Trans-Siberian

Mirela Fox really wanted to leave a review for Eight Hurricane Maria Stories from Puerto Rico, but Amazon hasn't let her and other readers post reviews. Oh well... here's Mirela's story! Her topic is TRAVEL ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY, the longest railway in the world:

Vjerovatno ste čuli za Mirelu Fox osnivačicu i vlasnicu hads ekpressa ali jeste li znali kako je sve počelo?

Pritisnite 1 za engleski audio vodič.

You have selected the English audio guide. Welcome to the Hades Express! Please take a moment to listen to the HEX rules:

1) No buying or selling of souls on the train.

2) Self-styled demon hunters will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

3) Refrain from performing exorcisms, purification ceremonies, or any other rituals meant to cast out so-called evil spirits. Many of the employees on Hades Express may look different, but we can assure you that they have feelings too.

Press 1 to hear the rules once more.

Press 2 to hear all language options.

Press 3 to hear tonight's list of available visitants.

Press 4 to begin the intro-

You've probably heard of Mirela Fox, the co-founder and owner of Hades Express, but did you know how HEX got its start?

Fox was not always an entrepreneur. Her lifelong love of travel is partly responsible for her success.

To travel all 9,289 kilometers of the Trans-Siberian railway had long been one of Fox's dreams. She made this dream a reality in 2019. However, time was tight. The full route between Moscow and Vladivostok takes 7 days by train, and Fox had managed to get only 8 days off of work while her husband stayed at home to look after their young daughter.

She had just 8 days to experience the immensity of the taiga, to marvel at the ancient depths of Lake Baikal, to soak in the atmosphere of the longest railway line in the world. 7 days on the train, a few hours to dip her toe in the lake, and the remaining time to catch her flights in and out of Russia.

Most visitors take the train from Moscow to Vladivostok, but Fox decided to go in the opposite direction. That way, she'd get to Irkutsk station and see Lake Baikal a little sooner, the one place where she planned to leave the train. Fox's ticket was for platskartny (third class), where the compartments were relatively open and had six beds. She wanted the 7-day journey to be communal; she wanted to really get to know her fellow passengers; she wanted to have an unforgettable conversation.

Three days into the journey, Fox had to admit that her chances of having a soul-to-soul talk didn't look good. In her compartment, there was a Belgian couple who kept to themselves, a babushka who talked incessantly but never listened, and a Russian Orthodox priest who stared silently at the passing landscape for hours on end.

Much of the rest of third class was taken up by military personnel. These soldiers were not a wild bunch; many of them drank more tea than vodka and seemed painfully shy whenever Fox tried to talk to them in bits of broken Russian.

Each train car held a carefully-tended samovar, a constant supply of boiling water for Fox's coffee and instant noodles. She would blow steam from the hot water on the train windows and pretend that the patches of condensation that formed on the glass were giant polar bears and ice wizards battling across Siberia's snowy horizon. But there were only so many daydreams and dozes, only so many piroshki and potatoes, only so many games of chess and cards with which to while away the time.

In short, Fox was bored.

When it was time to disembark at the Irkutsk station for her day trip to Lake Baikal, she leapt from the train. Fox had just enough time to take a bus to Listvyanka, hop off, run to the lake's shore, then jump back on another bus to the train station.

25 million years old, 1642 meters deep, over 20% of the world's fresh surface water – those were the impressive facts associated with Lake Baikal, but Fox's quick visit there was less than impressive. She didn't have time to explore the scenery. She didn't even get to dip a toe in the icy waters, since it was the middle of January and most of the lake was covered in ice and snow.

The most memorable moment for Fox was watching a silhouette walk across Baikal's frozen surface, but everyone she told said such a sight would be impossible. The ice was too thin and dangerous, so nobody could be walking out there. On the way back to the station, she imagined seeing that same shadow trail after the bus, but that was probably her imagination trying to make the trip more remarkable. Lake Baikal hadn't been life-changing. In the end, it'd been a bunch of water out of her reach.

That night, while the babushka muttered in her sleep and the soldiers snored softly, Fox couldn't sleep. She had both too much time and too little time. The seconds rushed by while also taking an eternity to pass. At the halfway point of her journey, her dream to travel the Trans-Siberian railway in its entirety had turned sour.

Fox left her cramped bed and went to the adjoining dining car to pace back and forth along the corridor. She stopped her pacing when she noticed a lone figure at a corner booth. This shadow left the booth and moved toward Fox as if propelled by an evil wind.

The closer it came, the less human it appeared. It looked like a dark cloud whose contours formed a writhing mass of snakes. It stopped a few centimeters from Fox's face, then spoke in guttural Russian.

She couldn't follow the cloud's words, but they didn't sound good. Most people would've wet themselves at this point, but Fox wasn't thinking of herself. She was thinking of her young daughter. Sorry kid, your mom got taken out by some magic fog on a boring train in Siberia. No thank you.

Instead of falling apart, Fox decided to say something brave.

“Shut up.”

The cloud wavered then began speaking in English.

“All of Russia trembles in my wake. I made Rasputin my plaything and corrupted the soul of Stalin. Tell me thy name.”

“No. Shut your mouth,” Fox said. The billowing snakes coalesced into a black serpent. Fox couldn't be sure, but the serpent looked like it was frowning.

“I am the merciless storm. Crops wither and farmers claw out their eyes at my passing.” The misty serpent's voice had hit a higher pitch. It sounded feminine.

