🚆 Love Train in Facebook Station
Rain began without warning.
Cold drops falling from the dark California sky, sliding down broken walls and abandoned streets like the city itself was holding its breath.
The alley lights flickered weakly above them.
For a few seconds, nobody moved.
Not Srikant.
Not Sasmita.
Not even Raven.
Because the meaning behind those final words still hung heavily in the air.
They're coming.
Sasmita's breathing remained uneven.
The voices inside her head hadn't stopped completely.
Fragments kept flashing through her mind—
Unknown faces.
Unknown places.
Unknown memories.
Yet somehow… she could feel them.
Like invisible threads pulling at her consciousness from different corners of the world.
One subject screaming in fear.
Another waking violently inside a chamber filled with red emergency lights.
Some confused.
Some aggressive.
Some already escaping containment.
And every signal crashed into her mind at once.
She pressed her hand harder against her temple.
"Sasmita," Srikant said immediately, stepping closer. "Talk to me."
Her eyes slowly lifted toward him.
"They're connected to me now."
The words came out barely above a whisper.
"But something's wrong."
Raven watched her carefully.
"What exactly are you feeling?"
Srikant shot him a cold look.
"You suddenly care?"
Raven ignored the hostility completely. His focus never left Sasmita.
She closed her eyes for a second.
The signals became clearer.
A frozen facility somewhere covered in snow.
A desert compound underground.
A laboratory beneath an ocean platform.
All active.
All waking up.
Then suddenly—
One face appeared clearly in her mind.
A little girl.
No older than ten.
Terrified.
Alone inside a chamber.
Sasmita's eyes snapped open instantly.
"They used children…"
Silence hit like a physical force.
Even the operatives around Raven seemed disturbed by the statement.
Srikant's expression darkened immediately.
"What kind of system is this?"
Raven finally looked away for the first time.
Not guilt.
But something close to discomfort.
"Phoenix expanded beyond the original project years ago," he said quietly.
"Expanded?" Srikant stepped forward angrily.
"You mean they turned human beings into experiments?"
Raven met his gaze calmly.
"They called it evolution."
Rain intensified around them.
The sound of water hitting concrete filled the silence between breaths.
Sasmita stared at Raven carefully now.
"You already knew this was happening."
A pause.
Then—
"Yes."
"Then why are you helping them?"
For the first time since they met him… Raven hesitated.
Only briefly.
But enough to matter.
"Because stopping Phoenix directly is impossible now," he answered.
"The network is too large."
He looked at Sasmita again.
"You're the only stabilizing factor left."
"That's not an answer," Srikant said sharply.
Raven's jaw tightened slightly.
And suddenly, the calm perfection in him cracked just enough for something real to appear underneath.
Exhaustion.
"You think I chose this?" he asked quietly.
The question wasn't defensive.
It sounded tired.
Another flash hit Sasmita's mind.
This time not from the network—
From Raven himself.
A memory.
Quick.
Blurred.
A younger Raven standing beside a glass chamber.
Inside it—
A woman smiling faintly through the glass.
Then alarms.
Gunfire.
Blood.
And the chamber shattering.
Sasmita staggered slightly.
Raven noticed instantly.
His eyes narrowed.
"What did you see?"
She looked at him carefully now.
Not with fear.
Understanding.
"You lost someone to Phoenix."
The rain seemed to quiet around them for one second.
Even Raven stopped moving completely.
Srikant looked between them.
"What?"
Raven's expression hardened again immediately, walls rebuilding around him.
"That's irrelevant."
"No," Sasmita said softly.
"It's the reason you stayed."
Raven didn't answer.
Which was answer enough.
Far away, thunder rolled across the city skyline.
The operatives shifted uneasily, waiting for orders that weren't coming yet.
Srikant finally understood something important.
Raven wasn't the real enemy.
Dangerous? Yes.
But trapped.
Just like them.
A sudden alert beeped through Raven's comm device.
His expression changed instantly as he checked the signal.
Then another alert came.
And another.
Multiple activations.
Multiple breaches.
One operative stepped toward him quickly.
"Sir… containment facilities in Berlin and Sector Nine have gone offline."
Another voice came through comms immediately after.
"Tokyo branch reporting subject escape."
Then another.
"Northern facility compromised."
The network was collapsing faster than expected.
Sasmita felt the panic spreading through the connections.
Fear.
Violence.
Confusion.
Dozens of awakened subjects trying to understand what they were.
And underneath all of it—
One signal stronger than the others.
Different.
Not confused.
Focused.
Watching.
Her body suddenly went still.
Too still.
Srikant noticed immediately.
"What is it?"
Sasmita looked ahead slowly.
But not at the alley.
Not at Raven.
Something beyond them.
Something far away.
"There's another one," she whispered.
Raven frowned instantly.
"What do you mean another one?"
Her voice lowered further.
"Someone connected deeper than me."
A chill ran through the alley.
Because the fear in her eyes this time…
Was real.
"Impossible," Raven said immediately.
"You're the central subject."
But Sasmita slowly shook her head.
"No…"
Her breathing became uneven again.
"This one…"
A pause.
"…feels older."
Far away—deep beneath an unknown underground facility—
A pair of eyes slowly opened inside complete darkness.
Unlike the others, there was no confusion in them.
No fear.
Only awareness.
A weak smile appeared on the figure's face.
And for the first time in years—
The system spoke one forgotten name aloud.
"Subject Zero awakened."
Back in California, Sasmita's heartbeat stopped for one terrifying second.
Because she heard that name too.
Inside her mind.
Clear as reality itself.
And somehow…
She already knew.
Whatever Subject Zero was—
Everything until now had only been the beginning.