"My duty here is to investigate the issue with the mines, while you want to treat this like a holiday, so," you paused as you quickly ordered the thought you were having in your head, making certain that it wasn't going to conflict with what you were supposed to be doing too badly. "I believe when we arrive that you should see to lodgings given that it'd be best to have them handled ahead of time. I'll keep the girls out of your hair with a little sight seeing so that can be handled quickly," you paused, watching as the man pulled out a notebook.
"Lodgings, first priority," he stated, as he pulled a pencil from his pocket, as he inscribed that first note in the little book.
"The day after, I can head up the mining town, get everything straightened out, while you relax and do whatever you please. Any time we have left after that, that we can get away with, we'll spend sight seeing, relaxing, whatever," you finished, while the man nodded, jotting down the rest of the notes he required.
"Well, I have no objection to this plan for the record," the man stated in response, before tucking his notebook back away in one of his pockets. "It means unless I'm actually needed, I get to sample the local delights."
"Oh, on that note, I have to get my hands on some fudge for a friend," you responded, with a small smile. You wondered if he would believe you if you had stated that you planned to buy it for the queen, who was clearly depending on you to do your duty to the country and bring her said fudge. That, and deal with the incident down here as a secondary matter, though the fudge took priority.
"I think we should make Joy try some, you know," Anne butted in, speaking through a mouthful of cake.
"Try some fudge?"
"That too, but we should make her try some cake first."
You nodded as you turned your attention towards Joy, picking up a slice of sponge cake with icing on it, holding it out towards her as you did so. Her impassive gaze shifted from you to the cake and back again, her head tilting slightly as she waited for you to make some form of statement in regards to it. "Joy, see this?" you asked, after a long moments silence, prompting little more than a nod from her. "Take it from me and eat it. It's cake."
Joy reached out as she attempted to grasp the cake, pausing to draw her hand back as her fingers sank into the soft sponge. It was clear that she hadn't quite expected this, though there was so little reaction from her other than this basic error correction, that you had to wonder. She gave off so little reaction that you could read, so little in the way of emotional flickers. You briefly considered the possibility of getting your hands on your old work in this field, seeing if you could still make out what each part of it did. If you could discern what each part did, you could extrapolate the effect that it would have on a person and develop countermethods, after all.
It was so simple that you had to wonder why you hadn't considered it before.
Well, other than the fact that the work on it was likely under lock and key.
You watched as Joy cautiously attempted to eat the cake, as if the soft nature of it threatened to have it escape her grasp at any moment, though her expression remained neutral. From start to finish, she exibited no sign of emotion as she made short work of the cake, no hint of enjoyment. "Well?" you asked, as you wondered if she would make some statement about how it was inadequate for the purpose of sustenance next.
"It was-" Joy paused, struggling to find an appropriate word. "Nice," she finished, prompting Anne to pause in shock, the sight of her almost dropping her cake visible out of the corner of your eye.
"Well, isn't that high praise," Anne muttered, while you reached over to take a slice of cake for yourself. As you did so, Anne shuffled closer to you, reaching over as she snatched the cake away from you, huffing as she spoke. "That's mine, too."
"So, if that's yours, and everything else I've picked up is yours, what am I allowed?" you asked, prompting Anne to pout at you. She had this planned, you could feel it, you could see that she was ready to spring some plot on you to make sure that you didn't eat any of the cake yourself, so she could have it all to herself.
"I still haven't forgiven you for shooting me and cutting my arms off when we first met," Anne huffed, prompting another look of shock from the bursar. You could almost hear his thoughts, almost hear him asking himself if this was true.
"Honestly, that's all you have?" you asked, shaking your head slowly as you did so. "You never returned my machete after I cut your arms off with it, on that note."
"It's mine now," she huffed, taking a bite out of the cake, before speaking through the mouthful she had. "Besides, I've started eating this cake now, so you can't have-" Anne started, though she quickly fell silent. "Wait, do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" you asked, as you reached past her, taking advantage of the moment to take a slice of cake from the tray that it sat upon. "I honestly don't hear anything other than the sound of the train wheels on the tracks," you continued, pausing as Anne placed a hand to your wrist, placing her cake down as she brought her free hand up, pressing a finger to her lips.
"Shh!"
You paused, listening carefully for a long moment before you spoke "No, this ploy to stop me having cake isn't going to work Anne, as-" she slapped your shoulder, repeating that motion to silence you.
