Finding Home

The sky was black, completely and utterly black, with no sign of a star or a moon in the darkness. For endless miles we passed darkened fields and little houses full of people who dared to live outside the walls of the city. No lights flickered in any of the windows and no one walked around outside. Fog swept the blackened ground and swirled like tendrils into the sky, eating at the sidewalks and taking away the last traces of humanity from the Earth. It made me feel lonely.

On the other side of the train, there was nothing but a sheer drop off a hill that seemed more like a mountain. I saw nothing but the dark sky and the darker drop below. It was like looking into nothingness. I was afraid of that nothingness. I didn’t want to see it. I turned my head back to the lonely streets on my side of the car. That was better than nothingness.

The train car squealed and shrieked along the tracks, screaming. It was a shrill sound like the train was held on the backs of wailing banshees. My head pounded with the rhythm of their boisterous calls. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t, I was almost home. If I even drew so much as a moment’s notice to me, someone might be able to identify me from the report. I couldn’t have that. I had risked too much, been through too much to get caught now. I was almost home.

The pain in my side worsened the longer I sat, but I remained silent. My hands shook with the loss of blood that had slowly been weakening me. I pulled my knees to my chest, gritting my teeth at the burning pain, and then wrapped my shaking hands around my legs. They couldn’t shake now, but the pain was worse. I took a deep breath. As soon as I was home, I would be able to get my wounds taken care of. I would be fine. I just had to wait a little longer.

The houses faded and rolling fields took their places. Large, stalk like plants covered the field like corn stalks past their growing season. I wondered if people still grew crops in those fields. But by the looks of it, I didn’t think so. Was it because of the war or did the people just give up? I guess it didn’t matter. They weren’t in use now.

My wounds were throbbing terribly, I couldn’t think straight. With a sigh, I let my head rest against the warm glass and let my eyes drift closed. I would rest for just a moment, and then I’d be up and watching for my stop. But my body felt so cold and so numb, despite the warmth outside, and I couldn’t manage to keep my eyes closed. If they closed, they wouldn’t open again. I needed help. Desperately.

My head was pounding, and though my heart matched its fevered pitch, I could barely hear its faint whisper. I was growing weaker as time elapsed. Almost home. I was almost home. I just had to wait a little longer, just a little longer. Repeating that fact was all that kept me fighting through the pain and the cold numbness that threatened to send me spiraling into a permanent darkness. I had to make it home.

People were talking, chattering to one another in hushed tones, yet I could hear them so clearly. They were so loud. I couldn’t tell if they were fighting to be heard over the wailing screams of the train, or if they just liked to talk loudly. I tried to concentrate on my breathing instead, the raggedness of each exhalation, but they were too loud to ignore. My eyes opened and I glanced around the crowded train. I wondered if all of these people were going home. If they were escaping from the city. If they wanted to scream too. I decided that you could never be sure what someone was hiding.

There were three Guards in my train car. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed them sooner. I was slipping. A mistake like that could be all it took for me to be caught. I’d have to be more careful in the future. My side was throbbing again, burning through the numbness, so I stretched out. The Guard closest to me caught my movement and looked at me. I could feel my hands shaking, and tried to keep them still. With a frown, the Guard looked me over. Oh no, he recognized me.

Thump thump.

The lights above us flickered. It caught my attention, and his. “Don’t worry, it happens sometimes,” the Guard spoke with a kind, even voice. He had a strong voice and I wanted to listen to him, to believe him. My beating heart slowed and he smiled. I didn’t feel threatened when I looked at him, when I looked into his golden eyes. His eyes were pretty, like sunshine. They reminded me of home. Of the summer days when the sunlight was caught in the crystal wind chimes on our front porch. Rainbows always danced around our house in the summer. I remembered watching the crystals sway and the rainbow lights dance. It was a warm happy memory. He made me feel so warm.

I turned my attention back to the window, not wanting to look at the Guard and his golden eyes. In the dark window, I caught sight of a face. My face. A sickly face. It was the face of the dying. I wouldn’t make it home. I wouldn’t see those crystal wind chimes again, hear their soft tinkling sound, or watch the rainbows dance. “Are you ok, miss?” I turned to the man who spoke; it was the Guard with the golden eyes. I nodded and put a shaking hand to my cheek to feel for any rebellious tears. There were none. I gave him a weary smile; I was too weak for anything else. “Are you sure? I can get the first aid kit…” I wondered if he could see the blood soaking through my clothes. I checked. You couldn’t. How did he know if I was hurt? There was no way he could have known. “You don’t look so good, that’s why I’m asking.”

I had been avoiding looking at his strong face as he spoke, now so very close to me, but now I looked him in the eyes and smiled again. “I’m ok, thank you.” I didn’t have the energy to say more, and hoped he’d just leave it at that. He did.

