the sixth ride: “Passengers, welcome back to the eighth ride. This train’s final destination—”
The announcement paused. The lights throughout Market Zero lit up one after another. In the distance came the sound of a train entering the station. Rumble. Rumble. Rumble. But this time, everyone saw it—the train emerging from the darkness was not the original one. It had no front and no rear. The entire train was like a massive iron ring joined end to end, stretching endlessly. Car after car followed, and in every window sat a Morse; in every window sat an Asti. Some were laughing, some crying, some arguing, some already dead, and some did not even have faces.
And at the window of the last car—a person was standing. She had not sat down. She simply watched the real Asti through the glass.
Asti’s lips began to tremble. “…That’s me.”
The Partner said softly, “No.” She stared at the figure. “That is—the original you.”
The train stopped, and the doors opened. Every “Morse” and “Asti” inside the cars turned their heads at the same time, then looked neatly toward the platform. No one spoke. Only the Asti in the last car raised her hand. She held a ticket identical to the one in Morse’s hand. Across the long stretch of cars, she said to the real Asti, “You finally came back.”
Asti went rigid. The announcement sounded again. “Second passenger confirmed. Asti. Identity: Original Passenger. Status: Escaped. Recovery procedure—restarting.”
Morse stepped in front of Asti. But this time, the Conductor did not stop him. Instead, he took a step back, deliberately yielding the train’s entrance for the first time.
Morse from the sixth ride stared at the door and said quietly, “This time… don’t trust any of us.”
Morse turned to him. “Including you?”
Sixth-ride Morse was silent for two seconds. “Especially me.”
The train doors slowly closed. But before they did, the “original Asti” deep inside the car suddenly smiled at Morse. Her lips silently formed a sentence. Morse understood it. Four words:
“You’ve killed me before.”
(17) “You’ve Killed Me Before”
The doors closed before their eyes. Yet those final words remained nailed inside Morse’s mind—you’ve killed me before.
The train began slowly leaving the platform. No one chased it, because everyone knew that catching up now would only make things worse.
Morse stood where he was, still gripping the ticket tightly. “…I’ve killed her?”
No one answered. He looked again at his sixth-ride self. “You know.” It was not a question, but a certainty.
Sixth-ride Morse did not deny it. “I know.”
Morse charged over and seized him by the collar. “When? Which time? How many times have I killed her?”
Sixth-ride Morse did not resist. He only looked at the version of himself before him with a strange expression, as if watching someone about to walk into a trap. “Do you really want to know? After I tell you, you might not want to save her anymore.”
Morse tightened his grip. “That’s my business.”
Sixth-ride Morse was silent for a moment. “Fine. The first time”—he held up one finger—“you killed Asti.”
Asti suddenly looked up. Morse did not loosen his grip. “Why?”
“She became the absent. She began making the people around her disappear. You thought she would keep spreading it, so you killed her.”
Morse was stunned.
“The second time”—a second finger—“you didn’t kill her. You chose to save her. The result?” Sixth-ride Morse looked toward the Bookkeeper. “The entire city disappeared.”
Asti’s face went white.
“The third time”—a third finger—“you escaped the train together. She lived, but you became the absent, and everyone forgot you.”
“The fourth time”—a fourth finger—“you let the Partner replace her.”
Morse jolted. The Partner’s expression changed as well.
“You separated her ‘absence’ and formed another personality. Me.” The Partner spoke quietly.
Sixth-ride Morse nodded. “But that time…” He paused. “You killed both of them.”
The air froze. Morse released his collar. The Partner stood motionless. Asti stared hard at sixth-ride Morse. “…What about the fifth time?”
Sixth-ride Morse did not answer. Asti asked again. “What happened the fifth time?”
This time, the Bookkeeper spoke. “There was no Morse on the fifth ride.”
Everyone froze. The old man looked at The Absent. “There was only Asti on the fifth ride.”
Morse whipped around. “What?”
“You didn’t board that time, but she did.” The old man slowly opened the book. A photograph appeared on the page. Asti stood alone on the train platform, holding a ticket. There was no one behind her. She was crying. Beneath the photograph was written:
—Fifth ride. Passenger: Asti. Companion: None. Result: Successfully got off.
Morse stared at the final four words. “Successfully got off?”
The Conductor suddenly spoke. “Error.” Everyone looked at him. He gazed at the photograph. “That wasn’t success. It was the first ‘result that should never have happened.’”
