A blood-stained letter.


    The first thing Satou pulled out from the panoply of who-knows-what awaited him inside, was a blood-stained letter.


    His first thoughts had reached for murder; but it very well could’ve happened from a cut finger. Mindful that he did not take it out, he held it up with his fingers clamped on its corners, so that where it was stained he did not touch. A fifth of it, he saw, was covered in crimson: blood, he knew with some surety, that was splattered on it like spilled ink.


    An elaborate sigil sealed it shut, and flipped over on its back, jutted in ink were words written in short-hand that at a glance he could not tell apart from mere scrawls. It looked jargon, but also not. There was draftsmanship in it. It looked important. But, whatever the case was, he knew, to try to understand what it meant was evidently beyond him, for now.


    He let it fall, and then scrambled past a white handkerchief, a fountain pen, a hip flask half-filled with hard liquor, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, until finally he took out what looked to be film-camera that was the width of his palm. Bronze-lined (which he thought was gold), black-framed, rigid and firm when he shook it, it had weight to it despite its size, and seemed to be entirely mechanical. He fumbled with it in his hands, when, not sure what he did, the back flung open.


    Satou jerked, startled at having not expected it, and saw in between the two spools where the lens met the film behind frosted glass —an image, in heliotype, that albeit pitifully small, was of such fine grains that it looked no less inferior to a black & white polaroid. The glare of the sun made it hard to make it out, but when he brought his hand over it for shade, he saw—a city, from the looks of it: taken from the dark confines of an open attic that stood out like a wet blotch of ink near the borders. Three-quarters up: roofs, chimneys, domes, belfries, and spires jutted out to meet the midday sky.


    Satou winded the lever back, the spools turned, a click came, and the image shifted to a prior shot: this one, of a marble hearth, in the dark. Barely was he able to make out the outlines something hung above the mantlepiece: probably a portrait; below which were cindered logs nearly lit out, their cores glowing faintly still like veins a couple shades lighter.


    Then came the canopy of a tree. Dead twisting-branches branched out over a dark and overcast gloomy sky, and it was the last one. The lever turned a dozen or so more times, then it turned no more. He had reached the end of the reel.


    He wasn’t sure what to make of any of it. Again he reached his hand in for the next, cold to the touch, did he realize what it was. For a brief few moment, all he could do was blankly stare. Then his blood began to boil. He shoved the thing in—startled eyes wide-open for any witnesses—and saw… No one. No one had seen him.


    Slowly, he pried the satchel back open.


    Ornate engravings etched on cold steel; a familiar barrel. His eyes hadn’t deceived him—It was a gun! A revolver, to be more precise, whose thin and long barrel made it look more sleek than it was burly. He held it on its ivory hilt, mindful that he did not take it out, and felt the weight of it bear down on his hand. Though by no means small, it was heavier than what he had expected it to be—and that to him spoke of power, force. But why was it here? Why did he have it on him?


    More importantly, was it fine that he had it on him? It wouldn’t get him in trouble, would it?


    Does it have a safety? A stupid thought. It was a revolver. The hammer of it wasn’t cocked.


    But just to be sure, and since not making sure to do so was negligence on his part, he turned the satchel away so that the barrel it faced far away from either him or his thighs, or anyone else he could see in the vicinity.


    But if it does go off, it won’t matter if it hits someone or not… What else’s there?


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    Hands burrowed through the satchel once more, and a weighty chuck of iron clanked inside it. He took it out. An iron-cast key, that, given its hefty size, suited best to fit inside a gate. Besides its size, it was roughly-made, and by all means ordinary.


    House keys? It could be. What else? Just one more. And it was the last one.


    A nutcracker doll, from the looks of it, which, for some reason, reminded him of a mage. In his hand he held it: eerily cold despite it being made out of wood and him wearing gloves that by no means were thin, and he found it an odd thing that it was so. What else is there in here? Nothing else. He complained under his breath: “Where I am, who am I—nothing?”


    Suddenly, he remembered that he had yet to check himself.


    He patted himself down, but froze the moment he saw his prominent chest block the view to his lower torso.


    Like a boy, he flushed, shy.


    This’ll take some time to get used to…


    He tried to get back on track, but the swap of his gender was not something he could’ve easily feigned. In the back of his mind it was here to stay, making him feel guiltily elated each time he stole glimpses of his figure in his mind’s eye; yet he pushed on, half-distracted. In his rear-pockets he felt something, and leaning on one side took it out. It was a wallet—inside which he found a folded stack of fresh notes. He counted it. “One thousand riyals,” in notes of hundred each.


    Quite a hefty sum, he thought to himself. Even if I’m in another world, a stack ought to be a hefty sum…


    Next he patted his upper-garbs, and there he found a ticket—train tickets—folded neatly in half in one of his inner-pockets. He flipped it open—an embellished white card with gilded borders—turned it upright, and read it: “Advanced booked, 1^st class. Admission for one: Adult. Boarding time: o-three pm, platform o-seven, at King’s Crossing, for the Aureate Express…”


    Satou looked up, beyond the statue, past the plaza, up a long flight of stairs where there it stood, three entrances wide, with lofty pillars on either side: “King’s Crossing,” he muttered. An enormous gold-rimmed clock high up on one of its gothic towers told him the time: “Half-past four now,” which meant that he had missed the train ‘she’ was meant to board.


    And who was this—she?


    Ednin, King’s Crossing—while he had not recognized these names, he had recognized her, knew who she was!—or so it had seemed to him, at least at first. Now he wasn’t so sure. If he had transmigrated as his player-character from Project Elyse, then it was no stretch to presume that he should have his inventory as well, or at least his equipped-gears. That not being the case, was she then, a look-alike? The belongings he had just finished cataloguing attested to being organic (except for the gun, but even that one could excuse) as the belongings of someone who was proper denizen of this world.


    “If so, then she probably has a life of her own,” a life lived for twenty years, at least; and she most likely had friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, and probably unlike me, even lovers, somewhere in the world who knew who she was, and would grow worried if she went missing for more than a few days. Or did not show up at the platforms…


    Woe was to befall him if he had to deal with that scenario—deal with all the people who knew her; but of course none of this was guaranteed. He was guessing here, at the end of the day, that he had, like a ghost, taken over the body of someone else—a look-alike—and thereby transmigrated to another world.


    If he was to err on the side of caution, here was what he had to work with: transmigrated to another world, in the middle of a train-station, in the body of a young woman who looked exactly like his Elyse player-creation, he had just missed the train she was meant to board. The only lead he had was this satchel beside him, and everything in it, and a train ticket.


    For the ticket, he could go back still, rebook, wait a few days, then board finally it once it came back; but, where to, was he meant to go? The train ticket he held in his hand made no mention of an arrival: meaning, that he was probably expected to know it beforehand. “Except, in my case, I don’t know where that is. Only she does, whoever she is…”


    He could ask around—the station staff, for a start—and tracing the route the Aureate Express took figure something out. It would be straight-forward if it stopped at one station, which seemed very unlikely. But suppose if it did? What then? Should he board, or should he stay here? He had found himself at crossroad. The whole ordeal was such a muddle.


    Exasperated, Satou ruffled his hair, and said, looking up: “But half-past four already?”


    He was wasting daylight, he realized. In a couple hours, nightfall would arrive.


    “What now, Satou-kun.”