It was thus that Emma, her father, and Jade decided to join her grandmother by train.
The train wound its way through the countryside with a rhythmic metallic clicking. They had taken the first available car, her father almost haggard as he pushed them through the narrow corridors where a musty smell mingled with cheap perfumes. Emma and Jade exchanged worried glances.
Once settled, the regular jolts of the train seemed to rock the nearly empty car. The worn carpet beneath their feet muffled the surrounding sounds. Outside, the urban landscape gradually gave way to dense forests, trees that leaned toward the tracks as if to observe them.
"I don't know the whole story," her father began, his gaze fixed on his hands that trembled slightly, his yellowed nails digging small furrows into his clammy palms.
"When I was young, when I was still living with your grandmother... there was this... this thing."
His voice seemed to come from far away, as if he was already immersed in his memories, a slight quaver betraying his growing anxiety.
"It attacked the entire village. People disappeared. Others... others came back changed."
His gaze was lost in a haze, his dilated pupils fixing on an invisible point.
"Nineteen men from the village and I, we decided to confront it. To fight it. It should not have the thing. Never. It... it cannot have it."
His speech quickened. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, sliding down his graying temples.
"Not the thing. No. Not the thing. He must not have it. No! NO!"
Emma's father began trembling violently. His eyes rolled in their sockets, frantically scanning the car as if searching for something—or someone. The acrid smell of his perspiration filled the space between them.
The other passengers turned their heads. A mother clutched her child against her. An elderly man stared at them over his crumpled newspaper, the fresh ink leaving a black mark on his fingers.
Her father's entire body was wracked with spasms. His breathing became erratic, wheezing, like a poorly adjusted forge bellows. He mumbled incomprehensible words, fragments of sentences interspersed with moans.
Emma began to panic.
Her breathing accelerated, unconsciously mimicking her father's. Images of the children with black pupils suddenly assailed her. Their smiles. Their utensils reflecting the harsh light of the fluorescent tubes.
Jade grabbed her hand, momentarily anchoring her to reality. Her palm was warm, reassuring.
That's when a woman in her fifties approached their bench. The jasmine perfume surrounding her contrasted with the oppressive atmosphere. With a confident gesture, she knelt in front of Emma's father.
"Breathe slowly, sir. Through the nose. Hold. Through the mouth."
Her voice was gentle but firm, with a slight accent that Emma couldn't identify. Her father, surprisingly, seemed to listen. Little by little, his trembling diminished.
"Thank you," Emma whispered, her dry throat making her voice hoarse. "You are...?"
"Oh, I'm used to these cases," she replied with a kind smile, revealing teeth of an almost supernatural whiteness. "I'm a nurse."
The world seemed to stop around Emma. The noise of the wheels on the rails suddenly muffled.
Her heart skipped a beat. Then raced, beating against her ribcage like a frightened bird.
In her mind, the woman's features began to distort. Her smile widened, stretched to the impossible. Behind her lips, Emma thought she glimpsed pointed, yellowish teeth.
You know what I like to do with my patients?
That voice... it was the voice of the hospital nurse. An icy shiver ran down her spine.
Emma instinctively backed away, rising from her seat. The synthetic leather creaked beneath her. Jade called out to her, but her voice seemed to come from very far away, muffled by a buzzing in her ears.
Her back hit something. Someone.
She turned around abruptly.
A little girl had just dropped her yogurt container, which splattered onto Emma's shoes. The white, viscous substance infiltrated the grooves of her soles. In her right hand, she still held a spoon that caught the pale light.
She looked up at Emma. Ordinary eyes that, for a moment, appeared completely black, like two bottomless wells.
"You made me spill my snack," she said in a high-pitched voice that seemed to resonate abnormally in the train car.
Her tongue passed over her lips.
"But it's okay. I'm still hungry."
She smiled. A child's smile. An innocent smile. But all Emma could see was the hunger in her gaze. A primitive, animal hunger.
The utensils. The passengers staring at her. The nurse approaching, her shoes clicking on the floor of the car. Everything mixed together in her head.
Emma opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Her vision narrowed, as if she were looking through an increasingly narrow tunnel. The colors faded, leaving only shades of gray.
And then, darkness.
Distant voices reached her first, as if through a thick fog. Then the rhythmic swaying of the train, the metal creaking at each curve. A sensation of warmth against her shoulder.
Emma slowly opened her eyes. Two hours had passed. The air in the car had become heavier, almost suffocating.
Her father slept deeply next to her, his regular breathing forming small clouds of condensation on the cool window. Jade, who was looking through the window, the landscape passing by in a greenish blur, turned toward her, her face lighting up with relief.
"After your panic attack, you fainted," she explained softly, her warm breath caressing Emma's cheek. "I settled you in the seat so you could rest."
She glanced toward Emma's father.
"As for him, the nurse managed to calm him down. He fell asleep a few minutes before you woke up."
Emma felt heavy gazes upon them, and she understood why. Their little spectacle hadn't gone unnoticed.
She decided to go to the bathroom to rinse her face and digest everything that had happened. The carpet in the corridor muffled the sound of her steps.
On her way, she crossed paths with the nurse. An icy shiver ran down her spine, but she forced herself to smile. She thanked her for her help.
"I think your family and you are going through a difficult situation," she said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, two cold gray marbles.
"If needed, I'll help you as much as possible. Family is the most important thing in this world, and it must be preserved... at all costs."
Her gaze lingered on Emma a second too long, piercing like a needle.
"So if you need help, don't hesitate. I'll do my best for you."
Emma nodded before heading toward the bathroom. The handle was cold beneath her trembling fingers.
After urinating, the sound of water echoing strangely in the confined space, she began washing her face when a strange smell reached her.
A metallic, coppery smell. The smell of blood, mixed with that of chemical disinfectants.
Slowly, she lowered her eyes.
At her feet, a scarlet pool spread, moving toward her as if animated by its own will, the warm liquid already seeping into her socks.
The light above her head began to flicker, as if to warn her of imminent danger, the electrical buzzing filling the confined space.
She turned around abruptly.
The light went out completely.
When it came back on, horror seized her throat.
A little boy floated suspended in front of the toilet. The air around him seemed to vibrate, distorted.
His body slowly disarticulated, limb by limb, like a puppet whose strings were being cut one by one. Each bone crack resonated like a whip.
Black, thick blood flowed from his eyes, emitting a nauseating odor of decomposing flesh.
His bones pierced his flesh, puncturing his pale skin and releasing all his blood, which fed the pool at Emma's feet. The wet sound of torn flesh turned her stomach.
But it wasn't this macabre spectacle that worried her most. No.
It was what awaited her.