Morse frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Asti was never supposed to get off,” the Conductor said slowly. “She is the Original Passenger. Her existence itself is part of the train. For her to leave the train meant—” He paused. “bringing part of the train into reality.”
Asti lowered her head and looked at her hands. “So… I didn’t escape from the train.”
The Conductor nodded. “You escaped with the train.”
Those words silenced everyone. Morse suddenly remembered the anomalies in the first part—those nonexistent stations, Platform Four, Market Zero, those places that always appeared at the edge of reality. If Asti really was the one who had “escaped with the train,” then perhaps the reason those anomalies existed in reality was not that something had gone wrong with the world, but that she was the reason.
“Wait.” Morse suddenly looked up. “If she’s the Original Passenger, then why does she have a normal life? A job, a company, a life. Why does everyone know her?”
No one answered until sixth-ride Morse said, “Because of you.”
Morse froze. “Me?”
“Every time you saved her, you filled in part of her life, built her an identity, built her memories, built a reason for her to remain in reality.” Sixth-ride Morse raised his hand and pointed at Asti. “You thought you were saving a person. In truth, you were creating existence for someone who didn’t exist.”
Asti’s eyes slowly reddened. “Then what am I?”
No one answered. She looked at Morse. “Am I even human?”
Morse answered without hesitation. “Yes.”
“But—”
“Yes.” Morse interrupted her again.
Asti stared at him blankly. Morse walked over to her. “You can have no birth record, no household registration, no name recognized by the train. You can even be someone every Archive says doesn’t exist.” He took her hand. “But you’re standing here right now, so you are Asti.”
Asti said nothing, but tears fell from her eyes.
Just then—snap. The Absent suddenly closed itself in the Bookkeeper’s hands. The old man’s expression changed. “Oh no.”
Morse turned. “What now?”
The old man looked toward the direction the train had left. “The eighth train didn’t leave. It only changed locations.”
“Where did it go?”
The old man was silent, then gave the answer Morse least wanted to hear. “Reality.”
The next second, every light on Market Zero went out at once. The sound of a train entering the station came from far away. But this time, no train appeared. Only a broadcast echoed from every direction at once, in Asti’s voice: “Morse, I’ll be waiting for you in reality.”
Morse abruptly looked up. But the final sentence of the broadcast changed to another voice—that of the “original Asti”: “If you still remember me”—a pause—“then don’t kill me again.”
(18) “The Train in Reality”
After the broadcast disappeared, Market Zero remained silent for three full seconds. Then—a phone rang. It was not Morse’s, but Asti’s.
She froze for a moment, then took the phone from her pocket. There was no caller ID, only a name on the screen: Morse.
Morse was standing right in front of her. “Answer it.”
Asti looked at him. “Are you sure?”
“Answer it.”
She pressed the call button. There was no sound, only a faint hiss. Static… static… static… Then Morse’s voice came from the other end. “Asti.”
Her face changed instantly, because that voice sounded more exhausted than the Morse standing beside her. “Where are you right now?”
Asti did not answer. The person on the phone continued, “Don’t trust the person standing beside you.”
Morse suddenly looked up. Sixth-ride Morse turned as well. “Hang up.”
The voice on the phone suddenly laughed. “Did you hear that? He told you to hang up because he knows—if you keep listening, you’ll remember.”
Asti’s hand began to tremble. Morse reached out. “Give it to me.” But she instinctively took a step back. Morse stopped—not out of anger, but because he saw the fear in Asti’s eyes. She was afraid of him for the first time.
The voice continued. “Asti, when you first met Morse, he wasn’t like this.”
Asti froze. “He wasn’t this old.”
Morse frowned. The voice on the other end continued. “Because at that time—he was already dead.”
Click. The call ended. Everyone fell silent.
Asti looked at Morse. “…What does that mean?”
Morse did not answer, because he did not know either. But sixth-ride Morse suddenly walked over. “Give me the phone.”
Asti did not move. “Give it to me.” His voice was heavy this time. Asti slowly handed him the phone.
Sixth-ride Morse took it. The screen showed only one line: “Missed call: Morse,” with a time beneath it—11:17 p.m.
When sixth-ride Morse saw the time, his face became horrifyingly grim. “Impossible.”
Morse looked at him. “You know?”
“This is the sixth time.”
“What?”
Sixth-ride Morse raised his head. “Before the train appears, it’s always 11:17 p.m.”
