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Alone on a train to… somewhere
Isabella
My brush danced across the canvas in a rhythmic pattern of dappled foliage, shining leaves forming against the white of the canvas. This was always so calming to me, the process of creating something new and bringing a bit of beauty to the world.
Hours ago, when the sky had cleared as if by magic, I had left the studio, and now I sat with my easel at the bank of the Thames river, sun warming my face, wind swirling through my long dark hair. The idea of painting outside had suddenly struck me when I saw how beautiful the day had become, and the effect of it on my creativity and state of mind was a miracle. Finally, I felt as if I could relax and simply focus on the grass beneath my feet and the canvas beneath my brush.
I dabbed one last tiny spot of white onto a willow leaf, completing the effect of light shining off of its long, slender form. The painted river curved calmly around the trees at its banks, but I hadn’t painted its ripples and rapids yet, so it was simply a deep blue ribbon of color. Soon, though, that would change. The river was my next undertaking.
I lowered my brush to my palette, but it slipped from my loose fingers, and I winced as it fell to the grass below and rolled across the grass. My expression darkened, my eyebrows furrowing together as I leaned down from my chair, stretching my fingers across the ground toward it.
My fingers closed around the brush, and I started to pull myself back to a sitting position while also being careful not to tip my chair. And then I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye.
My head snapped to look at the painting, and my breath caught in my throat. The incomplete river was no longer a flat blue line. In the few moments when I was turned away, it had become a set of metal tracks, curving around the trees in the same configuration as the river. My painted trees swayed in the wind. Birds I had drawn in the sky soared amongst the clouds. Suddenly, the entire painting was in motion. I blinked, then blinked again, to see if I was imagining things . . . but no. When I looked back once more, the tracks were still in the river’s place and the painted scenery was still alive, in motion.
As I gazed at the canvas in shock and awe, a baffling metal vehicle rushed into the painting as it rounded a corner in the tracks. My eyes widened, and I scrambled to stand from my chair, but it was too late. The thing, whatever it was, ballooned in size as it soundlessly rattled toward me, smoke mingling with the painted clouds as it puffed from a chimney-like contraption on the metal roof. It looked almost like a carriage, or many carriages welded together, except there were no horses.
The tracks that had once been a river curved forward, and the vehicle was hurtling directly at me. My heart pounded. My hand clenched around my brush, and I squeezed my eyes shut. This was not simply a painting anymore.
The last thing I saw was a flash of brilliant light from behind my closed eyelids, and then everything went black.
Waltinysa
I stayed within this car, as the train began to rumble forwards. I stayed standing, not for comfort or laziness, for apathy. The first things seen were the green velvet seats, sat around tables, covered with napkins and held up by a pristine rug. This train car was one of the nicest I’ve ever seen, but it was garish and soaked of excess. I saw little more to consider here apart from a crack in the floor that contains the flashing movement of the rest of the world against this train. It was blurred beyond recognition, but it looked so special.
For many moments I could not resist but lay on my stomach and fill one eye into the crack. These many moments were blanket-like, I had never before been here and I had never done well in new spaces. I’ve desired nothing more than a chair at a table in a house with a family, no moment in my life has there been a more wished-for life than that. Now I was here. In a train. While I love trains, this one I did not love, it was taking me away from everything I was used to, and it was as comforting as a lion in the bathtub. I must learn what destination we head to, I must recover the direction of the train towards home, and then I must depart this man-thieving contraption.
Cedar
The prism continued to glow faintly as the train sped through the darkness. I wondered if this was still part of the ritual, and if I should do something to please Min, but I doubted that the ritual was going as planned, if it even would have been able to work in the first place. I opted for sitting cross-legged on the floor of the car. Sitting on the glossy leather seats felt too wrong, like I was trying on a Scoutmaster uniform that didn’t belong to me and never would. The floor was comfortable enough however, being made of soft velvet carpet. Although there was no sunlight to hold the prism up to, it still radiated streams of rainbow through which I could see the strange silhouettes in their various endeavors. This time it was a figure in a cloak, pacing in a grassy clearing strewn with objects.
Wait. I gasped, squinting at the image to see it more clearly. That’s…that’s Min’s hoard! And the figure in the cloak is Scoutmaster Niall. I’m seeing my own world! I realized.
But if I’m seeing my own world through the prism…then where am I?
