A blood-stained letter.

The first thing Satou pulled out from the panoply of who-knew-what awaited him inside, was a blood-stained letter.

Carefully, mindful that he did not take it out, he held it up with his fingers clamped on its corners, so that where it was stained was not touched. A fifth of it was covered in crimson: blood, he knew with some surety, that was splattered on it like spilled ink. His first thoughts had reached for murder, but it could’ve very well happened from a cut finger.

An elaborate sigil sealed it shut, and flipped over, on its back, jutted in ink were words in short-hand that at a glance he could not tell apart from mere scrawls. It looked jargon, but also not. Draftsmanship had gone into it. It looked important. But, whatever the case was, he knew, to understand what it meant for now was evidently beyond him.

He let it fall, and scrambled past a white handkerchief, a fountain pen, a hip flask half-filled with hard liquor, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, until he finally pulled out what looked to be a film-camera that was the width of his palm. Bronze-lined (which he thought was gold), black-framed, rigid and firm when he shook it, it had weight to it despite its size, and seemed to be entirely mechanical. He fumbled with it in his hands, when, not sure what he did, the back of it flung open.

Satou jerked, startled at having not expected it, and saw inside in between the two spools where the lens met the film under frosted glass—an image, in heliotype, that albeit pitifully small, was of such fine grains that it looked no less inferior to a black & white polaroid.

It was hard to see from the glare of the sun, but once he brought his hand over it for shade did he see it clearly: a city, from the looks of it, that was taken from the dark confines of an open attic that stood out like a wet blotch of ink. Three-quarters up: roofs, chimneys, domes, belfries, and spires jutted out above it to meet the midday sky.

Satou winded the lever back, the spools turned, a click came, and the image shifted to a prior shot: this one, of a marble hearth, in the dark. Barely, was he able to make out the borders of something hung above the mantlepiece: a portrait, probably; below which were cindered logs nearly lit out, their cores glowing faintly still like veins a mere shade lighter.

Then came the canopy of a tree. Dead twisting-branches branched out over a dark and overcast gloomy sky, and it was the last one. The lever turned a dozen or so more times—then it turned no more. He had reached the end of the reel.

Satou, unsure what to make of any of it, put the camera back in, and, expecting much the same, reached in for the next one, cold to the touch, that only was it when he had halfway pulled it out did he realize what it was. For a brief moment he blankly stared, caught off-guard. Then his blood began to boil from fright. He shoved the thing back in—startled eyes wide-open for any witnesses—and saw… No one. No one had seen him. Slowly, he pried the satchel back open.

Ornate engravings etched on cold steel. A familiar barrel. His eyes hadn’t deceived him—It was a gun! A revolver, to be more precise, whose thin and long barrel made it look more sleek than it was burly. He held it at its ivory hilt, mindful not to take it out, and felt the weight of it bear down on his hand. Though by no means small, it was heavier than what he’d expected it to be, and that to him spoke of power, force. But why was it here? Why did he have it on him?

More importantly, was it fine that he had it on him?

Does it have a safety? A stupid thought. It was a revolver. The hammer of it wasn’t cocked. But just to be sure, and since not making sure to do so was negligence on his part, he turned the satchel away so that the barrel of it faced far away from either him or his thighs, or anyone else in the vicinity.

But if it does go off, it won’t matter if it hits someone or not… What else do you have in here?

Hands burrowed through the satchel once more, and a weighty chuck of iron clanked inside it. He took it out. An iron-cast key, that, given its hefty size, suited best to fit inside a gate. Besides its size, it was roughly-made, and by all means ordinary.

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House keys? It could be. What else? Just one more. And it was the last one.

A nutcracker doll, from the looks of it, dressed like a mage. In his hand he held it: eerily cold despite it being made out of wood and him wearing gloves that by no means were thin, and he found it an odd thing that it was so.

What else? Nothing else.

He complained under his breath. “Where I am, who am I—nothing?”

Suddenly, he remembered he had yet to check himself.

He patted himself down, but froze the moment he saw his prominent chest block the view to his lower torso.

Like a boy, he flushed, shy.

This’ll take some time to get used to…

He tried to get back on track, but the swap of his gender was not something he could’ve easily feigned. In the back of his mind it was here to stay, making him guiltily elated each time he stole glimpses of his figure in his mind’s eye; yet he pushed on nevertheless, looking elsewhere, half-distracted.

In his rear-pockets he felt something, and leaning on one side took it out. It was a wallet—inside which he found a folded stack of fresh notes. He counted it. “One thousand riyals,” in notes of hundred each. Quite a hefty sum, he thought. Even if I’m in another world, a stack ought to be a hefty sum…

He patted his upper-garbs, and there found a ticket—a train ticket—folded neatly in half inside one of his inner-pockets.

He flipped it open—an embellished white card with gilded borders—turned it upright, and read it: “Advanced booked, 1st class. Admission for one: Adult. Boarding time: o-three pm, platform o-seven, at King’s Crossing, for the Aureate Express…”

Satou looked up, beyond the statue, beyond the plaza, up a long flight of stairs where there it stood, three entrances wide with lofty pillars on either side: “King’s Crossing,” he muttered. An enormous gold-rimmed clock high on one of its gothic towers told him the time: “Half-past four now,” which meant that he had missed the train she was meant to board.

And who was this—she?

Ednin, King’s Crossing—these names meant nothing to him. While the world around him had so far appeared foreign, she had not. He had recognized her, knew who she was!—or so it had seemed to him, at least at first. Now he wasn’t so sure.

The belongings he had finished cataloguing attested to being organic (except for the gun, but even that one could excuse) as belonging to a proper denizen of this world. If he had transmigrated to another world as his player-character from Project Elyse, it was not a stretch to presume that he should also have his inventory on him. Which begs the question:

“Who is she…”

All he could come up with was that she was a look-alike. Nothing more.

“If so, then she probably has a life of her own,” a life lived for twenty years, at least; and she most likely had friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, and probably unlike me, even lovers, somewhere in the wider world at large who knew who she was, and would grow worried if she went missing for more than a few days.

Or did not show up at the platforms…

Woe was to befall him if he had to deal with that scenario—deal with all the people who knew her. But of course none of this was set in stone. Nothing was guaranteed here, and he was guessing at the end of the day, that he had, like a ghost, taken over the body of someone else—a look-alike—and thereby transmigrated to another world. A plausible conjecture, mind, with what little he knew; but in truth he couldn’t have been more farther from the truth for all he knew.

Either way, if he were to err on the side of caution, here was what he had to work with: transmigrated to another world, in the middle of a train-station, in the body of a young woman who looked exactly like his player-character from Project Elyse, he had just missed the train she was meant to board.

He could go back still, rebook, wait a few days, then board it finally once it came back; but where to, was he meant to go? The train ticket in his hand made no mention of any set destination: meaning, that he was probably expected to know that beforehand. Except, in his case, “I don’t know where that is… Only she does, whoever she is…”

Maybe he could find out if he were to ask around—the station staff, for a start—and tracing the route the Aureate Express was meant to take, figure something out. It would be straight-forward if it only stopped at one station, which seemed very unlikely; but suppose if it did? What then? Should he board, or should he stay here? The whole ordeal was such a muddle.

Exasperated, Satou ruffled his hair, and said, looking up: “But half-past four already?”

He realized he was wasting time sitting here. There was an entire city ahead of him, and daylight was resource, precious resource—especially for someone like him: an otherworlder, who knew nothing about his new world and had yet to figure out what he ought to do next. A mere few hours till nightfall seemed too little to get anything fruitful done.

“What now, Satou-kun.”