The Pierced Snow : Snowpiercer

5 We All Fall Down 5

Suggestion!: Don't listen to the music until you see this symbol: °°° , and don't read the section after that symbol without the music!

Hopefully it'll work how I want it to. I'm trying something new xD

••
"Edgar, why can't they have someone up front do it?" I questioned, yanking against the shirt across his shoulders. The guard at the front of the group was searching for an engineer, someone whose worked in factories.

"Because," my brother huffed annoyingly, "the fronts are too stupid to do anything except give us their scraps"

I wanted to mutter the fact that that made them extremely smart, but my mind was turned elsewhere as I saw Frank huddling through the protein block line. "Where do they go, when they're taken?" I asked Edgar, taking a step to slightly deform the line I walked in.

"I don't know" he said, "probably to live in luxury, become one of them"

"Any Engineer?!" The guard called out again, looking at all the ragged people in search of any slight answer.

What Edgar had said didn't sound horrible to me. Actually, I would want that if I were an engineer. "Frank!" I shouted, drawing all three's- guard's, Edgar's and Frank's- attention and smiling. "You were an engineer, weren't you?"

The guard's head whipped to where Frank was standing before he walked briskly over, getting close to speak to the man. I couldn't hear them, nor could I read the expressions on either face, but it must have been sour since the guard jabbed the gun at the man before they both went through the the door to the front.
••

The dim illumination coming from the lamp hanging from my bed made it hard for me to sleep. It's every-so-often flicker making my already stressed mind awaken every time I tried to shut my eyes.

There was no one in the area of our old cots. No one except me and the occasional wanderer looking for Gilliam. Even he was in the new car. I couldn't say that I was unhappy about being alone, even- in fact, I think it was refreshing. To not be pestered by Tonya or Grey or Alfred.

Although the success of the fighting was fully realized to me, the smile or remote joy did not appear in my expression or mind. A heavy weight had set itself over my entire body as I lie flat on my back and stared at the wooden frame above me. Physically, I felt that I couldn't stand. Mentally, my mind wasn't confined in my head, but rather expanding into every detail of some strange kind of pain that I had never felt before. I observed that I consciously was not breathing. When I focused on it, it seemed too much work to even inhale- so my breath would be held until my involuntary lungs took away control in order to keep my heart pumping.

I was tired. My eyes had long ago begun to sting with weariness, but I couldn't sleep. And I don't even think it was because I was troubled, or because my brother was dead. But rather, maybe, because absolutely nothing was making sense to me anymore.

Maybe it was night, maybe day, I couldn't tell. After all, there was no more role call for the caboose. Earlier, before everyone had settled in their new areas, there was a tussle between Grey and a barley man. The larger guy wanted Grey's corner (where he kept all his things), but of course my friend refused.

It got so physical. I was watching from the grate, and as I watched, something inside of me wanted to stop it. Perhaps I could have stopped Grey from lacerating the man's left shin, or stopped the man from being so greedy even. But I didn't because no one else did. I noticed, after the man had retreated from Grey with peeling skin and a crimson colored sock, that we were suddenly lacking most- if not all of our order.