STRANGE. No human is in sight.

Judah Godling's mountain bike shrieks to a halt at the Nirvañana train station. The eleven-year-old boy slides off the saddle and holds up the bike on one leg, looking about him with growing curiosity.

"This is weird," he says.

Starbucks and other establishments have invaded half the building, turning it into a shopping center bustling with people all the time.

Not today.

Like a dream, stillness hangs over the station like a veil.

The light from the setting sun forces its way down the unattractive multi-level structures of the station, making dark shadows that filled the atmosphere with eerie impression.

Judah gasps, feeling an unnatural tightness in his chest. His hands turn the front wheel away from the building, but his head turns to sneak a quick look inside.

After a moment's hesitation, he shakes his head to lose the bad feeling and forces himself to disembark. He walks his bike into the station as he always does every day after school to get a can of his favorite imported Manila-Cola from the soda machine facing the railroad tracks.

He stops, his eyes widened, fighting the urge to turn back.

The shops are open for business, but for some reason, the entire building is empty like some terrorist bomb threat has forced the people to evacuate the premises.

Even the station's signalman whom he calls Pops, the nice old guy who combs his loose blond toupee with arthritic fingers every two minutes or so in the soda machine's glass panel, is not around to greet him with a toothless smile and say, "Time fowr a ssshugar fihhx, kid.

At the sight of the soda machine, Judah fishes for a coin in his pocket. His hands are cold and clammy like they do every time he sits beside Regina Patriarcha, the most beautiful girl in school.

Before he can drop the coin in the slot, the muffled sputtering sound of the soda machine reverberates rather anxiously against the walls of the building.

Judah backs away open-mouthed, hand frozen in its position.

The soda machine spews out a can of Manila-Cola.

An inexplicable feeling of frenzy wrinkles his face, and he flinches, a frozen finger traces out his spine.

He can hear the blood pounding in his head.

His breathing reduced to short shallow gasps.

The air turns stale and stagnant, lifeless like a tomb. He smells the unmistakable whiff of a cadaver in the air. Heshould know—he lives on Nirvañana's street of funeral homes. Dead bodies are as common as dead frogs to him. He feels like someone invisible is standing close to him.

Watching.

Waiting.

Breathing mouthfuls of air on the back of his head.

Eyes narrowing with concentration, he peers at the vending machine's glass panel, half-expecting to see somebody else's reflection.

A shadowy figure. Behind him. Or he thought.

--His head snaps to look at it.

--Nothing.

Then Judah hears the uncanny tolling of bells from a distance, like the lifeless clunk of a hammer pounding stacks of ceramic plates to pieces--

Crrrlaaang! Crrrlaaang!

Crrrlaaang!

He lets out a lungful of breath, hearing church bells ringing, no matter how peculiar they sound, brings him intense relief.

Crrrlaaang!

On impulse, he turns to the direction where it is coming from. He catches sight of a figure in black garb standing on the rail-

A girl.

Thin, black hair up to her ankles.

It is Qamatayian.

This time she has the angelic face of a seven-year-old girl. Her ashen face and body heavily tattooed with symbols Judah thinks to be magical.

Something in her grotesque form inspires the appearance of overmastering menace. Death's enigmatic half-smiling face recalls irresistibly one's forgotten childhood dread. Her dark, luminous eyes are fixed not upon Judah, but stares out into the coming train from New York.

A disagreeable shudder creeps all over Judah, but he holds his breath, scratching his nape without a thought, making a strong effort to pull himself together. Just then, there comes a vague vibration in the earth...

Slight turbulence in the air...

Quickly changing into violent tremor...

Now an oncoming rush.

The sound of the rapid train drowns that of the tolling of church bells, heightening the boy's anxiety.

Then everything happens very quickly. With the ghastly realization that the tattooed girl is out to kill herself, Judah drops his bicycle on the ground, sprints to the railroad, and grabs the tattooed girl by the arm.

Cold.

It is colder than holding ice with bare hands; biting, burning cold that almost makes him let go of her.

He yanks her off the track.

The train passes them and skims into the station.

Crrrlaaang! Crrrlaaang!

Crrrlaaang!

The tolling bells grow louder the closer Judah gets to the girl.

Crrrlaaang!

Instead of being grateful, the tattooed girl glares in abhorrence, spurning Judah's touch. Darkness comes over the place as she opens her mouth to speak; instead of a child's voice, a loud peal of thunder comes out of it, simultaneously with sharp veins of lightning that knifes the sky in the background.

[Don't touch me.]

Judah gazes at the fantastic apparition open-mouthed. Telepathically, he understands her.

The girl shoves Judah with immortal force that hurls him several meters away. He crashes onto his back in a thicket of prickly wild blackberry. It knocks the wind off the boy and he blacks out for a few seconds.

When he comes to, the girl is already standing next to him. She is watching him with that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are hopelessly absorbed in re-reading an old newspaper, with perhaps a flicker of tired familiarity in her eyes.

They have met before.

Her eyes roll to look at the train station. Still no soul is in sight, but in her eyes the reflection of the soda machine's glass panel reveals a fat balding middle-aged semblance of a man with glowing eyes in white sequined Elvis Presley impersonator outfit.

It is Meph Dealmaker. A demon. Oozing with an aura as pleasant as a gas chamber. He is standing in front of the soda machine, grinning and taking a mobile phone selfie with Judah and Qamatayian in the background.

A brief look of disquiet crosses the girl's face.

Judah is mystified. His mouth contorts, and his tongue seems paralyzed and unable to articulate a word. He feels as if his blood has changed in a moment from hot lava to freezing ice.

Death walks away and vanishes into thin air as the tolling of the church bells dies away.

The augury color of the surroundings returns.

Judah stands alone in a moment of irrational horror, his body shaking.

Looking around, he finds the place suddenly crawling with people.

Pops is now working his toupee at the soda machine.

The ruddy sunlight that reflects from the glass illuminates Meph Dealmaker's face as he takes photos of Jared. He is as invisible as a specter to the boy and even to Pops.

The demon turns his gaze at the can of Manila-Cola lying in the soda machine's holder, he gestures, and like a tiny paperclip attracted by a magnet, the can flies into his hand.

He blows a burst of breath onto the can, opening it, and drinks, belching in horrifying squeals that sounded like humans and pigs being slaughtered at the same time.

Judah remains standing still, trying to convince himself that nothing happened. Pure imagination. He shakes his head as soon as the thought has crossed his mind.

But something is telling him his life will never be the same again.

Meph Dealmaker is now talking on the phone, staring at Judah with eyes that reared a bastard brood of uneasiness.

"One thing's for sure, we have an Infinit in our hands," the demon says.