The moment the train accelerated, colors erupted outside the window.
Crimson, azure, tarnished gold, and nameless greens. Each held its form for a mere heartbeat before shattering and flowing away. Color itself was racing past as pure data.
"Don’t stare."
Kuon’s voice cut through the air.
"Fixate on one color too long, and it will pull your mind from your body."
Koyoi averted her eyes from the window and rested her hands on her knees. Yet the colors lingered behind her eyelids—bleeding, pulsing, and flickering in time with her breath.
Asahi chose to stand by the window. He watched the flow of colors reflected in the curve of his blade, tracking only their direction.
"Fast," Asahi remarked. "A whole town’s worth of scenery passes in a single heartbeat."
"It’s not scenery," Kuon corrected. "It’s the residue of a rewrite."
Kuon opened his ledger. Even on its pages, the colors wavered, gnawing at the ink of the text.
Koyoi gripped the drawstring of her pouch, checking the temperature of the droplet within. It was warm. The sensation pulled her consciousness back from the brink of the colors.
The train car gave a violent jolt. The lanterns flickered out for a second before relighting. In that brief moment of darkness, Koyoi heard a different sound.
A song. Someone far off, repeating the same melody over and over.
"Did you hear that?" Koyoi asked.
"I did," Asahi replied instantly. "Sounds like a lullaby... but with an edge like a blade."
Kuon furrowed his brows. "It’s syncing with the layers of color. More of a chant than a song. There’s still distance between us, but we’ll collide at the next station."
Outside the window, the flood of color suddenly slowed. Red trailed off into long streaks, intertwined with blue. Eventually, both sank into grey, until the world turned a dull silver.
"Here it comes."
Asahi widened his stance.
Three heavy impacts, like something striking an invisible wall, shuddered through the front of the train. A chill rose from the seams of the floorboards, biting at Koyoi’s ankles.
But this time, Koyoi didn't look down. She closed her eyes, counting the afterimages of the colors one by one until her breathing steadied.
The flood outside never ceased. It raged on as the train held to a single line forward.
"Colors lie," Kuon said in a low voice. "But the vibrations do not. Read the sway."
Koyoi nodded.
Beyond the flood of color, the next boundary was beginning to yawn open.
As the flood subsided slightly, Koyoi used her nail to carve a tiny mark into the wood of her seat.
"What are you doing?" Asahi asked.
"Setting a reference point," Koyoi replied. "Everything outside the window is in flux. I wanted to leave one unmoving mark inside the car."
Kuon looked at the scratch and gave a short, dry laugh.
"Good intuition. Observers usually look for grand scales. We can fight back with something small."
Koyoi pressed her finger against the mark. Just touching the tiny wound in the wood eased her vertigo. The colors remained a turbulent flood, but as long as she had that mark, she wouldn't lose track of where she sat.
Before long, a single band of dull grey appeared within the muddy flood of color. Kuon pointed toward it.
"That’s our next slowdown route. The paths that lack flash always have the highest survival rates."
Koyoi lifted her finger from the mark and stared straight out the window.
"Choose the one that doesn't stand out," she said. "Understood."