The train station was busy when Yesu arrived.
Crowded platforms. Vendors yelling. Children weaving through legs. Workers dragging carts.
The train was already approaching in the distance.
Yesu pushed through the crowd quickly, eyes searching every face.
A bicycle crashed sowhere nearby.
Not unusual.
The rider had clipped a rolling luggage case left in the middle of the walkway. He fell sideways into a food stand.
Hot oil spilled.
The vendor jerked back with a yell, knocking over a portable gas cooker.
People stumbled away instinctively.
Soone shoved soone else.
A child started crying.
The cooker rolled off the platform edge, onto the tracks below. Along with the gas cylinder attached to it.
Station workers blew whistles imdiately.
"Move back!"
The approaching train's horn sounded louder now.
One worker jumped down toward the tracks to retrieve the cooker before the train arrived.
There was a leak in the cylinder, and the cooker was still afla.
Then another problem started.
A loose advertisent screen above Platform Three suddenly sparked violently.
Electricity burst from its sides.
The lights overhead flickered.
People scread and scattered away from the showering sparks.
The worker below looked up instinctively.
Too late.
The train entered the station.
The cylinder exploded beneath the front section.
Not a massive explosion.
Just enough.
Enough to blind the driver with fire. Enough to damage alignnt.
Enough to make him jerk the controls wrongly at the curved entry point.
tal shrieked.
The front carriage tilted violently sideways. Then the rest followed.
One carriage slamd into another.
Glass burst outward.
The train collapsed across the tracks with a deafening crash.
Screams erupted everywhere.
Then ca the second disaster.
One of the cargo sections of the train ruptured during the derailnt.
Large industrial diesel containers spilled from inside beneath the overturned train.
Sparks from the torn rails ignited it almost imdiately.
Fire exploded outward beneath the carriages.
Heat rolled through the station.
Smoke swallowed everything.
Passengers trapped inside began slamming desperately against windows.
Others crawled out through shattered glass while crowds fled blindly around the station.
And through all the panic, Yesu stood still. Taking in everything.
"What the…"
A high-pitched scream sounded above everything else.
Yesu ran toward the wreckage.
No hesitation.
No fear.
Just movent.
She grabbed a broken window fra and pulled herself inside the overturned carriage.
People shoved past her desperately.
Soone scread at her to get out of the way.
Yesu ignored them.
"Aunt i?" she called out.
Nothing.
She pushed deeper into the tilted carriage.
The next section was already burning too heavily to cross.
So she climbed back outside through another broken window.
The hot tal scorched her hands.
She barely reacted.
Smoke curled around her as she ran across the side of the overturned train.
People outside slowed down. And watched.
Yesu dropped through another shattered window farther ahead.
Glass burst inward around her feet.
She moved around desperately, still searching.
Still calling for her aunt.
The fire spread faster.
One flad carriage beca two. Two beca three.
Flas swallowed entire sections of the train.
The ground beneath burned worse, flooded with flaming diesel.
Passengers escaped wherever they could.
So jumped from windows. So crawled.
So didn't make it out at all.
Then Yesu reached the worst section.
Fire completely blocked the path ahead.
Even outside, the flas rose too high to circle safely.
People on the platform scread at her.
"Turn back!"
"You'll die!"
Yesu stared ahead for one second.
Then ran straight through a narrow gap between the flas.
The people at the station froze.
From the outward perspective, it looked impossible.
Like she had disappeared directly into the fire.
Several seconds passed.
Then she erged from the other side.
Alive.
Her clothes emitted smoke but she was still moving.
The panic changed shape instantly. People stopped staring at the burning train.
They stared at her.
Whispers spread rapidly.
"That's her…"
"The girl from the news…"
"How is she alive?"
"She ran through that…"
Yesu finally reached the last carriage. She burst inside desperately.
Smoke drifted heavily through overturned seats.
Small fires crackled around the walls.
No passengers remained.
No, Aunt i.
And then…
BOOM.
The spreading fire had finally reached the station's main diesel engine beneath the rail system.
The explosion tore through the entire station.
People were thrown violently to the ground.
Windows shattered across nearby buildings.
Fire and black smoke surged into the sky.
The crowd scattered in complete terror.
Yesu lay cradled on the floor from the impact, both arms shielding her face.
And above the final carriage, a giant billboard support gave way.
The bolts snapped loose.
tal scread overhead.
And the massive structure crashed downward toward the carriage Yesu was in.
The billboard support scread as it ca down.
Yesu looked up instinctively and reacted in ti.
She threw herself between overturned seats just before the entire roof collapsed.
tal crashed inward violently, folding over itself with a deafening shriek. The impact blasted hot air through the carriage and flattened rows of seats like paper.
A steel beam slamd down behind hard enough to shake the entire wreck.
Dust and sparks exploded through the air.
The carriage groaned under the weight above it.
Then sothing pierced downward.
Yesu jerked sideways just before a jagged tal rod tore through the spot her head had been.
The wreck shifted again.
More screaming tal.
The carriage was being crushed slowly beneath the fallen billboard.
Yesu pushed herself up coughing. Smoke burned her throat imdiately.
She tried to move and realized her leg was trapped between twisted seats.
She pulled hard.
Pain shot through her body.
The tal held.
Outside, the fire roared louder. Heat pressed in from every direction.
Yesu grabbed the bent fra trapping her leg and yanked herself backward with everything she had.
Sothing tore painfully around her ankle.
The tal loosened slightly.
Then the wreck shifted again.
A section of the carriage floor split open near the far end with a loud crack.
Light spilled through the gap beneath the wreckage.
Yesu crawled toward it imdiately. Glass tore at her hands and knees.
The opening was barely large enough.
She forced herself through anyway.
Her shoulder scraped hard against jagged tal. For a mont she got stuck halfway.
Then another violent creak shook the carriage.
Yesu pushed harder and suddenly spilled out onto the burning ground.
The remaining section behind her collapsed completely.
People nearby stumbled backward in horror.
Through smoke and fire, Yesu slowly dragged herself away from the wreckage coughing violently, soot covering her face and steam rising faintly from her burned clothes.
The sirens of the CCD vehicles sounded throughout the station seconds after.
The sound of a helicopter was growing closer.
Lights suddenly flooded the whole place.
Yesu looked upward instinctively. Smoke drifted through the twilight.
Then sothing caught her attention.
A silhouette.
Standing still on a distant rooftop. Watching.
The headlights from the incoming helicopter swept past the rooftop.
And all Yesu saw were glinting eyes. Cold. Reflective. Inhumanly calm.
Then darkness ca again.
And the silhouette was gone.
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