The carriage was dark while it went through the long tunnel. The boy opened his eyes, barely waking up from his well-deserved nap. There was not even a faint light. Nothing could be seen, but he paid no mind to such a common occurrence, so he closed back his eyes.
The exact moment he decided to do that, all his senses were heightened. Was it because he was leaning back against the chair cushion, or was it because he was putting his head against the window? The point is that as a result, the regular vibrations of the carriage felt more intense, and the sounds of the train gradually faded to the background. The child slowly exhaled the breath he had been holding.
Even the sound of his breathing could be heard in that small space. The moment he exhaled, the still humming sound suddenly opened up, and the train came out of the tunnel.
His eyes, which were adjusted to the tunnel's darkness, trembled as they were assaulted by a sudden beam of sunlight when they exited. The light that broke through the darkness tormented him, and the boy couldn't open his eyes.
At that moment, a wind carrying the scent of grass blew in through the open window for ventilation. The scent was fragrant and soft, but it swiftly vanished as a raging wind blew through the room, leaving no trace.
Tremble.
As a result, the pages in the boy's hand quickly turned over, most of them falling from his small, while the clothes he was wearing and his hair also became a mess. But he still didn't open his eyes.
The tired-looking eyes clenched and made it look like they were frowning. As the wind blew again, he reluctantly lifted his eyelids, causing the tears that had been accumulating at the corner to drip down his chin.
As they departed from his face, they left a dark blot on the page of the newspaper on his lap. The boy slowly scanned the narrow room without acknowledging the tear.
At that moment, he was visibly unsettled. His heart was beating rapidly as if expressing his feelings. Then, he licked the cracked seam of his lips.
'Is this a dream? Wasn't I on the train? The noise from before resembled it, but now it looks like I'm inside a carriage.'
He could only think of this situation as a dream. The tablet in his hand had been replaced with a newspaper in the meantime, and his unfamiliar dark red hair tangled in the wind, obscuring his view.
It was an unbelievable situation.
Every time the carriage shook, his body and his unfamiliar hair shook with him. He carefully lifted his hand to run through his hair whilst obscuring his view in the process. It was shoulder-length and was caught like a spider's web between his fingers. It was red, but in fact, it was a bit dull, too. Feeling the touch, he thought it was a terribly vivid dream.
He unconsciously combed and brushed his hair with his fingers a few times and slowly noticed what had fallen next to him a moment ago.
He was very bewildered by this situation, but soon after thinking that this was a dream, he calmed down.
Yes, it must be a dream. If this situation was not a dream, how could one explain it?
'I never had a lucid dream before, so weird...'
He blankly defined it that way. The tear trails across his cheeks glistened in the light coming through the window, but it was something he didn't know. If someone had looked at his face at that moment, it would have been pitiful to see a very shabby boy even shed tears on his thin, flat face.
No matter how much he looked around, it wasn't the same as the train he was originally riding in. This didn't even resemble a train because it's far too small.
Then the boy started to notice that the things he had on hand before he fell asleep were different...the new backpack has been replaced with a shabby and old-fashioned bag, and the fact that the suitcase he newly purchased for travel with his friends totally disappeared was definitely surprising.
The fabric of the seat he was sitting on had changed, too. Should he say it was a little older and way dirtier than the original one?
Most of all, it seemed that the person he thought of as him was not himself. This hair was not his, and the kid originally was not wearing such shabby clothes. He carefully set the newspaper in his hand aside on the seat and shifted closer to the window.
He stopped for a moment in surprise, almost forgetting to take his next breath.
"..."
There in the mirror was a face he had never seen before.
The first thing he noticed about the boy was how young he looked, maybe four or five years old, filthy, exhausted, and painfully fragile.
The tear marks that hadn't dried yet and the red-rimmed waterline made him look even more pitiful and unfortunate.
'Even though it's a dream, I've never seen such a kid before.'
The boy inferred that the body he had now would not be himself, but he was surprised to see him actually wearing someone else's face and was speechless.
'...come to think of it, I should have a different voice, right?'
He traced his dry, rough lips with his tongue and then opened his mouth. He wasn't used to talking to himself, so he felt embarrassed even though no one was listening or watching.
"...ah, ah...?" He croaked, and what got out was a high-pitched sound.
It was strange to hear such a sore little voice, so he quickly shut his mouth. An unfamiliar sound came from an unfamiliar face. Can anyone even explain how one should feel right about now?
He thought of a word to define it, but every term that came to mind seemed out of place, so the child eventually gave up on naming it in his heart.
The more he tried to calmly understand the current situation, the more incomprehensible it became. He wanted to think of it as a dream, but...it suddenly occurred to him that it might not be.
So, he pinched his cheek hard. If it didn't hurt, this would be a dream, but, of course, he felt the pain.
"Ack...."
It was a pain beyond imagination as he pinched with his fingertips until they turned red. The pain was so vivid that tears came to his eyes, and his cheeks ached.
So, was this not a dream? He felt strange. In his heart, he thought maybe it was just an overly vivid lucid dream, but the pain was real. He rubbed his stinging cheek. The boy in the mirror was copying all his actions.
'If this isn't a dream...'
In response, he desperately searched for traces of him in this boy. But the more he traced his face, looked at the clothes he was wearing, and touched his red hair, the more he realized that he had no external resemblance to this boy at all.
Unlike the teenager who was originally 15 years old, this boy looked like a kindergarten student at most. The shabby clothes that didn't fit his dwarf physique made him look as if he was preparing for being tall.
'What the hell happened? I was on the train with my friends, heading to auntie's place. I'd been looking forward to this trip for weeks, so yeah, maybe dreaming about being in a carriage kind of makes sense. But...someone else's face? That's unusual. What if—what if this isn't a dream at all? Am I seriously in someone else's body?'
His head seemed to be spinning. So he decided to look out the window. The outside scenery passed quickly. The vast fields disappeared, and a dense forest appeared. The train crossed through the forest.
The view didn't put his mind at ease. The sound of the blades of grass and flowers swaying in the wind and hitting each other was like a song. Just when he was about to scream and get out of that shabby little place, a scary sound suddenly pervaded his ears.
"Aooooohhh—!"
The sound was loud. It sounded like a huge beast howling when he only thought of the howl that broke through the noise of the train.
Fear crept behind his back. The cry of the beast did not move away or get closer. It was so strange that the boy instinctively closed the window and locked it.
At that moment, his heart pounded as if it wanted to run out of his chest.
"Please help..."