Wednesday 4 February 2015

The Train to Midnight (day 3)

The Train to Midnight
Lily hated trains. She hated everything modern, everything new. Yet there she was. The Seer had told her to take this train.
It was approximately midnight. Everyone else on the train was probably fast asleep. Except for one man, sitting across from her-a professional-looking one, in a suit and a top hat. He had no monocle, but it seemed like it would suit him. Lily studied him with her stormy eyes, under her spectacles, taking care not to call any attention to herself. She liked to study people. She found untold stories interesting, and liked to think up why they looked like they did, why they were in that place, why they were doing the thing that they were doing. His eyes were gazing out the locomotive's window, as if searching for something unreachable, and he looked steely and cold.
She stands up. The only good thing about trains is how vast they are, she thinks to herself; and it was true. She was in one of twenty "commonroom cars", where there were benches and little eating tables. People ate there. She enters another car, one of uncountable compartment cars. Each passenger had their own compartment, with a little bed in the wall, a desk, a bookshelf (stocked, thank goodness), and a small trunk for clothes. Lily didn't unpack her sparse belongings. She kept them in her steamer trunk, the one she found in the attic of the orphanage. It was sage green with copper accents, and it smelled like old books.
Each compartment had their own window. Each window had a view of blurs. Right now they were midnight-coloured blurs. In the morning, it would be green blurs. It was all trees and grass, out here, and it would be until the train arrived at its destination.
She pulls a book off of the bookshelf, a promising fantasy, and exits her compartment. She locks it, a satisfying clunk, and sits back down on the same bench, crossing her legs.
She reads. twisting the chain of her pendant idly. After a few minutes, however, she got the uncomfortable sensation of being watched. She looks up. Sure enough, top-hat man was staring at her. He smiles, slowly; a smile that seemed to say just you wait. 
Lily decides to go to sleep.

She woke at nine o'clock precisely, as usual. She changes out of her nightgown, into a simple pair of leggings and a teal tunic. They would take around the breakfast cart soon. She enters one of the commonroom cars, full of people, making small talk, laughing. She searches for a seat.
Oh, joy.
The only seat left was across from top hat man, who wasn't wearing his top hat anymore. He was bald. She uncomfortably sits down, waiting.
The breakfast cart came around. The usual train food, bread and cheese, and a small bit of smoked fish. At least it came with tea.
Lily picks at the food, finishing the tea, and watches the man proceed to finish everything. She stands up, about to leave, but he takes her wrist.
Suddenly, it's midnight again. Nobody else is there. He gestures for her to sit down. She does so, slowly. His eyes-something was off. They weren't normal eyes, but Lily couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong. "What do you want?" She asks, surprisingly calm. "Your pendant." Her free hand instinctively goes to her neck, fiddling with the chain. "Why? It's of no value. It isn't even enchanted." She then realizes what was wrong with his eyes-his pupils weren't round; they were like a cats. He grins, digging his fingers even harder into her wrist. "That's where you're wrong." That's where Lily was lying-she knew what her pendant could do. And it was not the first time someone tried to steal it. It was, however, the first time a Netherspawn had tried to. "Give it to me, and I won't kill you and everyone else on this train." "Don't threaten me." "Try to stop me." "Believe me, I will." She wrenches her wrist out of its grip, standing up and backing away. It chuckles. "You don't know what it can do. You can't escape me." It starts to walk towards her, hissing. Lily calmly undoes the chain. "See, that's where you're wrong." The stone in the center of the pendant starts to glow blue. "Liar!" It screams, stopping short and starting to back away. Blue runes composed of light start to spill out, concentrating on the demon.
It screams, before disintegrating. 
"That's what you get for trying to mess with the guardian of the temple to the First," She says, before snapping her fingers. People reappear, and it is daytime again.








(KIND OF EXPLANATION THINGY: I wanted to base one of the stories on one of the characters in my main project, The Silver Dragon. The First is the father figure of the gods, basically the Zeus of the religion in this universe. He spawned out of nothing and created everything, basically. And Lily guards his temple/is his squire. Yeah. It's weird. But I really wanted to write this as a story. Sorry if it mega sucks.)

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