Chapter 01 of 'nightfall++', a series that reimagines Nightfall in the 1990s. Inspired by Megami Tensei and The Silver Case.
SEPTEMBER 199X
As the blood dawn overtook the shadows lingering on the world, so did the people upon the streets of Shin Okito. Mild September fog joined the hubbub in the city as everyone rushed to make good use of their precious blood hours.
It was on that same morning than a man of low importance to the greater forces at play made his way through the train station at Nodnal Ave., trying to reach his job on-time despite the twenty minutes he was behind. He was a short fellow, mousey, with a habitual tendency to stare that gave him an air of a bothered prey animal — people left well enough alone. His roundel glasses did little to dissuade others of the relative nobody appearance he so naturally cultivated.
The ticket was slightly more expensive than usual. He cursed himself as he proceeded through the nearby turnstiles. If he was even less socially attuned, he would've run instead of walking, but he didn't feel like being harassed by a 'good samaritan' thinking he was a summoned. Besides, the train station looked nice at that time; the pale red light filtered through the fog and gave the tiling in the station an almost ethereal glow. There wasn't much to do at the platform when he got there besides wait, so he fished a pack of cigarettes out from an inner pocket in his blazer.
Frankly, the platform was much emptier than he had thought it would be. Usually around then several good groups of people, around ten to fifteen each, were dispersed throughout the platform. Currently there were only seven people in total. The opposing platform was even more of an irregularity — there was only one person there. It was hard to make out any concrete detail on them through the fog, but he tried anyways: it looked like a lady, tall, almost an extra foot on him at least. Shaggy, possibly unkempt hair, and wearing some sort of trenchcoat or overcoat. She was looking around for someone or something, her head on a swivel; at least until she started looking at him.
Any other person might've stopped staring and excused themselves once they were caught, but his presence of mind was either too frightened or too defiant to care. He kept on staring. She stared back. He didn't budge. She canted her head to the side, like a confused dog, but didn't stop looking either.
The first move was made by some other guy on the platform barreling into him at full speed, knocking both of them into the ground and sending his roundel glasses and cigarette flying. He heard the other guy taking off behind him as he propped himself up. What an asshole…
He crawled to grab his scattered belongings: his glasses, the pack of Camels, some pens, his formerly lit cigarette, and something else he didn't recognize. It was big, resembling one of those portable brick-like cellular phones that had become popular recently. On its side was a sort-of canted pistol grip attached to the main part of it through a large bar. There was also another bit on it that could only be described as a tiny CRT monitor. He looked at it some more — he hadn't seen anything like it, not even at his advanced computing job.
It was the footsteps approaching him on the platform again that made him realize he was kneeling down rather awkwardly. He moved to get up as another person ran by him without even looking, their footsteps quickly fading away into the distance. Probably chasing the guy from earlier. He stood up all the way, examining the strange new contraption. One of the slots in the side of the machine was empty. Gauging by the size, it looked like a standard 3½-inch floppy could fit in there.
A voice rung out from the platform speakers. "The 4:45 train to Jimayagi will arrive on platform one. The 4:45 train to Jimayagi will arriv…". He glanced up. The woman on the opposite platform was gone. Strange, since no trains had pulled in yet, and there was nowhere else to go from that platform… but it wasn't really his business in the end, was it?
His train pulled in, blowing air across him and ending his line of thought with the squeal of the brakes. He was more interested in the contraption he'd found, anyways. It was going to be a fun train ride.
☾
The weird machine had proven itself rather finnicky and he hadn't figured out a single way to turn it on or operate it. He had managed to pop out some sort of keyboard system, but there were no telltale switches to give him any other clues. The whole thing was much smaller than anything he was familiar with, and was himself half-convinced that it was simply a mockup for a portable device made by some artist without regard for actual feasibility. He set it down next to him on the train seat, diverting his attention elsewhere.
Most of the train cars were as empty as the platform had been at Nodnal. There were assorted passengers, some just staring outside while others read newspapers on the 'Summoned Crisis'. He looked back at the thing, briefly considering if he'd picked up some sort of explosive or bomb, and picked it up again. He quickly craned his head to look at the door between the cars, to see if the conductor was coming around. The conductor had been late on checking his ticket, and he hadn't wanted to be holding the thing so brazenly when they eventually did. Just to be safe.
In the next car over, standing in the aisle, was the lady from the other platform at the Nodnal station. He could see her a lot more clearly. She was wearing a brown trenchcoat, long, and he'd been right about the hair — very unkempt, shaggy, going all the way to her shoulders. He hadn't clocked her thin eyes nor the very toothy smile she sported. It unnerved him, resembling the teeth he'd seen before on news programs, teeth that could puncture your neck and draw blood like nothing else. It didn't make sense that she was on his train, hell, she wasn't on the platform when the train pulled in! And the way she had looked at him through the fog earlier… he didn't like it. Even worse, it seemed like she was headed in his direction.