Isabella
When I faded back into reality, I was lying on my back, staring up at a wood-paneled ceiling and an ornate chandelier gently swinging in time to the swaying of the vehicle I found myself inside. I was in a single room, probably around thirty feet long, and on either side of me were rows of plush armchairs in luxurious green velvet that shone in the candlelight with a texture I longed to replicate in painting.
I still held my brush in one hand, and ran my fingers up and down the smooth wood of the handle in an attempt to calm myself, but that was impossible. My mind raced, and my heart pounded, and it was hard to breathe. Magic. This must be magic. I had always enjoyed fantasy books as a child, but never once imagined I might find myself living in one.
Or perhaps it was simply a dream. But somehow, I knew it was not.
I pushed myself into a sitting position, climbed to my feet, and hurried on shaky legs to the side of the vehicle, my footsteps clacking on the chestnut-colored wood floors. I leaned over the chairs to try to see out of the window, past the reflections of the carriage in the dark glass, but before I could get the chance, the vehicle rattled, startling me. I whirled around, away from the window, catching myself on the chair as I stumbled. My gaze landed on a door to one side of the room as if drawn there by some magnetic force, and through the windows on either side of it, I could see another room similar to the one I was in.
A young woman darted through the field of my vision as she passed one of the windows, a long violet cloak billowing behind her. Maybe she knows where we are.
I hurried to the door and pushed it open.
Eva
The train looked normal before I stepped into it. The only notable thing about the train was the inside of the train seemed like it had a fancy upgrade. It now had velvet upholstery and ornate carvings everywhere. It was like I had been transported into an old-fashioned, luxurious train car. I guess the train conductors were longing for a change in scenery and I respect them for that. I totally would’ve done the same. So, I sat on a nice plush chair, put my airpods in their case, pulled out my notebook with my history notes, and opened my computer to work on my history essay that is worth 10% of my final grade in history, so I really have to do well on it. By the time I looked up again, I had finished the first two body paragraphs. Suddenly, the door connecting my train cars with the other ones opened and I turned around to see who it was.
Ya-ong
I have slowly begun to realize that this train car is what my grandfather complained about when we went on the subway to visit my uncle in another town. There are some nice carvings of rivers and temples on the wood panels on the sides of the car, and the ceiling is held up with some rather pretty wood carvings. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a train car like this (not that I’ve really looked) other than in my grandfather’s memories and old photographs. I wonder if they redecorated.
My phone says that I left for school an hour and a half ago. Why did I get on some ghost train that’s been running in circles since the ancient times? Am I going to be punished for getting to school even later? I suppose that, if I tell the teachers that I did get on some ghost train that’s been running for 500 years, they’ll let me get off with a light punishment. All I need is proof, so I open the camera app to take a picture. I know that mirror selfies are pretty popular, but I can’t find a mirror, so I take a regular one instead. When I look at the photo, I see my face (and my unbrushed hair—I really need to brush it before school someday), a perfectly normal train car that is perfectly recognizable, and a very pretty lady in cosplay standing behind me.
Edmund
I’m hot. I’m hurt. I’m probably bleeding. I’m barely able to breathe. I’m so done with this. I got up with monumental effort and even greater pain, and luckily, was able to discern I wasn’t bleeding. I felt this invalidated my self-pity, and my victory turned into yet another defeat. I love how I don’t let myself win. It also felt like the lack of breathing was less the air itself and more that the wind had been knocked out of me. Once more, I was more annoyed than overjoyed that I didn’t have something to complain about. Looks like I was well enough to rhyme.
Where were my rats! I felt in my breast pocket on my now sooty suit, they weren’t there. Why did my suit have soot? Doesn’t matter. I checked my sleeve pockets, inner suit pockets, pant pockets, secret pant pockets, secret bottom of shoe pockets, and under my hat. This is also the moment I learned I was missing not only my rats but also my hat. Yay, I had something to whine about again, except this still was me losing things, so there’s no real victory.
“Junior! Boris! Nerple! Roxanne!” I got up fully, no longer sitting on the floor, then I promptly had to steady myself on the lower part of a window that was jutting outward slightly. The world was shaking, or at least the floor was. Where am I? My thoughts were jumbled, so I decided to order them in levels of importance
Critical: Find my rats. They work as emergency mana storage, and I’ll probably need a spell to get out of here. This is the only reason. I am not worried about them.