“Shut up, fat snake.”

“Come on, I followed you all the way from Lake Baikal.” The serpent grew thinner in the middle, as if it were trying to suck in its stomach, but this only made its upper and lower portions curve outward. “Could you try to be a little more scared, or at least not call me fat?”

“Why did you follow me?”

“I want to be near your soul.”

“I'm not giving that away.”

“Not give. Like plants and the sun. This was a mistake.” The curved serpent wobbled and wailed. If clouds could be said to cry, it would probably look like this.

“Um, how about you tell me your name?”

“It-it's Ala.”

“What are you Ala?”

“I am me?”

“I mean are you an alien, a Cold War science experiment, a demon?”

“Demon. But that's not a nice word. We prefer visitant.”

“Was all that true what you said earlier about farmers losing their eyes and Rasputin being your toy?”

“I wanted to impress you.”

“So I would sell you my soul?”

“Do plants try to buy or sell the sun?”

“Why do you keep talking about plants?”

“You have a shiny soul, like a sun. I thought this could be my big break.”

“Okay? Let's start with something easier. How do you know English?”

“I very much like your Seinfeld, but when will Kramer shed his outer skin, reveal his true form, and dominate Jerry?”

“You learned English from watching TV. Got it. Also, I haven't seen that episode.” Fox realized that she had taken a seat at one of the dining booths without thinking about it. Ala sat down opposite her and looked vaguely human in this seated position.

“Too bad. All we get under Lake Baikal are reruns. If you give me a chance, you'll find that I'm a very good listener. I know English, Russian, and a little Chinese.”

Fox got the feeling that this was turning into a job interview. As the questions, answers, and Seinfeld references continued, Fox learned more about the visitant community.

The visitants who are better at blending in live among us. They tend to have careers that invite strong emotions: politicians, actors, journalists. The less successful visitants, the ones who don't stand a chance of assimilating into human society and must instead eke out a living by scaring the occasional person, usually live in deep lakes like Baikal. The lakes are still close enough to human settlements, but their depths provide a measure of security (most of the misguided demon hunters out there don't know how to scuba dive). These visitants were once the Kramers of the supernatural community: subject to ridicule and underemployed.

All visitants essentially want the same thing: souls. Don't worry dear listener, your soul is perfectly safe on HEX. Ala will explain the process to you in greater detail, but here's the basic idea. Plants need the sun. They use its radiant energy to survive, but no plant has ever bought or sold the sun.

Now, imagine walking, talking plants in a world populated by billions of small suns. The plants build a society that revolves around these suns; they develop an economy that's based on collecting, storing, and transferring their energy; the more successful ones find ways to have almost unlimited exposure to these suns; and the less successful ones can only hope to encounter the occasional sun. The plants are the visitants and, as you've probably already guessed, the suns are our souls.

In this analogy, Fox had just met one of the less successful, thoroughly misunderstood plants. Fear is one way to get a soul to shine, but it's ultimately a crude technique. In talking with Fox, Ala discovered that curiosity is a more sustainable source of energy. The rest is history.

Estimated docking time with the HEX welcome wagon is 12:23 PM.

To learn a few techniques for brightening you soul, press 1.

To hear the rest of the story, press 2.

“I put in my fangs each day and pretend to go to work, but I think my spawnlings can tell,” Ala confided to Fox.

“What if you could have conversations like this one on a regular basis?” Fox asked.

“That would be a dream come true. Just this conversation will be enough to last me and mine almost a month.”

“This is going to sound like a weird question Ala, but can you fit into a backpack?”

The rest of the Trans-Siberian journey passed in a blur for Fox. Other passengers would sometimes stare at the strange tourist who talked to her backpack, but Fox didn't care. She got her unforgettable conversation and much more.

Ala and Fox used the remaining days aboard the train to hatch a crazy plan. When the train got to the Moscow station, they shared a tearful but temporary goodbye.

When Fox got home, she quit her job. She convinced her husband and daughter to join her on a trip to Lake Titicaca in South America. Ala had given her the contact information of a fellow visitant who lived there. With plenty of time on his hands, this underemployed drekavac based out of Lake Titicaca had just invented the world's hottest new cryptocurrency (a drekavac is like a loud canine that can walk upright – you'll probably meet one on the train). Fox was able to get in on the ground floor and invested every last cent in that cryptocurrency.

On her end, Ala returned to Lake Baikal. The next time she slipped onto the Trans-Siberian railway, she brought plenty of friends. They haunted the living hell out of one particular train. After passengers refused to board that train for six months straight, it was condemned.

Fox bought that entire train. It cost a small fortune, but Fox's cryptocurrency investments more than covered it. At first, the Hades Express only catered to a handful of adventure travelers, but then something amazing happened. The Catholic Church got wind of the enterprise, and the Pope excommunicated Fox. Other organized religions followed suit, issuing decrees and proclamations against the Hades Express. Their actions provided the kind of publicity money can't buy.

Demand for HEX tickets soared. World leaders sometimes rented out the entire train for weeks on end when it was rumored that some of the visitants who worked on the Hades Express were able to predict the future. To make the system fair to the public, Fox and Ala decided to sell tickets through a lottery system.

Congratulations, you lucky traveler. The Hades Express began with an unforgettable conversation, and we hope that you'll have more than a few of those along the way.

End of audio guide.