The train rattled and rumbled. It thundered and whistled. Due to the unreliability of electric signals in the area, many trains on the route were powered by steam. Aware of the accompanied health issues of coal usage, many in the region had turned their back on modern society. They moved to communities separated from the smog, self-sufficient communities, communities like Pania's.

But there were always enough people still dreaming of becoming big, finding their miraculous entrance to the upper echelon of the world's society. Though soon to be disillusioned, many run away, leading to a continuous change of workers coming and going.

Like the tide, they are drawn to an impossible dream only to return to the shores of reality battered and bruised, wandering whence that dream came from.

Having uploaded the cargo and now taking turns feeding the beast, screaming: "Locomotion, more! more!" the group had nestled in between the wooden crates, telling each other stories of their home countries, as befitting for the start of a journey. Nothing feels more like the beginning of a journey than the BGM of a train whistling and rattling along the rails.

'The downbound train.'

"I honestly never thought I'd see my homeland again! Thanks for inviting me on this journey, Nii!" Patrick was a friendly fellow who apparently never lost his good mood.

Nii knew this was her chance to participate in their friendly exchange. She was searching for the right words to say, for the right tone, but she just couldn't find them in time. The conversation had already moved on.

"So Pania and Nii, you're both from the same home town?" Chelsea asked. She had had an uncanny interest in their relationship since the beginning, smelling an opportunity for gossip. The idea that there was gossip and disaccord to be found wasn't that unthinkable. Everyone knew Nii had come a long way to see Pania. And everyone had seen Pania and Mike practically glued together.

"Yeah, we're both from the same stinky backwater town," Pania laughed. "We've been together forever until this girl," she boxed Nii, "decided she needed to study abroad to never return. I guess it's in her blood. She disappeared just as abruptly as she had appeared back then."

"What do you mean?"

"Ah, right. You see, Nii's actually from Ireland. She even got that trademark hair colour, doesn't she?"

"Huh, but when you're from Ireland, what are you trying to head to New Zealand for?"

This whole conversation made Nii incredibly uncomfortable. She could feel cold sweat forming on her brow and hands. This was a topic she never wanted to talk about, ever, an absolute taboo.

"Family," she finally pressed out.

"Ah, I guess family is more important than where you come from."

Labels, belonging, classification, division, borders, identification, society, illusions, lies, make-believe, Nii was sick of it. Having never belonged, she had grasped at the first opportunity and headed for Japan while still in her teens and afterwards to the Americas, Africa, the Americas, but never Europe, never Ireland.

True, if home was defined by birth, then Nii wasn't headed home. Nii couldn't go 'home' to Ireland. She never could, not before, not now. She might've been good at running, but running from one bad memory to another wouldn't have given her any reprieve. She had no family, no friends back in Ireland, never had. That was why she had taken off to Japan, the closest place she could escape to as well as the farthest her wings had been able to take her back then.

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She couldn't call New Zealand her home either, nor that backwater town Pania had made fun of. But there was someone she could call home, someone she could come home to, her family. And that was where she was headed, having been away for far too long.

Did that mean she was less entitled to yearn for home than those deeply rooted in one place?

She looked the group over, her contempt deep hidden within her heart, such as all her emotions.

Pits might not have been able to hear, but he was incredibly proficient in lip reading and that in many tongues. She had noticed that he had an incredibly fast reaction time when it came to social cues, also those transmitted by speech. One could only bow to his prowess and talent, but he used these to play the ignorant. He had successfully excluded himself from every annoying or troublesome chore not benefitting him directly.

Chelsea was strangely proud of her past role as a climate activist though the ideals she had fought for hadn't stuck with her for very long, which was quite apparent. She neither minded littering nor the destruction of what was still left of this planet's nature and even partook in it herself whenever it benefited her.

Patrick's happy-go-lucky façade crumbled ever so often when he thought himself alone. And it had been anger and undying hatred hiding underneath for who knows what reasons. The world and life usually provide enough opportunities to stock up on these.

And Louis was very much capable of understanding English as well as Spanish and Portuguese. Logic thinking should've revealed that much already, were there not too many similarities between romantic languages and had he not spent much too long a time surrounded by them. But he, too, turned a deaf ear to everything of no use to him. And everyone else turned a blind eye to this. Or perhaps they really just didn't care, never looking close enough to notice.

There wasn't much to say about Leonie as her speciality had always been to nod along at everything with that plastered smile of hers. You might think there was something hidden underneath it. But in truth, she just didn't care enough about those around her or the world in general. She felt quite comfortable playing her role. Most likely, she was secretly looking down on everyone around her, on all those idiots, struggling so hard to be themselves when they could simply drift along and go with the flow instead.

And Mike, having had his ego utterly destroyed by a much too capable woman at his side, his eagerness to sound important foretold his shallowness. So at every opportunity he got, he would raise his voice the loudest to tune out the voice that had actually been doing the talking and thinking. And since his voice organ was quite large, he usually succeeded.

And Pania, what about Pania? Could she even find fault within that friend of hers, that friend she had travelled all across two continents to see? Should there not have been an undying love between them, raising her about all faults? But if she really was such a good friend, how come she didn't know or even notice that some topics shouldn't be touched upon? Hadn't they known each other for a long, long time? Did they even really know each other?

And what about herself, capable of harbouring such evil thoughts, finding fault within everyone and everything? Was she any better? Did she truly care about anyone? Was it not a sign that she, too, was wholly evil that she could only see evil in everyone else? Was she not just as flawed as them? What had she truly come here for, and where was she truly headed? Had she not just been frightened of the thought of returning? Was her visit to Pania not just an excuse?

'Or perhaps, it was my last grasp for hope.'

And what about Kazuya?

「灯台下暗し」

He shone too bright for her to ever find fault within him. Or perhaps it was her that had shone too bright a light on him to see his shadow. Or perhaps he truly was kind; perhaps he truly was good?

'We're all the same. We're all evil. We're all good. Some of us might be only evil, but none of us is only good. We all struggle in this hellish world, struggling to stay afloat, struggling not to drown. We all have crawled out of the mud, and mud is where we will return to. We're all the same. We're all tainted by this muddy world.'

♫