Once the man finishes tying the ropes around my wrists, he eases up in the seat across from me. He had since taken my gun and holster and hoisted them around his waist. He sighs and leans over with his knees on his elbows, staring at the ground while clasping his hands together; after a moment he looks back up at me. He sighs and fetches an small white box from his striped blue shirt pocket; a gold film was wrapped around the edges and a black silhouette of a man fused with an eagle graced the box's exterior. His hands shiver as he fumbles the cigarette towards his mouth.

"You're...smoking on the train?" I scoff.

He smiles wryly at me again without saying anything. He's an unkempt man, dressed in business casual, but half like a bum to anyone sensitive enough to notice or care. He sported a pair of black jeans, dark enough to successfully mimic a pair of dress pants, with suspenders slung across his shoulders and a striped white-and-blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His long hair almost touches his shoulders and sits behind his ears on both sides like a mullet; he hasn't shaved in at least a couple weeks. He strikes a match across the seat beside him before dragging it to the tip of his stoge, waving in the air, extinguishing the flame as he sits down and crosses his legs, leaning over and shutting his eyes as he continues to mull over whatever he was thinking about before.

"You've got bigger problems right now than second-hand smoke." he chuckles as he blows a ring of smoke into the air.

I'm not sure how to respond to that. I want to say, "Like what?" but I already have an inkling that the question is beyond anything he can answer. He doesn't understand what's going on either. It's hopeless.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

He stands up from his seat and tosses the cigarette to the side. It bounces against one of the silver poles before landing on the ground and he stomps the embers out onto the floor.

"How long have you been awake?" he replies, answering my question with a question.

"A couple of hours."

"A couple of hours? Shit, guess you're lucky I found you when I did."

"I thought you said I was 'shit out of luck'..."

"Even if you absolutely have to live, sometimes you're just better off dead."

He hangs his head once more as he returns to his seat and starts rubbing his eyes.

"I asked you what was going on!" I exclaim; he sighs as crosses his right leg over his left.

"What makes you think I know any better than you do?"

"For one, you've taken me prisoner, so you must be taking me somewhere. I want to know why!"

When I ask him this, he looks at me lasciviously before bursting into laughter.

"Reasons." he says bluntly.

"I'm not a virgin, you know!" I shout, which seems to make him laugh even harder.

"A virgin?" he scoffs, "What, you think I'm a sex trafficker or something?"

"You talk like a yakuza. It's creepy!"

"Think you got me all figured out now, do ya?"

"Alright then, where are we going? Surely you don't plan on keeping me tied up like this forever."

"Will you shut up if I tell you?"

I nod in affirmation.

"There's a guy who wants to talk to you; he's...a friend of mine. "

"What guy?"

"His name is 'Membrane'."

"I knew it! I knew you were a yakuza! That sounds like a yakuza's nickname!"

"Hahahah...he ain't no yakuza, but don't take my word for it. You just wait your pretty lil' head. You'll see for yourself when we get there."

He crosses his arms and turns his attention away from me, in the direction of the control car which is directly ahead of ours.

"I thought you said the city was deserted. Isn't there a human conductor running this train?"

"Yep. The trains run on time, day and night, rain or shine, seven days a week. Don't you know that?" he replies mockingly.

"Be serious."

"I am being serious. You wanna go take a look?"

He leaves his seat and beckons me towards him; I approach him from behind as he slides open the door, and my eyes drift towards my gun sitting in the holster by his right hip. He glances over his shoulder with an evil eye, saying "try me" with his gaze, but I had no intention of following through with my designs.

I follow him into the driver's car, and see a figure sitting in the driver's seat behind a window; he's surrounded by bells and whistles and the panel before him is covered in buttons, lights and meters. He's sitting slightly crooked in his chair, as if he's fallen asleep. The man approaches the window, and like a big cat, he takes his huge hand, with his freakishly long fingers, and slaps the conductors face with it, rocking his head back and forth.

"Hey, have you lost your mind? He's the driver!" I plead to him as I run over and attempt to nudge him out of the way. Suddenly he removes his hand, and I notice that beneath the conductors hat and hair lie a hollow expression; or rather, there was none. His face wasn't even there. Not a nose, not a lip; not even the tip of an eyelash, just a white wall.

"What did you do to his face?" I rear my shoulders and roll my feet a couple of steps back.

"I didn't do anything to him."

"Well, what's wrong with him then?!?"

"You really are new here!"

"This isn't funny! Is it an android?!?"

"No circuits. He's flesh and blood. But I wouldn't call him human for obvious reasons."

I stare deep into the darkness of the train tunnel, uncertain how to process everything that's going on around me. 

"Where are we?" I ask him

"We're in Owari."

"That's nonsense! Just how long have I been out!"

"See? You're already losing your mind. If I sat here and tried to explain all the shit I've seen to ya, you'd have a nervous breakdown denying it all. No point in deliberating over it; best that you take everything in as it comes along."

He gives me a light push forward back towards the train car and he nudges his chin towards my seat before returning to his own; I stare aimlessly out the window but the gangster seems to be taking everything lightly, leaning back in his seat with his legs crossed and arms folded behind his head. The rhythmic clacking of the train's wheels on the tracks is starting to make me feel drowsy.

"Look, I don't know what's going on. I don't understand any of this. But I need answers. And you're going to give them to me, whether you like it or not."

The gangster sighs heavily, finally sitting up straight to meet my gaze.

"Sometimes there are no answers."

