The air gets a little bit thicker immediately outside the door, and gradually becomes much thicker a few inches away from the door.

If he doesn't prevent it, he can feel something being absorbed into the water, but there are no visible changes.

He's not sure he likes this place.

He thinks he will keep the water that's been outside separate from the rest of it. Then he'll stay back in a seat and keep looking around a bit, in case something happens.

After a few minutes, the doors chime and slide shut.

The orb didn't get back in?

Nope, it's floating through the smoke, changing colors to match each plume it goes through.

Well.

He'll just wait quietly. Again.

The car moves forward into a tunnel in the mountain, and is soon enveloped in darkness again.

Is it the void darkness again?

Yes, it's completely dark around all of the windows.

Ugh.

He'll play on his phone some more.

His phone retains its charge.

After about an hour and a half, the car leaves the darkness again. Its windows look out onto an extensive stretch of a bright blue liquid, which glows and swirls with streaks of yellow and purple.

The car seems to have stopped moving forward, but the doors are not opening.

He'll wait. Watching outside the window in case something happens.

The sky pulses light and dark, starting at a slow pace and gradually speeding up until it becomes a constant background flicker.

Large crystals start to grow, very quickly, from the fluid. Some strings of tiny cubes are briefly visible in the air, but submerge before he can get a good look.

After a few seconds, a crowd of tall shiny things are visible in the distance, rapidly coming closer.

Woo, maybe visitors or maybe something dangerous!

He still has his 'weapon'. He'll sit patiently.

The tall things reach the area near the car, but don't seem to notice it. Up close, they look like red, orange, and yellow stacks of shiny prisms, partially transparent, wider at the bases, and with dark horizontal steaks through the tops.

Some of the giant crystals growing from the ground are cut down, somehow. In a few seconds, they are covered with the tall stack-things. Some of the felled crystal disappears, and some is made over the course of about twenty seconds into some cubish structures, quickly filed with stack-things. The rest is made into a wide and tall transparent circle, which the stack-things fill with little white spheres, and a stack of those strings of cubes.

More crystals start to grow from the fluid, and stack-things begin to stand in place around the circle.

That seems extremely creepy.

Tide would rather not be outside or near the weird crystals, thank you, and will happily stay within the confines of the subway car.

Fortunately for him, the subway doors remain closed, and the stack-things continue not to notice it.

After several more cube-structures are assembled from the giant crystals, and nearly all of the stack things have surrounded the circle, the white spheres are gone, replaced with tiny stacks of shiny white prisms. The pile of cube-string-things shrinks, but is quickly replenished by more of the tall stack-things. Some of the little white stack-things take on a red or yellow sheen, and get a little bigger.

Then, there are suddenly about a tenth as many of the little stack-things.

… Well, that's curious. Did they just disappear or did the existing crystals downsize or what?

It's hard to tell, everything is moving very quickly.

After about eight minutes, the little pale stack-things have grown to the size and coloration of the tall stack things. More crystals grow, and more cubeish structures are built.

After about twenty minutes, some of the cubeish structures are opaque. The little cube-strings are held in large webs of something shiny and blue. There is a circle of neatly growing giant crystals, instead of their earlier random scattering. The circle is filled with more white spheres and cube-strings, and again produces a set of little pale stack-things which grow and gain color until they are suddenly decimated, and the remainder finish growing into tall stack-things.

He continues to be confused and feeling rather fortunate he's not out there, in case he would also be part of the decimation.

The number of cube structures and tall stack-things continues to increase steadily for about an hour. There are three more cycles of little stack-things growing and mostly disappearing. The square of growing crystals is made wider. Most of the cube structures have metallic tanks full of the blue fluid added to their tops, and crystals grow from those as well.

More tall stack-things approach from the distance. When they arrive, it's possible to see that their lower prisms are wrapped with strips of something metallic. They build cube-structures near the edge of the existing settlement. Several of them stand in a group with the non-metal-wrapped stack-things, for about a minute. Then there are suddenly about half as many metal-wrapped stack-things and no unwrapped stack-things.

Another circle of crystals is built, and both are quickly filled with spheres and cube-strings. The spheres are replaced with pale little stack-things, which grow, and are decimated, and are then wrapped in the metallic strips. Large nets mounted on constantly turning metallic and crystalline wheels are made, and drag through the fluid, pulling out cube-strings and large yellow balls of spikes and dumping them into a pile, surrounded by a perimeter of tall stack-things.

He is still not sure why he seems to be in some sort of factory doing stuff with cube things. He continues to feel quite happy he is not taking part in the factory process.

There are several more cycles of little stack-thing growth, and they are still decimated and wrapped, but the cycles are happening more frequently and the population of tall stack-things grows. Hundreds of cube structures are built farther away from the main cluster.

The tall stack-things begin to lay a long strip of metal and crystal, tall enough to just emerge from the fluid, stretching into the distance.

The strip eventually is built to go through and underneath the subway car, although they still do not seem to notice it's there. After a few more minutes, the car moves forward and to the right, and then there is a click as it settles onto the rails. The doors chime and slide open.

He feels like he has misinterpreted the previous scene. And also feels like it's a little bit weird that this thing screws with time.

Does the bright blue liquid contain any water?

(This is a very fast subway car.)

The bright blue liquid is in fact mostly water!

A tall yellow stack-thing, wrapped in strips of metal, hops into the car. Apparently its bottom prism separates into two pieces, which it can use to push off the ground. Something pale is barely visible inside one of its lower prisms.