[ December 2nd, 1866 -- entry #1 ] I have decided to write in these journals to record the details of the strange events that have happened recently on this very train I conduct. My name is Hansel Viklund. I am twenty-two years old, did my short time in university, and I now occupy myself with train conducting. It pays... fairly well, and I get to freely live in the train. Ah, I'm getting off topic. Now, about those strange events. It started with just... small things that would go bump in the night. Footsteps, breathing, etc. I thought it was just my own hallucinations. But, well, when it came to the broken windows and the traces of blood, I started to get really paranoid. Not like I wasn't already paranoid enough before. Ah... I have to stop in Kors pa Kors, and then I'm going to sleep, just me and my dreams to keep my company. I shall write more later.
I have witnessed something terrible. Terrible, terrible, and indescribable. I was going to refill the tender before I went to bed, but when I opened it... There... there was a man inside. Inside the tender. He was... he was twisted in satanic ways. His neck was snapped backwards, agaisnt his back. The joints of his legs and arms were snapped and twisted, wrapping around his body. He was like a spiral... But the strangest thing was.. is that he was smiling. His eyes were dead and cold, but he was smiling this unnaturally wide grin. It was so uncanny, so unsettling, I couldn't look at it. I must've passed out, because when I opened my eyes next, I was lying on the ground and there was a tall, brunet man looking down at me, about my age. He was... extremely handsome, to say the least.
His shirt collar and lapel of his trench coat were strangly large, but it didn't look terrible, no; it suited him. He was smoking something in a pipe, his eyes red as he examined me. "You alright there?" He had asked, reaching out a hand to help me up. Embarassingly, I was flustered, so it took me a bit to grab his hand as he lifted me off the ground. I managed to mutter out the words, "I don't know" in response to the man's question. He looked me up and down, and began to pace the hall of the train. I noticed that the body of the man in the tender was gone. The brunet must've done something with it. As the man paced the halls, he was telling me he was a detective who just so happened to hear my scream. He then said, and I quote, "By the looks of you, I highly doubt you were the one who killed this man." He told me afterwards that he would freely work for me to help me figure out this murder. As the man was about to turn to walk out of the train, he turned back around and offered his hand for me to shake.
"Detective Rainer Nilsson," He introduced himself as. "Conductor Hansel Viklund," I responded, and shook his hand. After Detective Rainer turned and left, I was alone. I went to the back of the train and climbed onto my bed. I lay awake for hours, thinking of this terrible event that I most definitely did not want to be thinking of. How did this murderer do this? There was no weapon, so how did they kill this man with their bare hands? And that smile. I kept thinking about these questions until I finally fell asleep, four hours past midnight. [ end of entry #1 ]