A scruff faced man rode quietly in the train car without any concern for the countryside outside his window. He scrolled away at an instagram feed, skimming through art pages, busty models and truck groups.

A knock on his door. Oh, what the fuck now? The vulgar minded man thought to himself. He stood up to open the door, but stopped when the banging became incessant and repetitive. A moment more and the banging got harder.

“Öffen die tür!” shouted an authoritative voice. It didn’t seem right. Öffen? He was pretty sure someone had gotten the letters mixed up. He readied his knife. The person on the other side rattled the handle.

The man gritted his teeth with anger, feelings of anxiety coupled with intrusive memories began attempting to work on his mind. This isn’t home he told himself. I’m no longer the child. He focused his mind on the here and now.

He reached the necessary calm, his anxiety dissipated, his mind focused on the present. With his knife ready, he unlatched the cabin door.

The door flew open. The stranger who turned out to be an assailant, barged in with his gun in hand. Makarov PM, small, soviet, simple. Cheap, easy to acquire. Reliable when used right. But the gun was more seasoned than this lesser who had just made his last mistake. He jammed it against the passengers chest.

Leaning further against the firmly held pistol, the passenger kept it out of battery; the slide was unaligned just enough to prevent the hammer from striking correctly. Malfunction.

Two quick movements followed simultaneously.

With one hand, he thumbed the shooters finger from the trigger space. He gripped the front of the pistol with great force and yanked it out to the side, away from himself. The other movement, a deep thrust of his five inch blade into the lung of his attacker.

The failed attacker tried to scream, but it was hard to do with a punctured lung.

The passenger used his knife as a handle to move the attacker to a seat, out of his way so he could close and lock the door. As he latched the door, he yanked the knife from the mans chest and reinserted it slowly into the other side of his chest. Holding the gun in a now proper grip, he smiled as he spoke in a low voice.

“Vielen dank, doch der E und N waren vertauscht.” The assailant choked, trying to inhale with lungs he no longer had. “Öffne, not öffen, you idiot. I’m letting you die for your transgression against a beautiful language.”

The dying attacker made a half hearted attempt at breath, then a moment of stillness followed. The assailant expired, his head slumping forward. As the attacker sat dead in the seat, the passenger sat across from him and cleaned off his blade with a cloth.

The passengers name was Michael.

Before leaving his cabin and taking the pistol, spare magazines, money and his own carryon bag with him, he grabbed a permanent marker and wrote a message on the dead attackers wrist;

Du bist gefuckt; you’re fucked