He got up from his seat, making sure to grab the device with him, and pushed past a different lady with a ponytail on his way to a farther car. Surprisingly, the next car down was dead empty, leaving him with a free reign on where he wanted to sit. The farthest seats would do. He made a couple of steps forwards before a rough chunk in the tracks tripped him up and made him drop the strange contraption. He bent over and grabbed the machine by the pistol grip.
The pain that shot into his hand was completely unexpected. He yelped and reflexively attempted let go, but quickly realized that he couldn't let go of the machine at all. The screen lit up in a flash of light blue, tendrils of light emanating from the monitor and crawling anywhere it could touch. Overhead lights flickered before completely fizzling out, the car only being illuminated in a stark blue from the machine's screen.
He looked down at the screen rapidly flashing bits of text and symbols that he'd only ever seen before in occult TV programs. As the pain coursed through his right arm, he rapidly regretted picking the damn thing up in the first place.
He regretted it even more when he felt something heavy hit his back from behind, causing him to sprawl out in the aisle. He shuffled away, flipping himself over to see what had hit him. It hadn't been who he'd thought it was — it was the lady with the ponytail he'd passed by.
She approached silently. Her eyes were flat, pupil and iris-less, with sclera reflecting the blue from the machine's screen across the entire eye. He stumbled backwards as she launched herself at him, bearing her teeth at him. This was the sort of teeth he'd remember seeing on the news. He was fighting a real-life actual disguised summoned.
His left hand shot out, catching her throat as she came face to face with him, blood dripping from her open mouth down onto his neck. The stupid machine was still stuck to his right hand. She swung her hands wildly at his blazer, her now claw-like fingernails tearing parts of it to shreds. Errant swings were starting to draw blood. His left arm couldn't hold on forever. An impulsive strike on his part to her head with the machine-hand only elicited a slight flinch from her. Maneuvering in the seat aisle was next to impossible — the machine kept getting stuck in various places, his legs were pinned down, and his arm keeping her head up was starting to get lacerated too. He was about to be another newspaper headline in a couple of minutes. As long as he kept struggling, kept moving, someone was bound to noti-
"Hey, dude, can you hold her head up a little higher for me? I don't want to snag you, too."
He looked to where the gruff voice came from, past the summoned trying to tear his face off. It was the platform lady, the tall one with the almost-equally-as-terrifying teeth, and she was pointing some sort of large revolver at them. Shit. Aren't those illegal?
"Can't you see I'm trying to do that?" he managed to mutter, getting the summoned's head just ever so slightly higher than before.
"That'll work, close your eyes and uh, watch your fingers, okay?"
"What?!"
The gunshot rang through the train car at the same time a sizable splatter of blood hit his face, staining his clothing. The body on top of him went limp. He managed to open his eyes even with the fresh spattering of blood, and felt the body being shoved off of him. It was the same platform lady, looking down at him with that awfully intimidating smile. The smile of a summoned. Uuuugh…fuck.
"Yo, you intact down there?"
He groaned.
"I'll take that as a 'yeah'. You're a natural at using a suppression comp, you know? Most people would've been killed in the first couple of seconds of being attacked even with one," she said, "and you lasted longer than a minute." She lent an outstretched hand to him. He wearily grabbed it. She yanked him up, almost carrying him by his arm, and put him down.
"A suppression comp?" he asked.
"Yeah, that doohickey you're holding. It's a miniaturized computer device that suppresses any summoned drawing energy from the otherrealms by negating the field around the….. you really don't know what they are?"
He shook his head. "I just found it on the ground."
"At the platform, right? I saw that. You can't just pick them up at your local store…" she trailed off, staring into space before shrugging her shoulders. "Well, at least it came in handy for you."
As he started to wipe the blood off of his face, she turned towards him and leaned in close. "Hey, I haven't asked you yet. What's your name?" she said, smiling.
He looked up at her face. She definitely had a foot over him, and he was sure she was also a summoned — but she seemed nice enough, even saved him, and not to mention it sounded like it wasn't her first time dealing with situations like these. She was probably one of those legal 'licensed' summoned in the city. If so, it wouldn't hurt to trust her. "My name's Percieval. Percieval Caulling."
"Gilmela Bantreadon, at your service. Sorry to ask," she replied, pointing at the corpse, "but are you going to do anything with all of that blood? I'm kind of thirsty."
つづく