My eyes lingered on his for a moment, basking in the warmth they fed into me, and then turned to the cold, lonely darkness outside. I wasn’t really looking at anything, it was just the only way I could keep my eyes off the noisy passengers and the golden eyed Guard. Then, something caught my eye. I wasn’t sure what it was, or what exactly had grasped my attention so eagerly, snapping my eyes back into focus.

There were no more fields of dying corn, or dilapidated houses, instead there was an open expanse of dying earth. Weeds stuck out their ugly little heads from the soil, too dry to give life to anything else. Trees with spindly arms, reached out to the dark sky, or rotted into the earth. I didn’t see anything outside that lived or could have taken my attention from my daze and wondered if I had been seeing things. The outline of rocks, jagged and sharp like fragments of glass, winked at me from the ground as the train lights flashed past. But soon shapes took form.

Time seemed to slow as a figure contorted and shaped from the shadows, forming the figure of a man. I turned my head to watch him. His outline was strong, broad, but that was all I could make out as he stood there in the darkness. It was a strange sight, one that caught my interest. He watched us pass slowly in the sudden lethargy time seemed to have acquired. It was too late.

A heavy feeling set fire to my numbing body, pushing for it to move, to do something. I didn’t do anything though. Dread coursed through my veins. It was an ugly feeling that ate away all of my serene chilling pain, pain that had long since numbed my body and mind with foggy clouds of black. My mouth opened to speak, to warn the Guard with the golden eyes, but no words were able to move past my frozen lips. It truly was too late.

Fire lit up the black sky with a sound so loud and deafening it drowned out all else. The ground shook and rumbled. An Explosion. For a moment, just a moment, I was able to see the fields and all the secrets they held. Men. Hundreds of men stood on foot, or atop giant HUMVs in the depths of the fields. The fire illuminated and made shimmer, their guns, their swords, their knives, their weapons. They all had weapons. Night Raiders.

The screams that had been so loud turned into gut wrenching moans, as the tail end of the train was pushed off the track by the explosion. Our train car was near the back, and it rocked precariously on its axis. Time fully stopped. People screamed.

Thump thump.

Another explosion rocked the earth and fire charged us from the window, breaking the glass, the only barrier that was protecting us from them. I was thrown off my seat and into the window on the other side of the train. I heard a sickening crack. I couldn’t tell if the crack had come from my skull or from the glass, but it didn’t matter. Not really. I felt dizzier than I had before and fought to remain conscious.

Thump thump.

Another explosion knocked into the train further up. Thrown like a rag doll, I hit the ground. Something sharp and large and heavy crushed me into place, I couldn’t move my legs. The people around me screamed and cried. Their pained, devastating sounds were cut off sharply by a silence only brought on by Death.

I didn’t count how many explosions it took for our train to go down, but soon our car was spinning, cut off from the rest of train’s body by fire. Our car toppled over, and over, and over again, into the field. Whatever held me into place released me, and I was thrown into someone’s uprooted seat. My spin hit the metal and all the breath in my lungs left in a gasp. There was another explosion and the train was thrown again into the air. I felt my neck snap from side to side as I was thrown about. People were still screaming. How could they be screaming? I could barely catch my breath let alone scream.

I was barely holding on by the time the train slowed, scrapping against ground. I couldn’t tell which way was up and which way was down, but it didn’t matter. Someone was hanging above me by an ankle. Somehow they had gotten caught on a seat. They were alive, and struggling. I was buried under twisted metal, my legs immobile. I wondered if I had broken my spine. I decided I hadn’t, and that my legs weren’t broken either, when I could wiggle my toes and squirm within an inch of space left between me and the sharp metal holding me in place.

Thump thump.

Desperately I looked around. There were so many dead bodies. My eyes landed on a window and I watched in horror as fire again lit up the sky, making the earth quiver. A single train car was launched into the air, spiraling right for us. It hit the top of our car, and we were moving again. The man hanging above me fell. There was a loud snap when he landed on his neck. He didn’t move after that.

I wasn’t sure how far we had gone from the tracks, but we stopped sliding again. The faint whispering of my heart beat was all I seemed to hear now. That and the ringing in my ears, ringing that wouldn’t go away. Darkness danced at the edges of my vision, as if I were no longer inside the artificial cocoon of light the train had once offered mere seconds ago. Sparkling glass fell atop my immobile form, bathing me in diamonds. I couldn’t hear the loud explosion, but I could feel the earth shaking. Faintly I was aware of the beauty of the glass reflecting the fiery haze that swept up and engulfed the one side of the train. Then the beauty was gone and all that was, was darkness.

Thump thump... thump thump... thump thump...