Curious

Chapter 8: From Reality to Nada Place

CHAPTER EIGHT: From Reality to Nada Place

It was a mass of people. 

That was the first thing Simon noticed about where the palace door had led him. It was packed to the top with people. Loud, busy people in all types of dress hurrying to wherever they were headed. Some wore suits and clutched briefcases, others were more relaxed with a pair of jeans and a to-go cup of coffee. All of them looked pretty grimly determined in their transit route. He wondered briefly where they were headed but it was only a few seconds before he had completely been swept up into the giant body and pushed along urged by the current in this ocean of people.

Someone bumped into the palace door and Simon watched along with horror as once again, the sound of glass shattering echoing through the narrow conformity of the brick tunnel.

They were all following a similar path, though Simon could not tell exactly where they were going. There were signs indicating the route, which he was taking under duress. But all those signs were again written in that frustrating language, the one with the same alphabet yet incomprehensible words. However, he soon comprehended the symbols that accompanied these signs to deduce that he was in a subway station.

A subway station located where was a question that was still not answered. Simon went down a set of stairs onto a train platform. There were almost no room for a person to breathe on this platform—there were just too many people. If a person accidentally moved an inch to the right, pushing the person that was to his side, it would start a chain reaction that would eventually lead to someone being pushed off the platform accidentally, if not many people. Simon was amazed at how many people were on the platform, not to mention the more masses that were on their way down to the platform. Exactly where was he, where so many people gathered for the subway transit? 

He couldn’t tell by the people’s faces. He guessed he was still in America, judging by the diversity of faces that he saw but when he studied someone’s face too hard, it started to blur. In the end, all he was seeing was blobs of faces. And if he was in the United States, then why was the language so hard to read? After all, it was his own mother tongue. 

It didn’t make sense so in the end Simon concluded that it couldn’t be the United States. He’d literally walked through a door into another world, another dimension once before so it shouldn’t surprise him if the palace door had led him to another other-worldly place. 

There were LCD screens hung from the ceiling at varying intervals that displayed a countdown to the next train. He stared at it, watching as it counted down from three…to two…and to one with the rumblings of train entering the station in the background.

Again, Simon had no choice in the matter. The mass of people refused Simon his free will and as a collective entity, they squeezed into the empty train, filling it up in seconds.

Being in a crowded train was worse than being on a crowded platform. It was a small, more conforming space with low ceilings and a very slim body. Simon didn’t have any room to move whatsoever. He couldn’t even lift his arm. He was completely immobile. He lifted his head, for once relieved that he was tall enough to do that, so he could at least breathe in oxygen. 

The train began to move. Within minutes, Simon felt extremely uncomfortable. He’d never been claustrophobic but in this situation, he could totally feel an attack of something akin to claustrophobia come on.

He felt a hand pressed into his stomach and he tensed. The hand found its way to the inside of his jacket and he felt his wallet slip out of its hold in his inner pocket into the intruder’s hands. He looked around at the people surrounding him. All of them seemed very nonchalant, none of them looked like they were pick pocket. He tried to open his mouth and say something to scare the pick pocket away from taking his wallet, his identity, away from him but at the same time he opened his mouth, the train rounded a turn and he felt himself lean back and an elbow punched his way into his stomach, knocking the air out of him.