Tear Jerker / Midnight Train

When it gets a man wet with tears, you know it’s gotta hurt

Train is often associated with goodbye, which is sad and tear jerking as hell. So does Midnight Train.

SPOILERS ARE UNMARKED, READ WITH CAUTION!

Chapter 1

• We get to see the diary of someone who was trapped here, in which the contents are genuinely depressing and the owner is heavily implied to be Driven to Suicide.
• Moments later, it seems that Lydia didn’t hold back anymore: there’s an actual suicide case that the main characters must witness and fail to save the victim. While Luna and Neil are still in shock, the victim’s friend comes in and calls for her, not aware of what she’s going to see next...
  • This pains more when you play Chapter 4 and look back, as the victim, Cynthia Miller, was once Luna’s friend in Black Gear. The friend who helped her escape, who she has a promise of reunion, reduced to a mass of flesh and blood in front of her eyes. It must be horrifying to Luna as she recalls the scene 3 chapters later.
  • To make things worse, Cynthia commited suicide seconds before Luna arrived. The "if only..." plot never fails to get someone’s tears.
• We only know Neil for 3 hours, but he has been so kind and selfless to the final moments. When the duo reach the train, he collapses as the poison kicks in, but still trying to get Luna on the train as he says his goodbyes, which is full of Heroic Self-Deprecation. Even Diana lampshades it.
  Diana: "His last words are so touching."
  • Luna cries for him, and he repeatedly thanks her for that very simple act of empathy. Makes you wonder what actually happened with him in the past...
• The reason why Diana is driven to such impulsive act and her overall situation is incredibly depressing. Months of being trapped inside a nightmarish building, gradually losing all the companies you have in there to deadly traps, seeing your only left friend Driven to Suicide, and having to choose between a stranger’s life and yourself... All of that and she’s only a teenager.
• How badly these buildings can affect one’s mental health is already reflected through Diana. After she went through her murderous phase and got constrained by Luna, she breaks down in tears, constantly saying that she doesn’t want to be alone, questioning her purpose for living and her actions, and desperately screams at Luna when asking if she should follow Cynthia. Had Luna not reassured her, it’s safe to say that Diana would seek her own salvation sooner or later.

Chapter 2

• Neil’s lack of self-esteem seems to be more serious than a simple personality flaw. He constantly berates himself, believes himself to be nothing good and prone to breakdown for whatever he believes is his fault. It hits too close to home for those with the same issues.
• The situation that leads to Apollo committing a murder. He was severely abused by his stepfather as his mother remarried, and found some happiness in the slums of all places where he fed the stray cats with the foods he struggled to find. One day, he was minding his business as usual when a drunk man approached him and gave him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown for little to no reason than his alcohol-filled twisted justice fantasy. Apollo tried to talk him down and resisted to no avail, so he pushed the man away in an attempt to escape...but there were mental fences behind them. Accidental Murder ensured. Technically, Apollo is not the one at fault, but he’s still branded a criminal and sentenced to a possible capital punishment by the Midnight Express no less.
• After six months isolated and agonizing over the betrayal of his partner, Apollo grows very cynical. It’s good to see him regain his hope and ready to face the train‘s punishment...but he has to pay for that courage with his life. A sudden splash of blood, and all that left is an eye. Sudden Downer Ending doesn't even begin to describe what was Chapter 2.
  • One must wonder how anguished Neil was during all of that. Apollo was the second person he managed to befriend in his life, and Neil convincing him to fight for the sake of his own freedom indirectly leads to his demise. A painful reminder of his own crime.
• All Apollo ever wished for is Celeste gets to escape and fly freely again. The Midnight Train robs him of that simple wish, bringing the guiltless bird with him to their demise. As Neil puts it, it’s truly a part of Apollo’s punishment.

Chapter 3

• The look on Luna’s face after the duo went through all the bombs is a genuine, heartbreaking terror that reminds us that beneath her bravado, she’s still a human with a lot of trauma beneath her silence.
• Luna’s backstory involves her parents being killed right in front of her eyes in an explosion by a terrorist, and she herself was left alive to agonize over the whole things.
• Heck, no one has a normal childhood at all. Selene was abandoned as a little baby, while Neil is also orphaned and implied to have an abusive childhood with his uncle. Seriously, everyone is damn unhappy.

Chapter 4

• Fitting for its prison motif, the fourth building constantly tortures Luna and Neil using their trauma and fear. Some of them are just so cruel, like displaying realistic figures of Selene, Diana and Apollo in a way that make them look like they're executed; or putting the figures of Luna's parents in a fire stack.
• Neil’s past, full stop. His parents died protecting him, he lived with an uncle who abused and deprived him of very basic needs such as hygiene and nutrition, and was also bullied at school due to his gloomy personality. All of these gave him depression and the belief that he was someone "useless, miserable, pathetic". One day, he witnessed his uncle murder someone, but past abuse had rendered him unable to say the truth, and the uncle abandoned him as soon as the trial was over. While he was slowly recovered, a certain news has made him the regretful man he is today: his uncle killed another two girls, and to this day he believes it is him who is responsible for their death.
• If Neil failed the last Deduction in the fourth building, just once, Luna would immediately take his gun and kill herself. The fact that she did it so unhesitatingly is sad enough, but one might wonder what Neil’s reaction was as he realized the train is not so stupid for giving him a gun at all...
• Neil knows all along that he cannot fix Luna’s pocket watch, and in the end, no miracle as he hoped happens. He then decides to stay back despite his repeated remarks about how the 4th building is the worst, and makes it so that Luna has no choice but to go without him. The way he talked to her gives an allusion of him being the one who will escape and save everyone else, so it must be a shock for Luna as he pushes her onto the train, and she can only bang onto the door and cry helplessly once the train starts moving...
  • Then Neil’s smile turns into tears and “Our Goodbyes” plays.

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