PR:When our non-descript protagonist (Simon. Cry of fear, maybe?) enters the "non-descript" wagon of a late train of some "abandoned station" , he immediately falls asleep, which we know opens the possibility for the most dreadful of all things, which is the "it was all a dream" ending. Well, this creepypasta does a lot of things poorly, but at least that's not one of them.
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| From the creators of "maybe don't chase after the weird noise" in horror movies, maybe don't take the train sailing from an abandoned station. Just a thought. |
Obviously when he wakes up, he's on Silent Hill, minus the sirens. Well, I'm half-guessing he's on Silent Hill, because the author speaks of "horrors" beyond comprehension and visions of darkness but all he describes is a slum during a blackout, nasty, yes, but hardly otherworldly.
Then, he dashes across the train meeting a bunch of 2D cardboard archetypes, including a black woman on a suit, a Kardashian wannabe, some dude with a belly pot, an angry businessman and, I quote "a tall and muscular man with short hair, firm eyes, and a steady smile. He spoke with some authority which gave me the impression he’d been in difficult situations before and knew how to keep his cool in a crisis." Later he's revealed to be an ex-soldier, what a shocker.
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| Army dude going undercover be like: |
The protagonist claims that only he and black woman (because he's hot on her) are the sane ones on the train, because as the minutes go by, and the train goes nowhere and no one responds the businessman and the Kardashian complain a bit. In case you're wondering what's so insane about the military dude or belly pot, no idea. They're just chilling there, doing nothing.
When businessman gets the idea of smashing one of the windows in order to escape the train, spoiler alert he's the only one with ideas on this story, some incorporeal voice tells him that "vandalism would not be tolerated" to which everyone takes dead serious as if Casper the overworked ghost could do anything other than driving the train, presumably. After Casper reveals that the Shadow ferry company pay is shit and that the train is "his home" which also means that the work hours must be hell, he proceeds to tell the group to calmly await orders. As to who is giving the orders or why, this question is never answered.
The crew speculates that the train must be on another dimension, since it has been traveling for more than nine hours, which means that none of them considers that changing tracks or turning is a possibility.
Then, the protagonist becomes "horrorized" by an old woman on a red dress and some dude with a dog, as he sees them briefly while the train speeds past the platforms they're on. He even gives them spooky nicknames, "The Hag" and "The Harbinger", going as far as to further speculate that the old woman is speaking hexes and death-cursing them while it's entirely possible that the hag is just pissed at the stupid train not stopping at the platforms as it should. The dude with the dog simply remains still so he gets less words in his mouth but more "ominous vibes". The dog isn't even that threatening, it's an American Eskimo or a white Husky, so when the prota calls him "A hell hound" with "razor sharp teeth" let's just say that we, the readers, don't take him much to heart.
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| Behold... "the harbinger" |
The scenery has changed from slum to forest, which is also maddening and flays the human mind while also being a perfectly normal forest with trees on it, not even dark trees or blood trees, just trees. Possibly evergreens or pinecones.
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| "The trees! The treeeessss aghhh!" -Simon observing a common run-on-the-mill forest |
The first "trial" arrives and the crew is left in the one platform the incompetent driver deigns stop at, and tasked with "gathering supplies" for their journey which basically means buy stuff at the vending machine, meaning, no food cart. Shadowlands ferry company really sucks, someone should leave a scathing yelp review.
Businessman then gets the idea of leaving the platform, and he's ridiculed by the others for not following Casper's advice, to which he answers something on the lines of "Like hell I'm trusting the voice on the hell train that kidnapped us" which is in all honest fairness both an accurate and insightful comment, much better than the other 2Ds and the prota that literally do nothing.
At first I was like "Businessman, you really walking hundreds of miles to get back in the city?" but then I thought that if there was a train platform then there most be some kind of settlement nearby, really nearby if an old woman on a dress can get there. Of course, since he's basically a redshirt since minute one, he dies to some conveniently unseen monster that prota swear is scary as fuck. Then again, he said the same about the slums and the literal forest so... Maybe it was just a squirrel?
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| Squirrels according to Simon |
Anyways, where were we... ah yes, death by squirrel.
The train collects the crew and they move onto the next trials, not before author slams some "Bitchy Kardashian, who's caked with makeup and has luxury, designer clothes paired with military dude , probably because she needed a man to protect her". I'm not commenting on the sexism of that phrase, I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense that the character described as a bitchy spoiled rich girl behaves like that. Most likely, she would've isolated herself from the group or would've done what businessman did, which didn't made much sense with his archetype.
Ok, so, characters get into non descript building and there are wooden doors with their names crudely scribbled with red chalk. Why someone would use red chalk at all, or specially on wood where it wouldn't contrast very well? Extra spookyness I guess.
The characters face their underwhelming sins on the other side of the door, in an underwhelming fashion. Base on the description, basically just them watching "IHadAnAffair.mp4" or "ITextAndDrived.mkv", or worse of all "Goldiggin-bitchesss.png". The only notable sin is army dude shooting some kid, accidently of course. It's hard to believe that prota's wife had a suicide attempt and got tossed into some psych ward because of him doing the secretary, feels like something else may be going on there.
Kardashian marrying some old dude because money hardly constitutes as a sin, convenience is the reason behind basically every wedding ever, outside of the dumb teen or the drunkard that got married on an impulse, so I'm guessing that the crew is choosing to believe Casper when he says "Yeah... She didn't truly regret her sin, that's why she got killed by a demon portal" but the demon portal may have already been there and it was actually just a one-in-four chance of getting eaten.
The final trial (thanks for almost being overrr) constitutes on the crew running from the train, across the "eerily grey and sameish city" (not that you didn't want to actually write about it...), onto the next train. Things go sideways when army dude suggests getting weapons and pot belly stabs him in the gut, possible preventive strike since I would've hesitated to give a weapon to the dude so twitchy he off some kid mid operation.
Pot belly passes then from being this overweight couch potato to become some mad beast of endless stamina, classic move when ordinary character "snaps", lucky for the protagonist unlike Jeff the killer he didn't gain the ability to stop people's heart with a punch.
Dog guy shows in the nick if time and pot belly dies unceremoniously under the jaws of our favorite Husky, but then dog dude was cringed by the prota "selflessly" shoving black woman into the train and staying himself, when he could've just as easily enter the train WITH the black woman, so he didn't call doggie off. Prota stabs doggie, but Husky doesn't die, just retreats. Prota then gets on the other train and heads back to civilization, having realized he's so retarded he actually sent black woman further into hell. Kidding, he doesn't realize, he's too retarded to do two plus two equals "the train going in opposite direction to the real world goes further into hell " and just wonders where black woman may be.
Like I said on the beginning, shadowlands does a lot of things wrong, but my primary discomfort was with the characters. I could've endured either the complete lack of actual horror OR the complete lack of character depth, certainly not both. The story also seems like it doesn't really know where its going, so midway through we have this uncomfortable shift where the inescapable death train to hell is just a trail giver to punish sins like it's some BS straight from "Tales from the Hood 2" (haven't watched, just assuming). Overall, making a lot of considerations, I'd say the story is a four out of ten.
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