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.

Carefully, being mindful not to take it out, he held it up with his fingers clamped on its corners so that where it was stained was not touched. 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 in short-hand that at a glance he could not tell apart from mere scrawls. It looked jargon, but also not. The draftsmanship was elegant, smart, vaguely perceptible despite its indecipherability; it seemed important; but whatever the case was, he knew, to understand what it meant for now was evidently beyond him.

Not dwelling on the letter for too long, he let it fall, and scrambled past a white handkerchief, a fountain pen, a hip flask half-filled with hard liquor, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, until he pulled out what looked to be a 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 entirely mechanical.

He fumbled with it in his hands, when, not sure what he did, the back of it flung open.

Satou winced, jerking his head back, startled from not having expected it, and saw inside in between the two spools where the lens met the film, under a 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.

With the glare from the sun, it was hard for him to make out what it was, and only was it when he brought his hand over it for shade did he see it: 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. Three-quarters up: roofs, chimneys, domes, belfries, spires jutted out above it to meet the midday sky.

He winded the lever back, the spools turned, a click came, and the image then shifted to a prior shot: this one, of a marble hearth. Barely, was he able to make out the borders of something hung above the mantlepiece: a portrait, most likely; below which were cindered logs nearly lit out, their cores glowing faintly still like veins a mere shade lighter.

Next, dead-twisting branches branched out over a dark and overcast gloomy sky, and it was the last one. The rest of the shots were blank. The lever turned a dozen or so more times, then it turned no more.

Not sure what to think of it, other than that he found the pictures to be quite artistic, Satou put the camera back in, and expecting much the same, reached his hand in for the next one, cold to the touch, that only was it when he had halfway pulled it out did he realize what it was. For a few seconds there he only blankly stared; then his blood boiled from fright. He shoved the thing back in as quickly as his hand would move—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 glinted back at him. 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 reached in and held it on its ivory hilt, being especially mindful to not take it out, and felt the weight of it bear down on his hand. Though by no means small, it was heavier than he’d 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?

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 of it inside faced far away from either him or his thighs, or anyone else in the vicinity.

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

Hands burrowed into the satchel once more, and a weighty chuck of iron clanked inside. 1He 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, maybe? Could be. What else do I have in here?

Just one more; and it was the last one:

A nutcracker doll, from the looks of it, that vaguely resembled a aristocratically-robed mage. In his hand he held it: eerily cold despite being made out of wood, and him wearing gloves that by no means were thin, and he found it odd that it was so; though by no means did it alarm him.

He complained under his breath: “Nothing about my identity? Who am I, where am I—anything?”

More than illuminated, he had only grown all the more confused.

Just to be sure, Satou rummaged through the satchel again, then again—one last time—and found nothing else.

Then he remembered 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 flustered shyly. This’ll take some time to get used to…

He tried to ignore it, get back on track, but the swap of his genders 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, but he pushed on nevertheless, half-distracted.

In his rear pockets he felt something, and leaning on one side pulled it out. It was a wallet: inside which he found a folded stack of fresh notes, and nothing else. He counted it. “One thousand riyals,” in notes of hundred each.

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

He patted his upper-garbs next, and hung there, well-concealed inbetween an open-seam on the underside of his black vest, he found tickets—train tickets—folded neatly in half right next to his cleavage.

He flipped it open—a 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…”

He looked up, past the statue, beyond the plaza, up a short 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 he was meant to board by a little more than an hour’s time.

He could go back in now, of course—rebook, wait a few days, then board it finally once it came back, if it even did—but, where to, was he meant to go? The train ticket he held in his hand made no mention of the destination he was meant to arrive at: meaning, he was probably expected to know that beforehand, and step out onto a platform once his station came along; except, in his case—I don’t know where that is!

Only she does, whoever she is… And who was this—she?

Here was it again, the same question Satou had asked himself earlier when he had first seen himself in front of a storefront mirror: Who was she, this young woman, who so closely-resembled his player-character from Project Elyse?

While the world around him had so far seemed foreign; this body had not. 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.

The belongings he had just finished cataloguing attested to being organic (except for the gun, but even that one could excuse), of belonging to someone who was a proper denizen of this world—which begs the question—Was she a denizen?

If so, then she probably had 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 wider world at large, 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, he also knew that none of this was guaranteed to be the case. Nothing was set in stone here, least of all anything he could’ve conjectured out of what little he knew. At the end of the day, he was just presuming here that he had taken over the body of someone and thereby transmigrated to another world. A good conjecture, mind you, and the most sound one he could’ve made; but there were other interpretations on the table also, just as valid, that told him otherwise.

For all he knew, this young woman whom he had presumed to have taken over the body of: perhaps he could’ve not. Or if he had, maybe she could’ve had no friends, no family, nothing—which would certainly make his life much more simpler; or maybe she could’ve manifested out of thin air instead, like him, in the middle of a train station, just to serve him as his vessel, a body to be taken over. For all he knew—

No, let’s stop… My head hurts, doing this… I’m getting scatterbrained, it’s getting nowhere… I’ll think about it, but, later…

As for his supposed destination: he could find out, of course, if he were to ask around—the train station staff for a start—and tracing the route the Aureate Express was meant to take, figure something out. It would be straight-forward if it stopped at just one station, which seemed unlikely; but suppose if it did? What then? Should he board, or should he stay?

The whole ordeal was becoming such a muddle.

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

He hadn’t realized just how late it had gotten, and how he had been sat here, dawdling away his precious daylight when a whole city lay ahead of him yet to explore. Daylight was resource, precious resource, especially for someone like him: an otherworlder, who knew nothing, and had yet to figure out what he ought to do next. A mere few hours seemed too short for anything proper to be getting done.

“What now, Satou-kun.”