Black Coin

[Chapter 1: The Infinite Train Plan]

[Chapter 1: The Infinite Train Plan]

Jiang City. Afternoon.

The wind breezed across the rooftop, warm and gentle, masking the stench of a dying world.

Seven stood on the balcony of a high-rise apartment. He lowered his eye from the astronomical telescope, the lens reflecting a cold, sharp gaze. He checked the military watch on his wrist.

Beep-beep.

17:00.

"Ninety minutes until the sun dies," Seven muttered to himself. His voice was calm, devoid of the panic that should have been there.

He reached for the heavy iron chain hanging by the wall. Clank. He pulled.

Grind—Clang!

A custom-reinforced alloy gate rose from the floor, sealing the floor-to-ceiling window. The sunlight in the room was instantly sliced into thin, jagged ribbons by the gaps in the metal. The apartment, filled with stacked boxes of supplies, plunged into a twilight gloom.

Bzzt... BZZZZT.

A low vibration hummed through the concrete floor.

Seven froze. His head snapped up, eyes narrowing. He recognized that sound. It wasn't a monster. It was a machine.

He grabbed the tactical short knife from the table and clipped it to his belt. His movements were fluid—muscle memory from a life of fighting. He opened the hatch and climbed onto the roof terrace.

WHUP-WHUP-WHUP-WHUP.

A helicopter.

It was approaching low, the roar of its rotors deafening in the silent city.

Seven didn't wave frantically like a victim. He calmly pulled a long coil of water hose from behind a vent, a tattered strip of orange cloth tied to the end. He whipped it into the air.

Snap! Snap!

Inside the helicopter, a girl wearing noise-canceling headphones pressed her face against the glass. She saw the flash of orange on the distant roof.

"Mr. Wen?" she called out, pointing.

The pilot in the front seat saw it too. He banked slightly, glancing back at his VIP passenger. "Sir? There's a survivor signaling."

In the back seat, a man in a bespoke suit—Mr. Wen—glanced out the window. He looked at the solitary figure on the roof, then closed his eyes with a sneer.

"Wishful thinking," Mr. Wen scoffed. "Who cares if these rats live or die? Keep flying."

The pilot hesitated, then straightened the stick.

Mr. Wen saw the girl staring at the rooftop. "What? Feeling sentimental?" He laughed, a cruel, hollow sound. "Remember, kid. They aren't like us. If the world ends tomorrow, people like me will be the last ones standing. Understand?"

"Tch." The girl turned away, disgust etched on her face.

VROOOOM.

The helicopter roared past Seven’s building, ignoring him completely.

On the roof, Seven lowered the hose. He didn't scream. He didn't beg. He just watched the aircraft shrink into the distance with a look of clinical detachment.

"Idiot," Seven whispered. "That was a nice chopper. Shame it’s going to waste."

...

Minutes later.

WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO!

The alarm inside the helicopter cockpit screamed.

"Stall warning! Stall warning!" the computer blared.

"What’s happening?!" Mr. Wen shouted, gripping his leather seat.

"We’re losing lift!" The young co-pilot’s face went white. "It’s... it’s like the air just disappeared! We hit a vacuum!"

"We’re in broad daylight!" Mr. Wen yelled, his composure shattering. "Stop messing around and fly this thing!"

The pilot checked the radar. Empty. Green.

Then, the light in the cockpit died.

A shadow fell over them. Not a cloud shadow. Something solid.

The pilot leaned out the window to look up. His pupils shrank to pinpricks. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

The massive cloud layer above the city—the one that had been still all day—was churning.

WHOOOSH!

A violent gale whipped up from nowhere. The helicopter wasn't falling; it was being sucked upward.

"Captain! What is that?!" the co-pilot screamed.

As the mist cleared, they saw it.

It wasn't a cloud.

It was a body.

A gigantic, humanoid mummy was floating face-down in the sky.

It was incomprehensibly large. Just the visible part of its torso stretched for ten kilometers, blocking out the sun like a floating continent. Its skin was grey and desiccated, with folds as deep as mountain valleys.

It hung there, motionless, dead... except for the pressure. A sinister, crushing aura that radiated from its pitch-black, lifeless eyes.

"AAAAHHH!"

Screams filled the cabin. The girl in the back squeezed her eyes shut as the shadow swallowed them whole.

CRUNCH.

The hurricane-force wind tore the helicopter apart like a paper toy. The multi-ton machine was nothing but dust in the face of this eldritch horror. In a blink, it was sucked into the folds of the mummy’s skin and vanished.

Miles away, on the rooftop.

Seven watched the tiny explosion in the sky through squinted eyes. His expression didn't change.

"Predicted," he muttered. "Prey shouldn't make noise in the hunter's den."

Buzz.

A strange, jagged light flashed on the horizon. Seven’s instincts flared.

"Time's up."

He didn't waste a second. He turned and sprinted back down the stairs. Thud. Thud. Thud.

He pulled the window shutter down until it locked with a heavy Click. He sprayed a can of industrial deodorizer into the stairwell to mask his scent. Hiss...

Then, he slammed the heavy iron door shut. CLANG.

He waited.

Drip... drip...

18:45.

A second flash of light pulsed through the cracks in the shutter. The sun died. The city was instantly swallowed by absolute darkness.

And then, the sounds began.

Skreee...

Sinister whispers rose from the dark alleys below. Piercing howls echoed through the concrete jungle. The Terror had descended.

Inside the apartment.

Click.

A record player needle dropped onto vinyl. Smooth, mellow jazz filled the tense silence of the room.

Seven stood in the kitchen, wearing an apron over his survival gear. He looked completely out of place—a killer playing house.

He opened a can of beans. Crack.

The aroma of tomato and beef soup wafted up from the electric stove, battling the smell of old dust.

He walked to the counter and picked up a sprig of fresh coriander he had harvested from the roof garden. It was green and vibrant—a small rebellion against the death outside.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Seven sprinkled the herbs into the bubbling pot, scraping the last green bit off the blade with his finger. He didn't waste a crumb.

Outside the window, the night was a hollow, screaming void.

Suddenly, Seven stopped stirring the soup.

Creak.

Footsteps sounded from the floorboards below.

And then, right outside his reinforced iron door, in the pitch-black corridor... something stopped.

Haaa... Haaa...

Something was breathing.