"This is just not right. None of this makes any sense." It seems impossible. He is seated across from her on a train headed to... probably somewhere akin to nowhere. "Definitely not right. I remember being in a lounge... then stuck on a ledge... and then I'm here on this train with you. Where are we going again?"

"To our destination."

"Right. And this is a dream..."

She tilts her head slightly to the side and stares. The blank expression on her white face is creepy. Creepy as .

"This is all a dream."

He stares back at her. "And I'm supposed to believe that?" The way she says it so casually makes him doubt. If only—maybe... just maybe if she—no, who is he trying to fool? There is no way she can make him feel any better about this whole trip. He looks down, surprised to see his hand wedged happily between her thighs.

How the did it get there? How the did she end up sitting next to him? What the ? He retracts his hand. Not too quickly. Not too quickly. Have to make it look natural and smooth. He coughs while wiggling the rest of his fingers out from the warm heat of her thighs. He has been there before. Definitely. "Do we—"

"Have ? Sure. Sure, we do. When you're—no, don't tell me... you want it now?"

A young mother covers her child's ears while shooting them a nasty glare. He ignores the extra heat and continues. "So we're... we're like—"

"Hell no. Lovers?" She shakes her head. "If you were really in love with me, I wouldn't be here."

He sighs in relief and nods, unaware of his reflection in the tinted windows. She is right... the raw truth in her words. Everyone... everyone he had ever loved is dead.

Long gone.

"Let's keep it that way."

"Oh, I repeat it every night. 'Don't love me. Don't love me. Don't love me.'" Why does it sound like she is teasing?

The train comes to a complete halt. The door slides open and he looks down. An unwise move on his part. "! What the ?! Are you ing serious?!"

She is standing right behind him. He can feel the familiar heat of her body. "Walk off."

"No!" He grips the side of the door, holding on for dear life.

"Do you want me to poke you again? I'm giving you the chance to be a man about it and make the walk off a choice. You want to make it a choice, don't you?"

Seriously... he will fall off no matter what. ". this ..." Their destination... is here. Here and now.

• • • • • • •

"Pull the trigger."

"What? What are you—no!" Crazy .

"Pull the goddamn trigger." She is insistent. An extremely insistent . "That woman needs to be shot... so stick a bullet in her skull already."

"Why? Where did this gun come from? How did—"

"Because we're in a dream. You're dreaming right now."

"Why do I have to shoot her though? What did she ever do to deserve it?"

She chuckles and he wonders... he wonders if there is a heart beating inside that thin chest. "The answers to your questions are irrelevant. That woman needs to be shot. That is all."

"I can't do it. I won't do it." He chucks the weapon as far away as he can... only to find it again, wedged in between his hands. Impossible.

"You will..." She whispers in his ear like a serpent. "You always do." The sickening truth.