Important: Figure out where I was. Even if I didn’t need a spell to get out, I still might need one after, so obviously, rats were more important.
Also Important but less so: Escape from here. I wasn’t in danger right now, and leaving might put me in more danger, so I have to know where I am, something about eggs and pots.
Not as important but still kinda: Find my hat. It was a nice hat. Like, really nice.
First things first, I examined the room I was trapped in. It seemed to be some sort of furnace with bronze pipes attached to it. Those pipes led up to gauges, but the needles just spun round and round. There was a box next to the pipe furnace with coal. A coal engine? Everything in the room was steel, or maybe iron. I didn’t know my metals. A small steel room with an engine. A room with an engine. Oh, I was in an engine room. I felt a little stupid it took me that long to figure out, but that’s okay. Did this mean I was on a train?
Then I looked out the window and realized escape was probably off the table. There was fire. I couldn’t say things there were no things. All that existed was Fire. Creatures of flame danced around two shattered halves of the moon. The sun was black as coal and rose out of the two halves like a bird hatching. I fell back onto the train floor as it shook. Invisible hands grabbed my heart and squeezed. They grabbed more and more, my arms, my throat, I couldn’t move. I was back to being unable to breathe. I closed my eyes and let myself fall through the floor, letting the hands drag me into hell, never to return. Was I, the soul, falling? Was it my body falling with my mind? Was it merely a part of me being taken away forever? I felt both air and floor on my back, and I wasn’t sure what was real. I gasped for air, but the flames had burned away everything, and I couldn’t breathe fire. I wasn’t a dragon. I wasn’t anything but firewood now.
“Sqooek.”
What was that? Why was I feeling something coarse and rough on my chest, and how did I know without a sliver of doubt that this feeling was real? In my right hand, reality returned. Nestled behind my head, my brain stopped falling out of my skull. On my face. On my face? I opened my eyes and burst upward. This was a mistake as the thing on my face clung onto my cheeks for dear life, drawing blood, but I didn’t care because that thing was Junior! Nerple was here too, looking startled right where my head had been. Boris hadn’t been nuzzling my hand; he’d been biting it, but that was okay since Roxanne was buried in my breast pocket. I was okay. My rats were here. I could do this. My mana storage was here now. There wasn’t any other reason why the hands choking my heart released their grip just a little.
I breathed in slowly, gathered my rats, and set them on the ground. I took my suit jacket off and my vest for good measure. Who cared about looking proper when they were in hell? The devil wouldn’t care. Was I in hell? Truly? No, I wasn’t. This was something worse. An ocean of magic. There was so much of it that the streams that I’d had to search for seemed smaller than the tears of an ant. How was this possible? That didn’t matter right now. What did matter was that with this much magic, I could do anything. I grabbed a piece of coal and started to scratch a ritual circle on the ground.
Olivia
I clung to the inside of the door as the serpent accelerated. I hadn’t been within the bodies of any living creatures before, but I was fairly certain that most of them didn’t look like the beast I was in now. For one thing, the fact I could see at all was a surprise. There were tall rectangular windows so clear that I should have been able to see into the serpent from the outside. In fact, I hadn’t noticed them at all. I supposed I had never been a particularly observant person, and it wasn’t like there had been much time to notice. Now, within the belly of the beast, if it was a belly, there was so much to look at I couldn’t have ignored it if I tried. Two rows of overstuffed armchairs faced in one direction. They were all a comforting green color and the ground between them didn’t look to be made of muscle but a chestnut colored wood. Hanging from the top of whatever tract I was within, there was what looked like a chandelier. I had the deep impression that whatever this serpent normally took into itself made a lot more money than me. It wasn’t like potion making wasn’t keeping my own stomach full, but I was the chandelier was made of, if not gold, something that looked like gold, and I lived in my grandmother’s old cottage with an oversized barnyard animal as a roommate.
The serpent kept moving and moving fast, but eventually it stopped increasing in speed. I waited for a moment to see if that would change, and when it didn’t I let go of the doorknob and tentatively walked over to one of the chairs. It was beautifully upholstered. I still wasn’t at all sure why this was happening, or if it was my own fault. It shouldn’t have been, wishes were technically magic and I had made one, but even if I had been a real witch, I still wouldn’t have had the power to really do anything with it. Nobody did. It took amounts of power no single person could accumulate without dying. The sigil for wishes just gave vague advice and I hadn’t even made one of those. I couldn’t come up with anything else that would have caused it though, except maybe whatever was hurting Nettle. Had it been irresponsible to just leave her alone like that? It wasn’t like she could starve to death but maybe she needed me by her side.
