The roar of the steam engine suddenly choked in its iron throat, leaving behind a bone-chilling silence, as if the mist outside had reached in to strangle the heartbeat of this era's metal beast.
The stillness arrived so swiftly that even the dust motes suspended in the shafts of light seemed to freeze. The coldness of the leather upholstery seeped through fabric and into the spine, a silent omen that the safety of civilization had been left far behind the iron rails.
Within the vast carriage, originally designed to house the boisterous chatter of the elite, there was now only an iron tomb surrounding a single silhouette.
Lying motionless on the leather bench of the first-class compartment, Ren looked more like a wax statue than a living entity. His jet-black hair, reaching nearly to his shoulders, was tangled and frayed like the fur of a lone wolf in the dead of winter, partially obscuring a pale countenance.
A long, lead-gray wool overcoat enveloped his slender frame, its hem draping over the floorboards like a pair of broken wings. Beneath the coat, a deep burgundy waistcoat was revealed each time his chest rose and fell in a feeble rhythm, stained silver by the prowling moon outside the window.
The only thing moving on him at this moment was the silver chain of a pocket watch; it shivered slightly, emitting a cold metallic glint along the seams of his perfectly tailored suit. His high-collared, studded leather boots still bore traces of dried mud testimony to some mysterious journey undertaken before he fell into the loop of this ghostly train.
His long eyelashes fluttered with great effort, unveiling sharp, turquoise eyes.
Ren took a deep breath. The pungent metallic tang of steam mingled with the frigid mist flooded his lungs, making him more alert than ever. Pressing his hands against the seat, he forced his body upright with the hazy effort of one newly awakened from a dreamlike stupor.
A headache surged like a mountain flood. Ren gritted his teeth, struggling to think clearly about his own identity, before casting his gaze across the entire compartment.
The bustle of the carriage from his fragmented memories, the laughter, the clatter of silverware, and the heavy scent of cigars, seemed to have vanished entirely after his long sleep. All that remained was a vast, terrifyingly silent void. Ren felt like a man left behind after a lightning exodus, or worse, the sole survivor of a disaster he didn't even know had occurred.
'Did I fall asleep?' The thought flashed through his mind.
He approached the window. A layer of opaque condensation coated the glass, separating him from the world outside. Ren reached out and wiped it away; the icy streaks of water soaked into his fingertips, and then, his pupils contracted.
Outside was not the bustling London station as dictated by the itinerary.
There was only mist. A milky, white shroud so thick and stagnant it felt as if time itself had been frozen within it. And looming behind that mist, a colossal moon hung suspended, radiating a pale, sickly light the color of a long-dead corpse.
Weaving through the white haze in the distance were flickering shadows of trees, knitting together a somber forest. They resembled no flora Ren had ever seen in books. The trunks were pitch black, twisted like broken human limbs, stretching gnarled branches toward the sky as if wanting to tear that sickly moon to pieces. The forest was deathly still, no bird calls, no rustle of green lungs only an ancient, hungry presence enveloping the solitary train.
It seemed the forest was not merely scenery along the tracks, but a living entity, holding its breath as it waited for the sole guest of this first-class carriage to step down.
Ren carefully sifted through every remaining fragment in his mind, searching for a destination, an intention, or at least a familiar name to cling to. He wondered if he had missed something vital, a key detail that could decode this distorted reality.
But those thoughts and memories were like stubborn, slippery eels. The harder Ren tried to catch them, the more violently they thrashed before vanishing into the deep shadows of his subconscious. Every time he thought he had touched an image, a face, or a street, a sharp pain pierced his frontal lobe, shattering the memory into a thousand shards of glass beneath a traveler's feet.
Helpless against the throbbing pain, which felt as if thousands of silver needles were piercing his brow, Ren began to search his surroundings in an effort to find salvation.
It appeared this guest was not one for carrying his entire life on his travels. All he possessed was contained within a dark brown leather valise, its surface worn and coated in a fine layer of coal dust. Ren knew for certain it belonged to him, not through some spiritual bond, but because of the tarnished brass tag attached to the handle.
Under the sickly moonlight spilling from the window, the name 'REN' appeared, engraved in cold, decisive strokes.
'Thank God,' he thought with inward irony as his fingers brushed the rough metal surface, 'at least fate was generous enough to leave me a name before it swallowed the rest.'
The lock clicked open with a dry snap in the silence, revealing Ren's only hope within this deathly carriage. Inside the valise, there were no grand suits or thick stacks of British pounds, but items so bizarre they made one doubt their own past.
Nestled in the worn black velvet lining, three objects emerged under the pale moonlight:
First was a heavy brass key, its bow cast in the shape of an eye without a pupil. The moment Ren's fingers touched the tarnished metal, a smoldering heat raced from his palm to his brain. For a moment, he no longer heard the whistling wind outside, but the sound of trickling water echoing in his head, as if an underground spring had just been cleared in the desert of his memory.
Beside it was a notebook bound in rough goatskin. Ren hurriedly flipped it open, but most of the pages were cruelly blank. Only the first page held a line of dried, dark red ink, the handwriting trembling as if written in a death throe: 'Do not trust the church bells at Perhevial. If you hear them, count backward from 13 to 1... at all costs.'
Closing the goatskin notebook heavily, feeling disappointed at finding nothing to trigger his memory, a letter suddenly slipped out from between the pages. It fluttered through the air before landing silently on the wooden floor of the carriage.
Ren leaned down to retrieve it. It had been opened previously; the black wax seal bearing an unrecognizable symbol had been clumsily pried away. It was unclear if this was the intentional act of someone snooping, or if the wax had simply crumbled with age and popped off while pressed in the book.
Ren took a deep breath, his hands trembling slightly as he unfolded the yellowed parchment. His eyes met the sharp strokes of black ink:
'To Dear Mr. Renardian von Valeren – Heir to the Glowing Cinders.
First, allow me to offer my greetings to the one standing at the beginning of the loop, and please accept my sincerest apologies for this intrusion. This letter reaches your hands at the dawn of a new era, just after the ceasefire between the two great Coalitions was finalized under the witness of "The Unseen One."
As an inevitable arrangement of destiny, you have been respectfully invited to London, the crown jewel of the Golden Sanctum, the capital of light and ancient knowledge. There, we joyfully await your presence at the Grand Convocation on Faith Academics, where interpretations of ancient scripts and sacred rituals shall be brought to light.
The participation of a member bearing the Valeren bloodline is not only a testament to the goodwill for peace that both sides long for, but also an indispensable link in restoring the orders that have been disrupted.
Though the mists of Perhival may be obscuring your footsteps, please remember: This journey is not merely a displacement between two lands, but a sacred transfer of the "Inheritance" you carry in your blood. I await you at the end of the hollow.
May the radiance not consume the lonely traveler.
Signed,
The Rewriter of Old Testaments.'
Ren tucked the letter back into the goatskin notebook, feeling as though he had just purged a parasitic entity from his mind. He continued to search his person. Aside from the somewhat stiff noble suit, his hand brushed a round metal object in his waistcoat pocket.
It was a silver pocket watch, its case engraved with winding vine patterns; upon closer inspection, they looked like blood vessels enveloping a heart. But when he clicked the cover open, Ren's brow furrowed.
The second hand was not moving clockwise. It was ticking backward.
Each backward beat of the watch seemed to pull a missed heartbeat from Ren's chest. A wave of nausea surged, causing the space around him to warp and distort.
(Greetings, I have returned after a somewhat long hiatus, haven't I?)
(Why has the setting changed so drastically? Did the author accidentally post a different series? Please rest assured, the answers will be revealed at the end of this volume.)