"That's not true," I snap back.

He chuckles, a low rumble in his chest.

"Fine, how about we start with names? Is that good enough for you?"

"And what could I possibly gain from knowing your stupid name?"

"My name is Harley."

"'Haruhi'?"

"No, not 'Haruhi'. Harley!"

"What? That's not your real name!"

"Is too!"

"I knew it! You're a low-rent thug; you're even going by your gangster nickname!"

"You think I won't smack the shit outta you just 'cause you're a chick? You better pipe down! Yer pissin' me off!"

The air becomes thick with tension. I stare at him, anger and confusion mixing into a powder of emotions that threatens to explode inside of me.

"I don't care about your stupid name. I just want to know what the hell is going on here," I mutter through clenched teeth.

Harley sighs and leans back in his seat, running a hand through his long hair.

"You're a feisty one, ain't you? Right then, I suppose ya earned the right to know a bit more about what's going on."

He pauses, gazing at me intently.

"Not 'zactly sure what went down before I woke up, but there are only a few people left in the city. Most of them have been replaced by those things. There's no contact with the outside, no government, no organizations, no yakuza. If you think I'm runnin' some kinda scheme here, you're out of your mind."

I stare at him, my mouth open in disbelief.

"You're lying. This is some kind of sick joke, right?"

He shrugs.

"Believe what you want. But take a look around. When was the last time you've seen Owari this quiet, even at this time at night? Does anything look normal to you?"

"It doesn't." I shake my head in disbelief.

"'Zactly. 'Cause somethin weird is going on. Think we're livin' in the end times. Could even be way past it."

"I see."

He gets up from his seat and gives me a single pat on the head, and then goes back to staring out the window, leaving me to stew in my frustration. I look around, trying to find something, anything that could help me get out of this situation. But the train car is empty, and the windows reveal nothing but the blackness of the tunnel. Suddenly, the train starts to slow down, the rhythmic clacking of the wheels on the tracks becoming more pronounced. I look up, and through the window I see a light at the end of the tunnel. We're arriving at our destination.

The announcer's voice cracked the intercom:

"Bzzzzzzt. Everyone! Only 1 minute remains until arrival at Kuraokami Station! Thank you!"

As Harley stands up, he adjusts his tie and fixes one of his suspenders that had gone crooked. When the train began to slow, he reloads his pistol with a clip that sits in the back of his pocket and grabs his sawed-off shotgun.

"Get up and hang on to that thing above you, looks like we're fixin' for a hard stop."

I latch onto the strap above me and carried my feet onto the floor. The breaks on the train were engaged for a second, but the train ultimately maintained it's speed as we began to pass.

"What the fuck? This thing is still going!"

He hangs the sawed-off over his shoulder by the strap and runs over to the train cab. He knocks and attempts to wrench the door open, but the cabin remains inaccessible for the time being. The train flies by the station and the artificial light engages the darkness as we fly through another winding tunnel.

"Shit! Now we're gonna have to walk all the way there! Open up, you bastard!" he bangs on the door, attempting to wrench it open, but it's locked

He kicks the steel door with his foot and but his aggression elicits no response. Smashing the small window between the door and the cab, he yells inside, to which the driver peeks over his shoulder, ignoring his pleas.

"Son of a bitch! Alright! I guess we'll get off at the next station then. Not a problem." he says, pulling the lighter from his pocket and fidgeting with it in his hand.

"But aren't those things out there?"

"They travel in packs so it's easy to avoid them, and besides, they're usually all gone by morning. D'ya know what time it is?"

"I think it should say on the screen up there."

I pointed towards the horizontal device above the door, where there's a repeating message hovering across the screen.

"5:25" it reads.

"They'll be gone soon enough, there shouldn't be many of them out there at this time; maybe one if we're unlucky."

"Soon enough? Does that mean that we're going to be safe? I think we should ride this train for a little while longer."

"No need; if we go past this stop it's just going to take even longer."

He idles by the door with his pistol in hand, staring out of the window. He seems concerned about something, although he won't tell me what.

"Hello again, everyone! Kuraokami station is currently undergoing construction and will be closed for the time being! It was my fault, I totally forgot! Oops! We'll be arriving at Ugajin Station in exactly one minute!"

"Shit!"

My ears catch the words he utters from under his breath. I feel a bead of sweat rolling down my leg.

"Give me my gun and cut off these ropes." I plead, but he doesn't respond. Instead he watches the window cautiously as we approach.

"What's the problem?"

"We're gonna have to stop here." he replies.

"And why is that?"

"This is the point where the train starts to go off into the western side of town. That's stalkerville. We can't go anywhere near there."

"Can't we just circle around?"

"Not an option; they go northwest in the morning and head east at night; at this rate we'd be running into one of them eventually; if there are enough of them, they'll sniff us out from above ground and we definitely can't risk getting this train all battered up. This is my only safe transportation for now."

Thirty more seconds pass, and through the darkness beams a semicircle of light that acts as the gateway towards the next platform. Harley presses his shoulder up against the door, watching the approach steadily, hoping that the driver refrains from skipping another stop. An absolutely vile stench invades my nostrils; the smell of rust, of iron and decay.

When the subway train narrows the gap between the car and the footing, it finally ceases it's journey, but to our dismay, the door creeps into the pocket behind the wall introducing us to a suffocating miasma, and through the window I can see several splatters of coagulated blood, painted across the pillars, the guard rails and the tracks below.