I sighed. Wherever I was going, there was no point going there uncomfortable. I flopped down into the armchair. Its smooth fabric enveloped me. There was another door the chairs were all facing, and one behind them. Theoretically I could go exploring. I remembered that by the time I got on, more of the serpent had been in front of me than behind me. I was tired, though, and this was supposed to be my day off. I looked outside the window to watch the forest slither past.
There was no forest. There wasn’t any countryside either, nor any mountain range. I wasn’t near the seaside or in a tunnel. The wheeled serpent and I weren’t in a desert, jungle, or savannah. We weren’t on any ground at all. We just weren’t. Outside wasn’t black and it wasn’t white. It was the color of clear lakewater except there wasn’t any lakebottom to see through it. I wasn’t sure if that was an illusion done by the serpent’s master or if I was literally in the middle of nowhere.
It was unnerving, so I decided not to think about it. I stared into the green back of the chair in front of me until my eyes got heavy. The middle of nowhere was as good a place for a nap as any.
My nap was interrupted before it could begin with a squealing sound from behind me. I turned around in my seat to find the door open and a tall woman stepped into the light of the chandelier. Unlike me, she looked very much like she belonged in a place as fancy as this. She was wearing silks that must have cost a fortune and her hair was done up in an elegant braid, though a few strands had escaped its confines. The only thing that seemed out of place about her was her smock. While it was made of a fine white linen, it was stained with something the same green as emeralds. How was it that even her stains looked wealthy?
Her eyes scanned the rows of seats before locking onto me. She paced toward me quickly, her feet click-clacking against the wood.
“Excuse me, I don’t mean to trouble you, but do you know where we are?”
I was a little surprised she had gone within the serpent without knowing where it was going, but I supposed I could hardly judge.
“I entered the serpentine automaton when it stopped in Birchlake Village. You’ve likely never heard of it. Its main exports are lumber and young people who want to be literally anywhere else. I would have called it the middle of nowhere, but now that I’ve looked out the window…” I let the sentence hang in the air and waved toward the glass.
“I haven’t looked out the windows yet, unless you count the ones letting you see between carriages.” She glanced up at the one to my right.
She stayed that way for a few moments, staring motionlessly. She didn’t look scared or even confused, just… enraptured. After a bit I began to feel uncomfortable. I was sure there were some people who were fine with being close enough to a stranger to smell her hair, but those people probably didn’t live by themselves in cottages in the woods. I was trying to decide between asking her to use a different window and just slipping away to a different seat when she turned back to me.
“I’m sorry, did you say we’re inside a serpent?”
“Well, not an actual serpent, obviously. It’s made of metal and it has wheels, not to mention everything on the inside. It’s a machine built to resemble a serpent. Unless it was supposed to look like a huge worm? I have no idea really. It’s just a working theory.”
“A metal serpent, huh? To me it just looked like some kind of vehicle made of carriages squished together. I guess they do have a snake-like beauty about them. Either way, it came straight out of my own painting, so it must be magical, don’t you think?”
“I can’t say I’m much of an expert on magic, so I really can’t say for sure,” I half lied.
I really wasn’t much of an expert, Grandma had tried to teach me the finer points of summoning theory, but I had never seen the point. I didn’t have nearly enough power to do anything with the knowledge, meaning practically speaking I was three-quarters sure I was incapable of summoning this serpent. If I let her know that anything that could exit a painting was incredibly magical, though, and that I was a witch, she might blame me anyway. I was separated from my only friend, the last thing I needed was an enemy.
“That’s alright, I’m sure there’s someone else on the vehicle that knows more. We’ll just have to find them,” she smirked at me. I thought it was more than a little unfair for her to be smug when she didn’t know anything about magic either. There was a reason I preferred avian company.
If I told her I would stay behind, though, would that seem suspicious?
“Alright then.” I rose to my feet. “Lead the way.”
She smirked again, but her voice seemed genuine when she said, “Thank you. We’ll figure it all out together.”
Maybe she just had a smug-looking face.
We got up and walked in the direction the vehicular serpent was moving, then stopped before the next door.
“Say, what is your name, anyway?”
