Somewhere between Venice and Verona, a train rolls through fog too thick to see out of.
There are no tracks.
There is no conductor.
And every window shows a different cathedral — all of them burning.
In the luxury car near the rear, Tralalero Tralala reclines in a throne carved from the hull of a sunken fishing boat, lit cigarette between two fingers, veil draped over her eyes like mourning silk.
She's humming.
The sound makes the wine on the table boil.
She's not humming for herself.
She's humming for blood.
The Choir banished her.
Once, they called her the Angel of the Adriatic.Now, she is their apocalypse made personal.
She remembers the day they gagged her with gold thread.She remembers the sound of her voice snapping in half.She remembers them singing her out of Heaven.
And she remembers the kiss they stopped.
Their voices lifted as hers fell — and the world didn't end.
But it cracked. Just slightly.
They were scared of her.And rightfully so.
Now?
They should be terrified.
Tralalero rises from her throne.
The floor wilts beneath her heels.
Her sharkskin corset glints. Her earrings are melted rosaries. Her perfume is sea salt and divine rage.
She steps into the train's hallway, which bends as she walks.
Room by room, she tears back the velvet curtains.
She's not looking for passengers.
She's looking for their echoes.
The Choir never dies — they just hide in sound.
And she can smell them.
She stops at a door marked C.III.
Inside: a chapel.
On a train.
A stone altar. A wall of speakers.And perched on pews — not people — but shadows made of song.
The Choir.
Three of them.
Their mouths open in unison.
"Tralalero. You shouldn't sing."
"You'll end it all."
"Again."
She smiles.
"Exactly."
And she sings.
It starts soft — a whisper in Italian too old for Latin.
Then it breaks.
Her voice warps the air, melts the walls, scrapes the souls off the Choir's teeth. The altar screams. The train wails like a banshee. The fog outside turns black.
And the Choir?
They beg.
They beg for silence.
But it's not her silence that comes.
It's Lirilì Larilà's.
A counter-song rises — from below the train. A silence that sings back.
Tralalero freezes.
For a heartbeat, her flame flickers.
She sees Lirilì's face.
A memory.
A kiss almost happened.
A world almost broke.
She falters.
And the Choir strikes.
Their harmonics lash her like barbed wire.One leaps — mouth open, full of knives.Another summons the Song of Banishment.
But it's too late.
Tralalero's voice returns like a tidal wave.
One note —High and final.
The car explodes in light.
When the wreckage settles, the train keeps moving. Headless.
The Choir is gone.
Tralalero stands alone in the chapel car.
Breathing hard.
Her throat is bleeding.
And a single note — hers — vibrates in the broken air:
"One down."
She looks into the cracked mirror at the altar.
Her reflection is smiling.
But it isn't her.
It's Lirilì.
Far away, in a town no longer on any map, Bombombini Gusini sets the table for nine ghosts.
He pours the wine.
And hums Tralalero's song.