I sneezed.
"Sorry." I muttered hurriedly when I noticed the looks from the other passengers in the train. I took a tissue on the side of the table I was sitting at and wiped my nose.
I looked out the window, seeing a flat field covered in a layer of ash. The sky above was a reflection of the ground under, hiding the sun with dark, smoky clouds. Tendrils of smoke rose from the ashes and reached the clouds.
It was quite the hellscape, even nightmare creatures couldn't live here with the lack of food, water, or anything for that matter.
It was all crushed and burned to ash. A mix of the disasters caused by wars in the past, against humans or nightmare creatures.
But those reasons were why Humanity could afford to build an intercontinental railway stretching from NSQC to WSQC.
It was quite easy actually, during the time before nightmare creatures, plenty of railways were created to traverse the continents for trade and diplomacy. Later these same tracks hosted trains carrying weapons, soldiers, and war machines during the humam wars centuries ago.
They were all but abandoned when the nightmare creatures descended into the waking world and caused a worldwide havoc incomparable to the human wars beforehand.
The plans and negotiations for using the tracks again went through many tribulations when it was finally accepted to bring the intercontinental tracks and the trains back.
However, the catch was that it was only limited to awakened passengers, government employees, or mundane people who could afford to have awakened bodyguards.
Even then, only recently did they allow awakened passengers who came straight from the dream realm after winter solstice to board these trains.
…
The train ran through a cage surrounding the tracks like a makeshift tunnel, each black bar thick and scratched up from natural erosion. Yet they still stood strong.
Sure, they would only do so much against nightmare creatures, and would be like paper against those higher than awakened rank—however, that risk was mitigated by the majority of the passengers being awakened. The main defense for the trains was the hopeless wasteland.
It was dark outside and the yellow light from the lamps on the train's ceiling produced my faint reflection on the windows.
I looked…different.
It was common sense that as you go up the ranks of awakened, your own natural beauty would grow.
While I had the same transformation, my light brown skin was more clear and my body was more defined, my eyes were a little off.
I've always had a dark look in my eyes, I've been told about it many times where people would tell me I looked gloomy. Half the reason was because I was often lost in thought, or I was intensely focused.
Still, the eyes of my reflection I looked into were different than before.
It was unsettling.
…
"How long are you going to spend looking outside?"
A cool and masculine voice came from my left, prompting me to turn to the man.
In front of me was a man wearing a thick black jacket, with a grey hood over his head. Aged bronze skin hosted jade eyes with a black reptilian pupil, covered by a thin curtain of grey hair. Black tattoos resembling a burning inferno lined one side of his face.
It was as clear as day that the person in front of me was Orochi, however, it was someone completely different.
For one thing, he wasn't 3 times my size. He was now the same height as me, and what was most terrifying was that his features were similar to mine. Though our color palettes were quite, it wouldn't be surprising to see someone assume that me and Orochi shared ancestry.
I shook my head, "I'm just trying to focus."
"By daydreaming?" He didn't look at me, Orochi had a stack of papers in front of him and studied them with scrutinized eyes. This focused expression looked alien to a face which often held a crazed and beastly look.
"I focus that way."
"Odd, at least imagine chopping up some nightmare creatures, keeps my senses sharpened."
Ah, there was that savage thought process I was familiar with.
I sighed and took a paper that was far away from the ones Orochi was studying.
——
NSQC Public Awakened Documentation Association (PADA) form
Applicant Name: Vincent
Sleeper batch origin: #68-2
Age of applicant: 16
True name: N/A
Aspect rank: Unknown
Aspect description: Some physical enforcement.
——
There were other pieces of information like my old school, education level, zip code, tax bracket, awakened clan affiliation, and other things.
It was only one paper, but it had so much information that it made my mind spin.
I glanced at the stack of papers Orochi was looking through, they somehow had even more words and some were even written in runes.
I groaned and returned the paper to its stack.
If I had to admit, It was quite boring compared to everything I experienced.
But something more exciting was in store for me right now.
I had an aspect legacy to claim.