I studied her face in the dim light that was coming from nowhere in particular. She didn’t look particularly like a fairy, but you had to be careful with these things.
“First, tell me yours.”
“Oh, where are my manners? I’m Isabella and I’m an artist. Hence the apron,” she extended her hand to shake.
I took it.
“Olivia. That’s an impressive-sounding career. I haven’t heard of many woman artists. I just sell herbal remedies.”
Waltinysa
I have begun to dry off. It has taken true time, but my mustache has allowed the escape of its imprisoned waters. Along with that my worksuit has air-dried about half the amount necessary to regain comfortable wearing of these clothes.
“Thump.”
The standard response to an unknown thump would be to hide. As such I did attempt that, unfortunately for someone my size there is little cover available, and after a few minutes I ceased my attempts and walked towards the door whence the thump came. The doorknob was golden, yet I did not care to yield. I stuck my gross, wet, dirty hand on it and opened the door inwards. I looked out to see a short, muddled crouched in a purple-dyed cloak and a tall woman in a painter’s covering coated with emerald green. Hopefully the paint is not toxic.
We had introductions, it was fine, they all seemed to be from varying points in our lives. I won’t pretend that I disliked it, they seem all worthwhile friends. After a while and a grunt of boredom, I was asked who I was and why I was here by Isabella. And I did choose to share, I may have not had a great, and when I say great I mean grand and relevant life, but I have what I would consider a fairly interesting story. So I spoke it all out.
As I talked of it, a few things changed from what it was before perceived as. While it is weird, I won’t pretend as if this was not oddly revealing of some of my past ineptitudes, but I don’t despise it enough to care. I went too far into my own personal story, I understand that it was not appropriate or wanted, but it is what I did. Regret is worthwhile but pointless. Isabella listened, I think, she was a little eye-spiny, but I am vaguely appreciative of the original request.
Ya-ong
I must first ask why my phone camera did not properly photograph the train car. There are a few explanations, the most logical of which are that I am dreaming or someone hacked into my phone. I will simply assume that I am dreaming.
I must also ask who this very pretty lady in cosplay standing behind me is. The cosplay is quite nice, it must have cost a lot to buy the fabric and sewing machine. I suppose that there are a lot of stores that sell these kinds of things in tin can markets (every day, I thank God that they have roofs!), but sewing machines are heavy to haul back.
It has been a few seconds, and holding my phone up and staring at the lady in cosplay behind me has grown awkward. I suppose that this unwillingness to speak to those around me and greet strangers is one of the many flaws of today’s youth—but is this really a problem with only today’s youth?
Isabella
I stepped inside the next train car, Olivia and Walt behind me, and was met with the back of a figure who stood in the center of the room. They held up a strange rectangular device—some sort of mirror, as the screen reflected their face. In the mirror, I could see the dark circles under their eyes, and I saw myself hovering over their shoulder. After a moment of awkward silence while they and I motionlessly stared at each other, the figure turned to face me, lowering the mirror and pushing their long black hair out of their face.
Still, they didn’t speak.
“Hello,” I said after another awkward moment. “Do you . . . know where we are?” They simply stared at me, and I began to wonder if they were incapable of speech.
“I mean, I got on this train to school today,” they said at last. Some part of my mind registered that they were speaking in a different language, one I had never heard before in my life, but I could understand them as well as if they were speaking English. More magic, perhaps? “I’ll probably arrive in a few minutes. Who are you?”
“My name is Isabella,” I said, pretending I knew what a train was. Presumably it was the name of this vehicle, which I somehow hadn’t heard of before. “This . . . train . . . traveled through a painting I was working on, and pulled me into it.”
Their left eyebrow assumed a position half an inch above its normal one, but I kept going. “I know, it sounds absurd, but it is the truth. Wait—were you doing something unusual when you boarded the train? Anything to do with painting?”
“No,” they said. “Just a normal day. I mean, I was late for school, but that’s all.”
Late?! Late for school?! I tried not to sound too appalled as I spoke again. “Well, will you come with us to explore the other . . . train carriages? Something odd is happening to bring us all here, and Olivia, Waltinysa, and I are trying to figure out the mechanism that transported us to this train. We have no idea what happened, and I’m sure you could help us.” From personal experience, compliments are the best way to inspire others to agree with you.