"It sounds like a deep, ominous groan, like... I don't know what it sounds like, but it's deep, low pitched, distant," she stated, glancing towards Joy as she did so. "Can you hear it, Joy?" she asked, before huffing as Joy merely shook her head. There was another long moments silence, before you started raising the cake once more, only to pause as you caught what she must've been referring to. It was a deep groan, like the sound of fatigued metal and collapsing wood.
Metal and wood...
The train tracks.
You pushed past Anne as you looked out the window, cursing as you realised you were on the outer side of the current turn the train was making. You couldn't see what was coming ahead, yet you could feel it. You could feel a gut-wrenching sensation of anticipation, horrific and dark as you knew what was about to happen was unavoidable. The sound of screaming echoed from further along, along with the sound of carriage after carriage crashing with a resonant boom as it landed in what you could only assume was a gorge of some form.
"Brace yourselves!" you yelled over the sounds of crashing and screaming that filled the air, your mouth opening as you went to yell something else, only for the carriage to lurch forwards, before plummeting downwards. Your words were drowned out as you ducked beneath the table, pulling Anne down with you.
The world about you tumbled as you clung to the table, to where it had been bolted to the floor as the windows exploded as the carriage struck something, as broken glass ricocheted about the interior of the carriage. The table didn't hold though, the table gave way and you found yourself bounced around the interior of the room you were in before you came to a halt with a booming slam, as the carriage landed on its roof, as the carriage buckled slightly as one of the carriages behind you landed against it.
Crashing and screaming continued to fill the air for several long, horrifying moments after, yet the horror wasn't over. The horror was far from over. You could hear the screams go from screams of terror relating to this fall, to cries for help, blood curdling screams, prayers, begging for mercy. You could hear the screams of people in the other carriages, trapped, screaming for help as what they described as monsters set upon them.
One by one those screams were silenced.
Breathing deeply, you started to haul yourself towards the window of the carriage, crawling out unsteadily as you clutched your ribs, as you wiped blood away from your forehead. You had a gash from the broken glass across your forehead, a few ribs were broken, at the very least cracked. You hurt all over and were likely going to be covered in bruises from how you had been flung around the interior of the falling carriage.
You turned back towards it as you attempted to shake off the disorientation you felt from the fall, reaching down for Anne's hand as she crawled out, hissing as she visibly started to regenerate from the injuries that she had taken, while Joy crawled out behind her, her own recovery occuring at an equally rapid pace. "Are you alright?" you asked, as you crouched down beside the carriage, looking at the bursar as he sat against the shattered remains of the doorframe on the other side of the room you had occupied.
"About as well as can be, all things accounted for," he mumbled, checking himself quickly for injury, though it was clear that he had suffered the least, that he had suffered little more than light cuts where glass had nicked him.
"Could you grab the backpack for me before you get out?" you asked, while the bursar nodded, crawling towards the compartment it sat within. "As there's something out here, and my guns are in that bag," you muttered under your breath, standing again as you took in your surroundings, as you took note of the high banks of the gorge you had fallen into, the afternoon sun casting shade over you.
A stream ran through the middle of the gorge, going around the trains carriages that had fallen in its path. You breathed deeply once again as you turned to face the bridge, seeing how it looked like it had been deliberately sabotaged, how supports had been removed here and broken there. It was intentional, and whatever had done it was preying on the people in the other carriages while you were struggling to find your feet.
You were about to yell back to the bursar to hurry up when something, a misshapen yet humanoid form stumbled around the corner of one of the carriages, babbling to itself as it pointed at you, as it started salivating at the sight of you. "What are corrupted people doing so far from London?" came Anne's voice from behind you, while you started towards this thing, while you braced yourself to deal with this thing as it charged.
As it hurtled towards you, you dived forwards, slamming your arm into the bloated mass of its neck, knocking it to the ground, ducking down beside it as you kicked it onto its stomach, as you placed your knees against its shoulders and twisted its neck with a sharp motion. "All I wanted was some fucking cake!" you snarled as the things neck snapped audiably, its last moments being ones of confusion, agony and fear as you left its twitching form in dying where it lay.
You stood, dusting yourself down as you wiped further blood from your forehead, glancing back at Anne, Joy and the bursar as two of them stared at you in shock. This wasn't your day, but you needed a course of action. People were still trapped, but you didn't know how many lived, how many of these things there were.
You hurt all over and it seemed like all hell was breaking loose. You needed to figure how you were going to approach this situation and fast. Fight or flight, what was your choice going to be?
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Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 78960 times)