Chapter One: The Traveller

[the_siobhan]

These days, the fastest way to get to the city from pretty much any place is by taking a train. Also the cheapest, since the trains are free. I debated for a while asking one of my neighbours for a ride, just so I could have a last familiar face with me when I took my first steps into the unknown. But since most of them were still hanging on to their old gas-burning trucks it would have been an expensive trip. My decision to go with the more efficient mode of travel led to me pushing off the trip for an additional six months, for no reason other than plain old fear of the unknown. Nothing more romantic than that.

There are a few people in town who have been saying for years now that they are going to go into the city but who never seem to actually make the move. When people stopped asking me when I was leaving I realized they had figured me for one of those. That was what finally made up my mind, and so I packed my suitcase, walked to the store, and caught a lift with the first driver that would be passing by the tracks.

He dropped me at the base of the platform with a half hour to spare so I climbed the stairs and perched on the bench. The platform wasn't much, just an elevated square of newmetal on the side of the tracks with some handrails and a set of steps. I wondered what I was supposed to do if I couldn't climb up. Travel to the closest town and go to an actual station I guess.

I spotted the train as a sliver of light in the distance. I knew it had started slowing down the second I mounted the platform, but it still took only a few minutes to reach me. It glided to a stop and a single door slid soundlessly open. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The door shut behind me immediately. It was dead quiet inside. I walked a ways up the carpeted interior but it seemed like I was the only person on the train and after a while it started to feel spooky so I sat down and looked out the windows instead. We were already going so fast that the ground beneath us was nothing but a blur but the scenery beyond that spread out wide and green. We passed a few more empty platforms, just blinks of white interrupting the scenic view of lush meadows and forests. At one point we even passed through an old town and I peered out hopefully, but it was long deserted. A tree branch had broken through somebody's front window, and I spotted a trio of deer grazing on somebody's overgrown lawn. The train tracks arched higher and we were shortly passing above thick forests. Occasionally I glimpsed walls of crumbled bricks or the odd deserted car deep between the trees.

Nature has made a hell of a comeback in the last few years.

It was getting near to dusk by the time I spotted my destination. I had stretched out on the seat and was eating a sandwich out of my suitcase and watching the horizon when I realized that the white sliver that I had taken for a reflection on the window was getting thicker and heavier as we approached. I thought at first we were going to pass by it and then the tracks banked to the right and we were running along the edge of a river and heading straight for it. I squeezed up against the window and tried to stare ahead of the front of the train. As we rushed closer I was able to move back from teh windows and still see the city walls as they spread out for miles on either side. I was starting to get seriously intimidated by the sheer size of the place. I could feel the train decelerating and then suddenly we were through the wall and in a dark tunnel and all I could see was my own anxious face staring back at me from the glass.

I sat back in my seat and waited for the train to stop. The doors opened. I stood up, picked up my suitcase, walked out of the train and took my first steps in the city in over 30 years.