“Um . . . sure, I guess.” They shrugged and slipped their mirror device into their pocket, and I caught a glimpse of an image of a rectangle with rainbow stripes on the back of it. Then they joined me and the others. “Doesn’t matter,” I thought I heard them say to themself. “Since this is just a dream anyway.”
As I pushed open the door to the next train car, I almost stumbled over a figure sitting cross-legged on the green velvet carpet. Their head snapped up to look at me, and I took a hurried step back as I saw the fear in their bright amber eyes.
They scrambled to their feet, shoving some small glass object into their bag as they backed up. “I’m sorry,” they blurted out. “I didn’t know there was anyone else here. Certainly not four of you.”
“Will you come with us?” Olivia asked, stepping forward. “We’re investigating the other cars, so we can figure out where we are. There must be a reason we were all taken here, right?”
“Who are you, though?” the stranger asked, gaze darting between us. The train swayed, and they caught the edge of a seat for balance.
“I’m Isabella,” I said, stepping up beside Olivia. “This is Olivia, Waltinysa, and Ya-ong. We don’t mean any harm. We’re just as confused as you are.”
Immediately I regretted my words—what if they weren’t confused? What if they knew how we had gotten here? What if they thought I was being cruel and underestimating their capabilities?
But they nodded gravely. “My name is Cedar. I’ll come with you.”
As we started forward once more, I saw Cedar’s hand flick to their bag, as if to assure themselves that something was still there—could it be that glass object I had seen earlier?
I would ask about it later.
Eva
The first person to walk in was this woman in an apron (for lack of a better word due to my vocabulary studies being focused on less practical words) covered in splotches of emerald green paint with her long, dark hair in a braid. Behind her were some more people whose vibes did not match each other. They looked like a mismatched group of outcasts. I supposed they were just walking through, so I turned back around to face my work (to avoid seeming too impolite) and continued researching for an article supporting the increase of social mobility in the U.S. to prove that we currently uphold Enlightenment ideals.
“Wait,” the woman in the paint-covered apron abruptly said to me. “Excuse me, who are you? How did you get onto the train today? Where are you headed? Don’t you think it’s coincidental that we’re all here without knowing why? Can you possibly help us find out how we all got here?”
Wow, this lady can spout so many words. She could be a rapper. I replied, “I’m sorry but I can’t help you guys. I’m just on the train to go home. I also have a very important essay to write right now and it’s due soon.”
“Wait, from what we’ve seen so far, you cannot get back to your world right now,” she urged. “So can you please tell us your life story and how you got here? And we’re going through train carriages . . . so can you tell us that on the way?”
This lady loves saying “wait.” Well, I guess it is about time for a break. I stand up and stretch a bit, then pack up my stuff and join the group to go to the next train car.
Isabella
As we stepped inside the next carriage—the others called it a car—, I was met with the expectant gaze of a teenage girl sitting in one of the green velvet seats close to the door. She was the only passenger in this car, and, until a moment before, she had been staring at some sort of glowing screen in front of her, with words written across it on a stark white background. Before I could read them, she shrugged a “I don’t need to pay attention to these people” sort of shrug, turned the device slightly, and looked back down at the screen.
“Wait,” I called before she could return to her project. “Excuse me, who are you? How did you get onto the train today? Where are you headed? Don’t you think it’s coincidental that we’re all here without knowing why? Can you possibly help us find out how we all got here?” Words tumbled out of my mouth before I could hold them back, and I hoped I wasn’t speaking too quickly for her to understand me.
“I’m sorry,” the girl said, looking up once more, “but I can’t help you guys. I’m just on the train to go home. I also have a very important essay to write right now and it’s due soon.”
Whatever an “essay” was didn’t matter. I needed to bring her with us. Ya-ong shifted behind me, and Walt grumbled something, and I knew they were getting impatient.
“Wait, from what we’ve seen so far, you can’t get back to your world right now,” I pressed on, stepping forward so I was in front of her and she had to look at me. “So can you please tell us your life story and how you got here? And we’re going through train cars . . . so can you tell us that on the way?” Was I being weird, or nosy, or something? I hoped not.
She hesitated for just a moment, then shrugged. This time, though, it was a “sure, I’ll come” sort of shrug. As she closed her device, I saw several illustrated images of cats on cat-shaped white backgrounds that seemed to cling to the metal back with some sort of strange adhesive. I would need to ask about those later.
As we continued on through the door to the next train car, the temperature drastically rose, and I wondered what sort of strange person we would come across next.
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