Darkness was all there was at first. Then a spotlight on the killer, Ms. Fenna Van Daalen. She stared straight ahead into the shadows, where the barest edge of light caught something or someone standing there–
“Mother?”
For a split second, Fenna believed it. That distant silhouette with its curly hair and limber frame, and that voice… But it couldn’t be, right? She’d f-cked it all up. She’d killed a woman. The train was just mocking her now. And yet…
The lights came on.
She was in her club, the Sunflower Lounge, and it was quickly apparent to the spectators how it had gotten its name. Though the lights and the dance floor were modern, the décor was a quaint mix of the decades this building had endured, and the carpet up the stairs was covered with the yellow blooms.
In the distance, framed by the entryway, was a solid black cardboard cutout. A crude facsimile of her son, for whom she’d done the unthinkable, just to see him one more time. How did they know his voice? She laughed, but her own voice rasped with pain.
“I shoulda f-ckin’ guessed, huh?”
She turned away and found herself at the bar, bottles and glasses strewn about after a long night’s work for other people’s play. The motion was automatic– a relatively clean glass appeared in her hand, a bottle of wine in the other, and she poured. She watched silently as the dark liquid swirled and the earthy aroma filled the air. As good a last supper as any.
There was a spark, then a flicker, then a blaze. The shadow of her son lit up like a torch, and became the tinder that would soon engulf the room in flame.
She had regretted everything, of course, from the moment she’d pulled the trigger. Even without realizing that escape would bring punishment upon everyone else, well, it was still murder. Atsuko was a person like the rest of them, and Fenna had no right to decide her fate. The only winning move was not to play… and that wasn’t much of a victory if she could never leave, when her son was in danger. Not that it mattered now.
The fire was raging now– it had spread so quickly that the fire extinguisher behind the bar wouldn’t have made a dent. Fenna would die, and the killing game would continue. All for naught in the end, like so many things in her life.
One last act of defiance remained to her.
Sweat dripping down her face, she raised her glass to the survivors. A toast to the living, with all their myriad problems and budding friendships– may they get over their bullsh-t, end this terrible killing game, and escape the Infinity Train. She downed the beverage in record time and poured another. A toast to the dead, to a little match girl and a smiley-faced loner… and a washed-up bartender that would soon join them.
The flames drew closer all the while, disintegrating the sunflower carpet, feasting on turn-of-the-century wood and alcohol. Fenna Van Daalen raised her glass one last time, facing death with a smile…
All of her bravado evaporated in a second as she truly caught on fire. She burned like her victim, and her home burned with her, leaving nothing but a scorched husk of a building and the echoes of her screams.