The Bookkeeper suddenly stood. “No.” He opened The Absent. This time, the pages held no names, only one time—11:17 p.m.
The old man stared at the numbers. “It isn’t that the train appears at 11:17. It’s that reality begins to be ‘absent’ at 11:17.”
Morse finally understood. “So the call didn’t come from the train.”
The old man nodded. “The call came from reality, and—” He looked at Asti. “from a reality that is already absent.”
The next second, the phone rang again. No one moved. Ring… ring… ring…
Asti lowered her head and looked at the screen. This time, the caller ID had changed. It was not “Morse,” but “Asti.”
Her face went deathly pale. “It’s me.”
Morse stared at the screen. “Answer it.”
Asti looked up. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“I am,” Morse said calmly. “But I’m more afraid of you answering it alone.”
Asti was silent for a moment, then pressed answer. “Hello?”
There was no response from the other end. Several seconds later, a woman began to cry—softly and distantly, as if from the bottom of very deep water. “I don’t want to ride anymore…”
Asti went completely rigid. “Who is this?”
The woman sobbed. “I’ve ridden so many times. Every time, I go back. Every time, I meet him.”
Asti tightened her grip on the phone. “Who are you?”
The woman suddenly stopped crying, then answered in Asti’s own voice. “I’m you.”
All color drained from Asti’s face. Morse grabbed her shoulder. “Asti.”
The woman continued, “But I’m already dead. So the me you’re seeing now—is only the part of you that hasn’t died yet.”
Click! The call abruptly ended.
Asti staggered backward as if all strength had left her. Morse immediately caught her. “Don’t believe it.”
But she whispered, “I’ve seen her.”
Morse froze. “What?”
Asti raised her head. “Not today. In a dream.” Her breathing quickened. “A long time ago… I used to dream about a station. I’d stand on the platform, and someone exactly like me would sit inside the train, always telling me not to get on.”
Morse suddenly remembered something. “Did you see her ticket?”
Asti froze, then slowly nodded. “Yes.”
“What did it say?”
Asti closed her eyes, struggling to remember. “I couldn’t see clearly, but…” She opened her eyes. “There was a number.”
“How much?”
“Zero.”
Morse’s heart sank. Zero. Not Market Zero, not Platform Zero, but—Passenger Zero.
Sixth-ride Morse suddenly stepped back. “That’s not right.” Everyone looked at him. He stared at Asti. “You said she told you not to get on?”
Asti nodded.
“Then why was she on the train herself?”
No one answered. Sixth-ride Morse’s face grew darker and darker. “Because she wasn’t stopping you from getting on. She was waiting for you.”
Morse picked up the thought. “Waiting for you to replace her.”
“Yes.” Sixth-ride Morse looked at him. “And that is the true purpose of Train Eight. It isn’t trying to take Asti back.” He looked into the distance. “It wants the Asti who exists now—to replace the Asti who is already dead.”
Boom! Market Zero suddenly shook violently. The ground split open, and a railway track slowly rose from the crack. Then a second, a third, a fourth. Countless tracks extended from underground, leading to no station at all, but running straight into the void.
The Bookkeeper stared at the scene, his face as ugly as it could get. “It isn’t Train Eight.”
Morse turned around. The old man said each word slowly. “It’s Train Zero.”
The Conductor finally raised his head. For the first time, his voice carried a genuine warning. “All passengers, leave Market Zero immediately. This place is about to enter—”
Before he could finish, all the tracks lit up at once. A black train with no windows slowly rose from underground. Its body bore no number, no station name, and no Archive stamp. There was only a single white character: “0.”
The doors opened. There were no passengers inside, only rows of empty seats, with a ticket placed in front of each one.
Morse approached. The first ticket—Morse. The second—Asti. The third—Partner. The fourth made him stop. It had no name, only a date—tomorrow. The fifth—Morse. The sixth—Asti. …The seats extended without end, every ticket representing a ride that had yet to happen.
And in the driver’s cab at the very front, behind black glass, a figure slowly sat down. The person raised his head. Morse could not make out his face, but he knew who it was. The man in the cab looked at him through the glass, then raised his hand and made a familiar gesture—knocking three times on the window. Knock. Knock. Knock.
Sixth-ride Morse suddenly whispered, “…I know who he is.”
Morse looked at him. “Who?”
He did not answer. He only stared at the cab, his face deathly pale. “It isn’t the seventh you, or the sixth me. It’s—” He paused. “The Morse who died the first time.”