116. Nightmare, 7

(Rose)

I stand up. I feel dizzy. My jaw hurts and I have a taste of blood in my mouth. I saw something moving. I turn around and climb the hill again. I've lost my weapon with the shock.

The large beast is decaying. Ann is crawling out from under it, coughing. I help her out and we resume our way toward the train. She seems shocked. She tells me something. Something I thought at one point might happen. This was all what was left of Charlotte... Rest in peace poor child. Your previous life probably ended up better.

Maybe us from the past are the only monsters? The ones from that train that stopped here. Maybe only us all turn into such atrocities upon death?

I haven't seen any exceptions yet...

We see the train. We see the field of scarecrows. Odd constructs or cairns, built from wrecks from the train, organics or metallic.

Even though it's night, we can see them. The otherwise poetic milky way looks bleak above this display of cruelty and madness...

We're exhausted. We reach the train at last. I go in through the first door leading to a wagon. It had been left open like most of them. Ann shuts it behind her. It's a strong metallic door.

I lit up an electrical torch light we have. We discover a few morbid stains and molten leftovers of humans; clothes abandoned around them. Otherwise this wagon seems empty and relatively safe. We lock the other doors.

We're a little safer now, but my weapon is still lying in the grass somewhere close to the monster's quickly decaying corpse.

Since there don't seem to be any rush, we rest a little first. It has calmed down outside.

Ann is still completely shocked. No matter how much she resented her children, she was humane enough to try being the best mother she could for them. She still held some feelings of love for her girls after all.

She might have longed for freedom, and perhaps her husband or parents' death, but not such gruesome ends for her children.

It has been painful, no matter what.

I wonder if her baby son became a monster too... I say nothing because I wouldn't want her to think about it. I might be wrong though, since not all of the people who died around here, as scarecrow components or another way turned into monsters. There weren't that many.

Only the ones killed by me? No. I didn't do any harm to Charlotte. Nor to the other monsters I don't know. Something else is responsible. Not just me. Maybe it's the daiûa...

Ann is still trembling, sitting on a bench. I feel some sadness too.

R - I'm sorry...

A - ...

We wait. It's quiet and calm again. The night might end without more tragedy. Our last pursuers might have lost our track.

I think I heard a crow?

The ground is trembling a little as if there was a very low and soft earthquake. The earth shivered?

We don't sleep now, but slowly, morning comes. We made it through the night. We only need to find the lair of the daiûa now... Easier said than done I guess. It's still just a slightly insane theory, but the best I currently have.

~

The sun rises. It reminds me of her... The morning, and the light. A kind smile...

I enjoyed these mornings... I miss my past.

We're sweaty, muddy and covered with dry fluids, more than blood. We reek of dead meat.

It's a bit hard inside the wagon, but gets better when we're outside.

We climb down from the still train in the morning.

It's all very still. It stopped in the middle of nowhere, abruptly. Well... The pilot slowed it down and made it stop before a real derailing crash could occur.

What did happen to that train?

Tell us... But first, we're going back on our steps, at the head of the train, to look for my rifle.

There is some mist lingering over the grass, but we found our way with ease. It's all quiet. It's day time after all now.

We find the weapon. I hope the dew didn't damage it.

I still have one clip of bullets beside. Enough for a handful of beasts.

Ann looks sad and concerned. The body of the monster as we climb the hill is gone, but some small pieces of a human corpse can still be seen around. Though the grass hides most of them, they've yet to decompose entirely.

We go back to the train. This is it. We don't know exactly what we're looking for, but some clue about it and what happened to us must be there, if not the thing itself.

The train is ghastly. Awaiting there, endlessly, standing high and heavy. We begin to explore the train and its surroundings.

Goodness... (Is this fate a part of our familial curse?)

We find nothing out of the ordinary, we see nothing else odd. No beast, and not a clue about a daiûa or other unnatural event. It looks pointless as I feared.

Ann found her luggage. Mine is nowhere to be seen.

A few waggons were seriously damaged, but none got off the tracks. The train didn't crash or derail, it just stopped.

I wonder why the pilot hit the break. We entered the engine on our way. It looked normal and empty. There was no clue. Maybe the pilot just saw something, and hit the break.

I realise suddenly something. I was wrong. The starting point isn't the train itself. It came along with us in the new world, but is nothing more. The train appeared with us just as suddenly. It was probably still running at high speed then. It began to stop after we arrived here.

This means that the real point of arrival occurred maybe a mile further down the tracks...

Ann follows my reasoning, but seems more preoccupied with something else.

A - Do you... Truly want to go further?

She's scared at the strangest time. She's acting as if she saw a ghost... Or perhaps... No.

There's no reason for her to suddenly not want me to proceed further. Except if she's scared of something more maybe.

Scared of what we might encounter.

She looks undecided. I tell her.

R - I want to know.

I want to see what remains at the place where we suddenly were brought to this world; and learn from it.

I want to know why I am here. Because it is clearly not from the will of any god I know.

I want to know.

Ann is scared of what she might learn I guess. But she still wants to stick with me.

Behind the train, the morning mist has finished disappearing. We still see some decaying scarecrows here and there in the distance.

Something had to build them...

I'm ready.

We see the tracks vanishing far away in a normal looking scenery. Fields, forests, even houses and farms.

We begin to follow the railroad.

~